You hold the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket. You gotta get theoretical
If one were to create a list of things that a person had to experience to qualify as a Millennial, there’s a very strong chance that I would check almost every box. I’m about as dead-center in the demographic for Midwest, Millennial, and Male that a person can be without becoming a living embodiment of an ohhyoubetcha sketch.
This means that I grew up in a suburb that fits the idealized Boomer-described childhood. You know the ones! Scraped knees and grass stains! Staying out until the street lights came on! Riding bikes and jumping off crap until Mike Zeller dares you to try hitting the kicker ramp at the bottom of the big hill even though you’re totally not ready and you veer off the side and land in Rev Lewis’ yard where the contractors are all parolees and they yell at you while waving nail guns and everyone scatters leaving you covered in loose topsoil and surrounded by angry convicts. The good times!
My age puts me at the correct age to have grown up right in line with technological developments. I was the correct age for every step forward in communications and interconnectivity we saw as a society.
I was not only alive for the widespread acceptance of cell phones, dialup, AOL Instant Messenger, music piracy, Live Journal, broadband, cyberbullying, QWERTY phones, GMail, MySpace, multimedia piracy, The Facebook, extreme cyberbullying, Facebook, I CAN HAZ CHEESEBURGER?!, media streaming services, and smartphones, but I was often the target audience.
This means my first legally obtained drink inside of a licensed establishment happened RIGHT before the exponential rise of smartphone ownership in the United States. According to Edison Research, the percentage of Americans over the age of 12 who owned a smartphone more than tripled between 2009 and 2011. It really can’t be overstated how impactful the iPhone 4s was to our culture. It also can’t be overstated how much better my HTC Evo 4G was than that fruit company piece of e-waste.
Suddenly, an average of one in three adults had a portal to everything humans have ever written down living in their pocket. By 2013 it was over 50%. You could no longer argue about sports if a statistic could be brought up as evidence.
Oh you think Bo Jackson would have been awesome on your team? Then why does he have fewer yards rushing than Jim Harbaugh? That coach who just ate your lunch in the playoffs has more yar…why are you crying? Too soon?! HA! Kaepernick for life! WE’RE GONNA SMOKE THE SEAHAWKS WOOOOO
You couldn’t escape know-it-alls who actually knew nothing and just had a good 3G/4G data plan. If you wanted to wax about sports with someone on the next stool, you had to wax philosophical.
So let’s start this whole thing off with an easy one!
You can pick one draft whiff from your team’s history whose performance on the field will now actually live up to their draft profile instead of the original disappointing reality. Who is it?
And before anyone says the immediate answer that comes to their mind: I will happily debate the merits of Tony Mandarich being part of the reason we got a Super Bowl in the 90s.
See? You can’t just stats away an argument for this question! It seems fairly concrete but is deceptively abstract if you’ve got the stones to site the butterfly effect.
The next time you’ve had a couple two three adult pops, ask your buddies who they’d pick.