I have to admit that this sentiment has been on the tip of my tongue for a long while.  Brett Easton Ellis just comes out and says to Vice that:

"You have to understand that I’m coming to these things as a member of the most pessimistic and ironic generation that has ever roamed the earth. When I hear Millennials getting hurt by "cyber bullying," or it being a gateway to suicide, it’s difficult for me to process. A little less so for my boyfriend, who happens to be a millennial of that age, but even he somewhat agrees with the sensitivity of Generation Wuss."

This is dangerous territory. Criticizing the young for physical or moral weakness is an old man's game and one I've largely avoided.  I've been tempted, for example, to point out that artists like Prince have for years been saying things more outre than anything I've seen from the Ke$has and Miley Cyrii of the world but I am not sure if that indicts the current culture or my knowledge of it.  I would assume that somebody ten or fifteen years younger than me would scoff, "Ke$ha, old man?  You really have no idea what's going on, do you?"

But this cyber-bullying concept has never quite sit right with me, as it doesn't for Ellis.  If I knew somebody who, say, had their nude selfies exposed online by an ex I would advise them to not let it get to them and to answer any questions, if asked, with a blanket statement of pride in their body.

That is easier said than done, of course.  I certainly don't envy people going through their teens and twenties under the constant voluntary surveillance of camera phones and social networks.  I think it's difficult for people who grew up without that to really understand how the games of youth have changed.

That said, there was also one very bad thing from my youth, the suicide of somebody very close to me, that could have been prevented if I had carried a cell phone, particularly a smart phone.  You used to be able to prevent somebody from calling the police by disconnecting a phone from the wall.  That no longer works.  So, there are advantages and disadvantages to the modern culture. 

Ellis has always been at odds with the culture around him, functioning as a provocateur.  Lately, it seems, society has become too polite and rules based for him, which is something I have also complained about.  I believe that even as we move towards more freedom we are also moving towards more normative rules of behavior and I think this is was Ellis is picking up as "wussiness."

In a tolerant society there are certain things you cannot say, even in art.  Every now and then, people chafe against the new rules.  It's easy to dismiss the new ways as weakness.  But the new ways are often better than the old ways or not less arbitrary.

Ellis is calling our "Generation Wuss" for its hang ups but it's almost like he forgets that Less Than Zero, American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction called out his own generation for its hang ups.  Not that much has changed. 

I think Ellis is saying something important -- being hypersensitive can allow other people to get one over on you.  The sexual humiliations of Internet bullying could be best countered not by jailing purveyors of revenge porn but by developing a culture that does not shame people, particularly women, for having active sexual lives.  When society makes negative judgments about the way people live we should encourage individuals to reject those judgments.  That is hard to do but it has its rewards.

Ellis is wrong about "the kids," but he is talking about the right things, somehow.