"Without stimulants, 26-year-old Avery, a graduate student in a media-studies program, is unable to write. She's supposed to be working on "a book of cultural reports, but it wasn't taking shape." Instead, she heads off on a summer trip with her best friend, Frances, another grad student, who's making a documentary about "rural isolation and right-wing conspiracy theories." The two friends take a road trip together, driving from the Georgia Guidestones to a flat-Earth conference in Dallas."
"Some people draw an easy, maybe even lazy, distinction between two generations: Gen Z performs coolness and irony, while Millennials are the cohort of political correctness and cringe. Gen Z wears low-rise jeans while Millennials post things such as "You can pry these high-rise pants from my cold, dead hands!" These theories might make for a fun 30-second TikTok, but they have become so commonplace as to be almost meaningless."
Avery, 26 and in a media-studies graduate program, cannot complete her cultural reports during an Adderall shortage caused by supply-chain failures and strained relations with China. She joins her friend Frances on a summer road trip; Frances is making a documentary about rural isolation and right-wing conspiracy theories while Avery films handheld footage and neglects her own academic project. Avery envies Frances's clarity of purpose and perceived inevitability of success. The narrative satirizes contemporary society, highlighting internet-induced alienation, the rightward political shift among some young people, and flattened generational clichés.
Read at The Atlantic
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