One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

Kate Kennedy is the author of One in a Millennial. All of the essays in the collection are written from her first-person point of view. Born in 1987, Kennedy sets out to explore the ways in which growing up during the nineties and aughts influenced her sense of self and relationships with others. In the introduction, she explains her decision to centralize her personal experiences throughout the collection as a way to interrogate the “implications of millennials being behind and being the first online” (13). She identifies herself as the “one” millennial referenced in the collection’s title, and thus as the only person who experienced the era the way she did. She uses her intimate lens as an access point to explore larger cultural and social questions. At times, Kennedy worries about “being a whiny millennial,” but also actively works to identify herself outside and beyond this stereotype (15). She does so by exploring how her “struggles with self-esteem, mental health, or body image” were dictated by the pop culture of the millennial era (15).

Kennedy grew up in Richmond, Virginia, with her mother, father, and older sister Kelly Kennedy. Kennedy never identifies her parents by name, but she frequently alludes to their positive influences in her life.