The Post-Millennial Generation Is Here
To get a job at the Museum of Ice Cream, hopeful future employees show up at the weekly casting call, Tuesdays at noon. They head to the former Savings Union Bank in San Francisco’s financial district, where pink banners announce, in minimalist font, the name of the employer-to-be. Inside, there are giant animal cookies on carousel mounts. Gardens of gummies. A minty scent wafting through a jungle of mint leaves. Each day, roughly 1,700 people pay $38 a ticket to march through the maze of rooms, licking pink vanilla soft-serve cones, following instructions from a cotton candy server to text someone in their life whom they consider the “cherry on top,” and, all the while, angling for photos. It is as if Willy Wonka had redesigned his factory for the selfie age.
And it’s a sold-out hit. What was going to be a summer pop-up in New York City has turned into a frothy cultural phenomenon at a troubled national moment. While the New York museum is now closed, new ones sprouted in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami. Judging by visitors’ Instagram posts (including from such Queens of Personal Branding as , , and ), you would be forgiven for forgetting there are any employees at all: Mostly, people go to the Museum of Ice Cream to photograph themselves at the Museum of Ice Cream. But just as Wonka had his Oompa Loompas, the Museum of Ice Cream requires a service staff. Each
