One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

Kate Kennedy’s New York Times best-selling One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In is a collection of 12 essays examining the effects of media, culture, and technology on millennials. Kennedy’s writings are inspired by the conversations and commentaries she has developed through her podcast Be There in Five. In One in A Millennial, Kennedy takes a feminist stance as she examines distinct facets of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. She particularly grounds her more philosophical discussions and cultural assertions in episodes from her personal life in order to explore themes including, The Impact of Media and Technology on Relationships, Self-Discovery and Personal Growth in the Modern World, and The Influence of Media and Culture on Women’s Identities. The collection is in conversation with parallel texts including Sloane Crosley’s Look Alive Out There and Elisa Gabbert’s The Word Pretty.

This guide refers to the St. Martin’s Publishing Group 2023 hardback edition of the collection.

Content Warning: The source text references mental health issues including depression and anxiety. The enclosed essays also reference gun violence, body-image issues, misogyny, and sexism.

Summary

The collection begins with a prologue and an introduction. In these sections, Kennedy describes her reasons for wanting to write One in a Millennial. She describes the complications of identifying as a millennial and the ways in which her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood during the 1990s and 2000s have influenced how she sees and understands herself. From a young age, Kennedy was interested in pop culture, Hollywood stars, boy bands, television icons, and trendy clothing brands. She learned early that following these fads would help her win the approval of others. She reflects on this habit and explains the different ways she will explore her coming of age in the subsequent essays.

In Part 1, Kennedy presents four essays, each of which describes a different part of her childhood in the 1990s. In her essay “Limited To,” Kennedy considers the ways in which Teen Talk Barbie, Limited Too, and American Girl dictated how she saw herself. She muses on her definitions of femininity, empowerment, and beauty, and she questions how the aforementioned brands and toys influenced her. In “Back in the Daybed,” Kennedy recalls her experiences with girlfriends at slumber parties and sleepovers and considers the ways in which these early bonding experiences helped her value female friendship. In “You’ve Got Male,” Kennedy describes her early introduction to technology and social media when she got her first AOL Instant Messenger screen name. She describes the complications of this online sphere and the ways in which talking to people via AIM changed how she saw herself and related to her peers. In “God Must’ve Spent a Little Less Time on Me,” Kennedy creates a parallel between the music of popular boy bands and the lyrics of popular worship songs. She argues that her experiences in youth group in tandem with her love for NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys negatively affected how she thought about romance, sex, and sexuality.

In Part 2, Kennedy presents four essays that feature anecdotes from her adolescence during the early 2000s. In “Popular-Girl Handwriting,” Kennedy remembers how desperately she tried to fit in with the popular crowd when she changed her handwriting. In “Are We Going Out? Or Out-Out?,” Kennedy reflects on her and her college friends’ ritual of getting ready for parties. In retrospect, she realizes that these gatherings were more important than the parties they attended. In “Serotonin, Plain and Tall,” Kennedy traces the evolution of her mental health over time. She remembers being a sad kid in middle and high school but admits that she didn’t have the language to explain or understand what she was feeling. She has since been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and has learned how to care for her emotional well-being. In “Kate Expectations,” Kennedy examines the ways in which movies, music, and television gave her unrealistic expectations for romantic love. She describes her negative romantic experiences and shares her love story with her current husband.

In Part 3, Kennedy presents essays that feature stories from her adult life post-college. In “B There in Five,” Kennedy describes her foray into the corporate work world and her later decision to leave marketing to pursue writing and podcasting. In “The Parent Trap,” Kennedy considers the ways in which movies, games, and toys taught millennial girls that the only things they were allowed to be were wives and mothers. She shares her own marriage and reproductive experiences, and she incorporates a discussion of Roe v. Wade. In “Pumpkin Spice Girl,” Kennedy describes her continued work to claim who she is without shame. She admits that she often feels embarrassed for liking girly or clichéd things, but she also owns that these are her tastes. In “Light at the End of the Trundle,” Kennedy reflects back on all of the essays in the collection and shares the lessons she has learned while writing the book. She follows the final essay with a conclusion section, which appears in the form of a lineated poem.