Indian Millennials: The Storytellers
This article was written in 2018
Stories are the way we make sense of the world. They build the context around a period of time through plots and characters that help identify the spirit of the times, as well as give the audience a window to escape their reality and immerse themselves in a fictional universe.
The Indian millennial has grown up on “stories” synonymous with “love stories” (championed by Bollywood) or mythical tales from the past (championed by grandma’s stories), both a large part of erstwhile Indian pop culture. The missing part of the spectrum was stories that reflected their lives, and would be relevant to their unique situation as a generation growing up in an unprecedented era of social and technological changes.
Traditional platforms of storytelling refused to showcase this reality in their stubbornness to maintain status quo, and alternative heroes like TVF and AIB were born. Of course the internet laid the foundation for such platforms to exist, but the need for stories relevant to the life and times of millennials was felt for a long time, right from when young millennials joined the cult of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and wished and hoped to have lives similar to fictional American characters instead of understanding their own reality.
It is only now that there is indigenous content relevant to millennials, and stories that are relatable and therefore shareable by this generation. But the nature of stories itself has changed. The emergence of media platforms that enable self expression, combined with advancing tools to capture their world, has made it possible for anybody to be a creator/narrator. This generation of creators treat their lives as the plot line, themselves and the people in their lives as the characters — making any performance of their lives a story. Some are decidedly individual (like vlogs or Instagram stories) and others meant to become part of pop culture (like memes or viral content).
All of these stories come from experiences. Today experiences are a widely proclaimed social currency. They set you apart from your peers, give you an edge in a highly competitive world, and the chance to feel unique. But experiences by themselves are not enough, they become tangible through stories told about them. The millennial generation is the first Indian generation to have access not only to experiences, but also to tools that translate experiences into stories and content.
The primary tool is the phone camera. For a generation that has only recently been exposed to the limelight, Indian millennials are cosy with cameras — and in extension, the idea of broadcasting oneself and one’s life. Perhaps because there is agency in the hands of those holding a mobile phone to and create culture and be an indelible part of it.
Instagram stories has picked up like wildfire, and is now closely followed by WhatsApp and Facebook stories. Each channel features its own version of curated points of view, selfies, inspirational quotes, ‘crazy’ videos, travel porn, food porn — the list is endless. Instagram might be glossier, but WhatsApp is the mass magazine.
The role of the self in this culture machine is paramount. Self expression is a tool that has barely ever been as important, in a modest culture like ours. The millennials have grown up in living rooms with a single ‘showcase’ containing all that’s worth showing, but they now create walls and pages full of stuff to show.
Since every story is unique, there can be no universal narrator. The need to create one’s story is part of being a millennial.
And for each unique story, self expression is a way of declaring one’s identity. Any Twitter/ Instagram/ Tinder bio attempts to tell a story about who the person is by proclaiming all that they can be. There are always tentative realities around the corner, but they are claimed only when they are documented and showcased to the world.
Moreover, Indian millennials chase moving targets in their journey to establish an identity. The goalposts of yesteryear are moot, there are no hard set definitions of success, and there’s more time, space and opportunity to explore life. So trial-and-error is the way to go. You pick up an interesting skill or characteristic, make that your thing, and run with it. In the process, you tell many stories — mostly of the good parts and less of the uncertainties involved. You do it because in a rapidly evolving world, putting yourself out there is the only way to leave your mark.
Just being yourself is no longer enough, it is imperative to create an appearance of being yourself. This is not to say that appearances are necessarily fake, in fact, the Indian millennial strives for appearances that feel authentic and relatable. Sometimes this means exploring new identities while staying true to their roots, while other times it means uprooting from their past identity to find something they can truly own.
Telling new stories is a way of reclaiming their identity from traditional moulds. Education, marriage, family — all of it has been up for scrutiny since the Indian millennials came of age and went from their textbooks to real life. And in the transition from old beliefs to new, there is a rich repository of stories, of people coming across new experiences and opening themselves up to it, of people accomplishing something worthwhile sans guidance, of people finally living the life they thought was worth living.
Whether these stories are an achievement or a celebration or a mark of the new “creative” indian generation is besides the point. The point is that these stories are literature in motion. If we want to know what people think, do, feel, we need to be observant of all that they are creating, because their creations will always be a leap from lived reality, and will therefore always express something that’s otherwise unarticulated.
