A Flight From Slow, Sad Reality

I can remember the first time I really understood the millennial obsession with authenticity. It was the summer of 2016, a few months after I moved to Seattle, as the bright lights of a newly urban existence began to dim in the rhythms of the day to day, and the lingering jokes about gentrifying hipsters with their artisanal beard wax and fair trade coffee had long worn out their punchline. My job at the time was ingratiating myself to hospitality workers, concierges of major hotels especially, so they might hand out my company’s travel magazine to any tourist looking for the hottest restaurant in the hippest neighborhood, one willing to advertise to the type of tourist who still reads print mags in the first place. Most of my exchanges with these higher-end concierges consisted of dull pleasantries and languorous chattering about special events going on around the city. One of these exchanges went sour, which I had sensed on the concierge’s face even before I was later called into my boss’s office. She simply asked how my day was going.