A debunking of Jennifer Graham's "A generation of idle trophy kids"

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In English, we have been exploring the world of fallacy, and the tactics of its tongue. The best way to debunk an argument is to expose its wrongness.  So without further adieu, I present the fallacies of Jennifer Graham's "Idle Trophy Kids" argument. 

Jennifer Graham, a regular writer for the Globe, composes an article full of flagrant, ill-informed comments with an apparent vendetta on the millennial generation. For starters, Graham continually redefines the key word “generation”, specifically the age range to which she is referring to; this could be referred to as either a fallacy of equivocation, ambiguous terms or unnecessary vagueness. She most likely does this to 1) apply to a broader audience and 2) be able to find some more “Statistics” to exploit. Overall her argument radiates a fallacy of oversimplification, the issue of why “Generation X” is currently more unemployed is unsupported by her arguments and much more complex then her claim of “hikikomori”. Graham alludes to the living conditions of colonial times, stating “9 out of 10 people worked on food production” and “He who works no, eats not”; this comparison to todays conditions could be taken as the fallacy of faulty analogy. Among others, she also is guilty of the fallacy of quoting out of context. Using MTV’s 2012 as an “authority”, Graham states that MTV’s study supports her claim that “it’s getting harder to believe we’ve given millennials the skills and, more important, the motivation to provide for themselves” when “half said they’d rather have no job at all than a job they hate”. Her statement is grossly out of context because in comparison, TIME, who wrote the article she is referring to, uses that statement as a positive attribute contributing “millennials aren’t all about the money” and for millenials, “among the top options for job desirability, “loving what I do” outranked salaries and big bonuses”, an ode to this generations desire for a certain quality of life. To top off her fallacy-ridden op-ed, Graham makes hasty generalization when she makes statements such as “Today’s kids simply can’t imagine downsizing to quarters like that. They’re victims of their parents’ success and frustrated that they see no way to replicate it”. 

Overall, after analyzing Grahams argument, her premises seem laughable based on the number of fallacies. Because this is not an academic piece but rather an opinion, I am sure her statements were meant to stir a little fire. It is my hope that no one reading this piece took her comments to heart, for the situation millennials are facing will require more than just an “attitude change” to get “generation x” out of their parents basement and reduce the unemployment rate.