Book Club: ‘Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation’

Nerdette Recaps With Peter Sagal

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4.6 • 924 Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the Nerdette Book Club! Each month, we read a book and chat about it with a rotating group of panelists. This month’s pick is Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation from author Anne Helen Petersen.

In Can’t Even, Petersen argues that societal conditions and poor timing primed the millennial generation for burnout. Petersen points to the 2008 recession, the rise of the contract worker, the prevalence of cell phones and astronomical student loan debt as a few contributing factors.

Listen along as Nerdette host Greta Johnsen discusses the book with Avery Trufelman, host of The Cut podcast, and Indira Allegra, a sculptor and performance artist. We also hear from many of you who called in with your feelings about burnout. Press play above to hear the conversation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still
0:06.1	watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,
0:12.7	soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,
0:18.0	Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago.
0:25.7	Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.
0:28.3	Listen wherever you get your podcast.
0:38.7	From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson, and you are listening to the Nerdat Book Club. It's just like a normal book club except you can show up without reading the book and you don't even have to share
0:42.6	your snacks. This month we are talking about Anne Helen Peterson's nonfiction book can't even
0:48.6	how millennials became the burnout generation. It is all about yes, millennials and burnout. For the record, and defines
0:57.4	millennials as people who are born between 1980 and 1995. And she describes burnout essentially as
1:06.0	like that feeling of running a race that just never actually ends. You probably have it right now. Whatever that
1:12.1	feeling is, yes, that is burnout. So the thesis statement of this book for people who maybe are too
1:20.5	burnt out to read it is that because of timing and societal conditions, especially millennials,
1:26.2	have been primed to experience total burnout.
1:30.4	Ann mentions, among other things, the fact that the 2008 recession was right around when a lot of us were
1:35.7	finishing school, let alone things like the rise of the contract worker and the prevalence of
1:42.2	cell phones and, you know, astronomical student loan debt,
1:45.9	just to name a couple of things.
1:48.5	At this point in the book club announcement, I would normally put a spoiler warning in,
1:53.0	but this is a nonfiction book, so I feel like there are no spoilers in real life.
1:58.3	Earlier this month, I will say I had a conversation with the author about the book. So if you
2:02.7	want to listen to that first, that is totally cool. Today is our panel discussion. And we're also
	...

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