Скачать или смотреть The empty lives of millennials | Helen Searls

Can a generation obsessed with authenticity even recognise what’s real anymore?

This wide-ranging and incisive talk explores Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection, a haunting millennial rewrite of Georges Perec’s Things: A Story of the Sixties (1965). What begins as an exercise in literary homage becomes something far deeper: a cultural diagnosis of a generation adrift.

Latronico captures a world where interiors matter more than interiority – where curated aesthetics have replaced convictions, and global digital sameness flattens identity, meaning, and even desire itself. By rewriting Things for the Instagram age, Perfection stages a quiet but devastating dialogue with the past, exposing how far we’ve fallen from rootedness, authenticity, and political engagement.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by content, unsure what you really want, or suspicious that the pursuit of the “authentic” has become just another performance – this is a talk you won’t want to miss.


This video is a lecture from The Academy 2025. The subject of the weekend event was "Upheaval: Why politics needs a new language".
You can find out more here: https://ideasmatter.org.uk/upheaval-w...

Helen Searls is a media professional and the founder of Washington Hyenas book club