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Happy Monday! We're starting the week with a healthy dose of self-awareness, a little rock and roll, and some fascinating hindsight. Heather Wake finds Millennials willing to admit they got a few things spectacularly wrong, Annie Reneau introduces us to a dad with an extremely creative use for his baby's noises, and Tim Mercer explores what happened to a group of gifted kids over half a century. There's also a surprising story hiding in plain sight on Mount Rushmore.
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A child having a tantrum (left) A man in a pink tutu (right) | ||
Millennials bravely roasted themselves, and here are 25 things they admit they got wrong | ||
The generation that brought us “adulting” has a few things it would like to take back. | ||
By Heather Wake | ||
Millennials have been called entitled, lazy, overly sensitive, and obsessed with avocado toast for so long that we’re now getting in on the fun and roasting ourselves. | ||
In a Reddit thread asking Millennials what they dislike about their own generation, people came well-prepared with grievances. They questioned everything from delayed maturity to getting run over by our kids to a questionable affinity for the word “doggo,” among many other linguistic offenses. Some even called out our taste, or lack thereof, in music. That’s how you know things got personal. | ||
So, what exactly is Gen Y roasting itself over? Keep reading to find out. | ||
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Two days of free email tactics, starting Nov 12
GURU kicks off Nov 12. Join the 29,000+ marketers who showed up last year, 100% free and virtual.
GURU Conference, powered by Constant Contact, is back November 12–13. It's 100% virtual and 100% free, and it's packed with tactics you can use right away on newsletters, deliverability, design trends, AI, and what NOT to do with email.
What to expect:
Speakers including Molly Ringwald, Dan Levy, Amy Porterfield, Frank Vella + more
Sessions from world-class marketers at top brands
Networking every day
DJs, world-record breaking, and an alarming amount of rom-com fun!
Last year, 29,000+ marketers joined us. This year is even bigger, and spots are limited.
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Dad remakes AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ using only a year’s worth of baby’s recorded sounds | ||
Prepare to be thunderstruck. | ||
By Annie Reneau | ||
Few things bring as much joy to a parent’s heart as the adorable sounds their babies make. But back in 2020, when a dad with a vision, a camera and a year’s worth of footage used those sounds to recreate one of the most iconic rock songs ever…let’s just say joy alone doesn’t quite cover it. | ||
In one of the most epically adorable and adorably epic song renditions ever, dad and video editor Matt MacMillan spliced together tiny snippets of his baby’s sounds to make AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” And it’s one of those things you just have to see to believe. | ||
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Wail “Wally” Alselwi’s mission isn’t just to help kids succeed in school
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A study followed ‘gifted’ kids for over 50 years. Here’s what we’ve learned about them. | ||
Some of what we assumed about gifted students was wrong. | ||
By Tim Mercer | ||
In the 1960s, psychologist Julian Stanley realized that if you took the best-testing seventh graders from around the country and gave them standard college entry exams, those kids would score, on average, about as well as the typical college-bound high school senior. However, the seventh graders who scored as well or better than high schoolers, Stanley found, had off-the-charts aptitude in quantitative, logical, and spatial reasoning. In other words, they were gifted. | ||
In the 1970s, Stanley and his team launched a full-scale study, identifying many of America’s gifted kids and tracking them throughout their lives. | ||
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An Upworthiest Poll
What's the most embarrassing trend your generation embraced?
Last Week’s Results
In yesterday's issue, we shared a Midwest mom's refreshingly unfussy lessons in throwing a party.
And we asked: What's the secret to a great party? A host who makes everyone comfortable took the top spot with 53.5% of the vote, while 40.7% favored the right mix of people. The guest list matters, but making everyone feel welcome matters even more.
Great food and plenty of it (4.3%)
The right mix of people (40.7%)
Excellent music (1.6%)
A host who makes everyone comfortable (53.5%)
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Here is what Mount Rushmore was originally supposed to look like before the money ran out | ||
Most visitors know Mount Rushmore for its four towering presidential heads, but the monument, as it stands today, is actually still unfinished. | ||
By Adam Albright-Hanna | ||
Two million people a year walk the Avenue of Flags in South Dakota’s Black Hills to look up at four 60-foot granite faces. Most of them don’t know they’re looking at an unfinished job. | ||
Gutzon Borglum started carving in 1927 with a considerably larger plan. According to UNILAD, his 1925 scale model, photographed at Rise Studio, shows the presidents rendered down to the waist, with Washington and Lincoln worked out in detail. The heads were meant to be the top of something. | ||
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