There’s a second major reason millennials prefer Sanders to Clinton, and that one is more stylistic than substantive.
It has to do with his so-called “authenticity,” by which is usually meant his willingness to look and sound like a hot mess.
I suspect young Americans have always been skeptical of anyone trying too hard to look and sound a particular way (see: Holden Caulfield vs. the “phonies”). But that skepticism is heightened among today’s youth.
In the social media era, meticulous image management is both a necessity and a source of constant resentment and cynicism. We are bombarded with carefully curated Instagram feeds, tweets and other forms of self-conscious digital preening. We must be camera-ready at all times, lest an unflattering image find its way onto Facebook. Yet what’s perhaps the bravest, most powerful boast you can make online? “#Nofilter,” a humblebrag hashtag applied to unedited photos. Or perhaps its close cousin, “#IWokeUpLikeThis.”
It is precisely Sanders’s au-naturel-ness that endears him to his young fans: his unkempt hair, his ill-fitting suits, his unpolished Brooklyn accent, his propensity to yell and wave his hands maniacally. Sanders, it appears, woke up like this.
These qualities are what make him seem “authentic,” “sincere” even — especially when contrasted with Clinton’s hyper-scriptedness. Sanders, unlike Clinton, doesn’t give a damn if he’s camera-ready.
This is, of course, a form of authenticity that is off-limits to any female politician, not just one with Clinton’s baggage.
Female politicians — at least if they want to be taken seriously on a national stage — cannot be unkempt and unfiltered, hair mussed and voice raised. They have to be carefully coifed and scripted at all times, because they have to hew as closely as possible to the bounds of propriety available to both their sex and their occupation. They can’t be too quiet or too loud, too emotional or too cold, too meek or too aggressive, and so on.
But they also can’t appear to be trying too hard, either. At least if they want the kind of enthusiastic millennial support that Sanders enjoys.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...5-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html?tid=sm_fb