MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In a January 2019 Buzzfeed article, Anne Helen Peterson proclaimed that millennials are the “burnout generation,” writing that “millennials needed to optimize ourselves to be the very best workers possible” in the face of economic crises. Peterson argues that this emphasis on optimization has resulted in a distorted view of our own value, which many millennials equate with productivity in any context—including relationship “productivity.” Other empirical studies have found that millennials are having less sex, getting married later, and choosing work over personal relationships at far higher rates than previous generations. In this paper, I analyze these cultural shifts using Elizabeth Freeman’s (2010) conception of “chrononormativity,” defined as “the use of time to organize individual human bodies toward maximum productivity” (3), and her exploration of Dana Luciano’s conception of “chronobiopolitics,” “the sexual arrangement of the time of life” (3). I strive to extend Freeman’s analysis, situated in industrial capitalism, into a new decade characterized by a new kind of “chronobiopolitics” where millennials work more and earn less, and the social emphasis on an identity cultivated outside of work seems to be waning. Specifically, I analyze the ways in which this new millennial chronobiopolitics might mirror the homophobic stereotype that queer people are unable to “settle down,” suggesting that the different pace at which queer people are forced to come of age (in terms of both love and labor) might prove more accurate for understanding millennial chronobiopolitics than any previous heteronormative trends. I leave readers with the question of whether polyamory could be a viable practice for reaffirming value outside of productivity as we strive for both labor revolutions and radical love.