Charlie Wells on his new book WHAT HAPPENED TO MILLENNIALS: In Defense of a Generation episode artwork

EPISODE · Sep 16, 2025 · 43 MIN

Charlie Wells on his new book WHAT HAPPENED TO MILLENNIALS: In Defense of a Generation

from INTERLOCUTOR Interviews

Author and journalist Charlie Wells discusses his new book, What Happened to Millennials: In Defense of a Generation. At the birth of America’s largest living generation, the outlook was strong: unparalleled economic growth, the emerging Internet, the rise of the cell phone, and a geopolitics that had allegedly reached “the end of history” all set expectations exceedingly high for a cohort entering adulthood at the dawn of the new millennium.That adulthood—a work in progress for more than a quarter century—has been disrupted by war, recession, pandemic, and a sharp turn toward cultural and economic polarization. It has also been endlessly critiqued by others as immature, lazy, weak, incomplete, selfish, and supposedly riddled with failure.Now, 25 years after the first millennials began turning 18, Bloomberg News reporter Charlie Wells comes to the generation’s defense with a cultural history of an adulthood disrupted. Drawing on hundreds of hours of intimate interviews with five millennials from across the country, he explores how the biggest events, ideas, and transformations of the century played out in private lives.Interlocutor Magazine presents Interlocutor Interviews, a podcast featuring in-depth conversations with creatives across art, music, activism, film, fashion, writing, and more. Enjoying our content? Help support us with a donation. Follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter for updates on our latest features. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Sep 16, 2025

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Charlie Wells on his new book WHAT HAPPENED TO MILLENNIALS: In Defense of a Generation

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