An open-letter to Generation X
This past Thursday, CBC News posted a question to their Facebook page, asking: “Are young people too open with their lives online? Do you think young people understand the effects of inviting strangers to stare at their selfies?” The question received hundreds of answers from their (mainly adult) fans, who stated that millennials are “too narcissistic” and “entitled” to understand anything about the etiquette of social networking and online interaction.
These types of ideas and opinions are not unique – they follow in a pattern of an entire societal ideology dedicated to the belief that all members of our generation share these characteristics. Whether it is TIME’s front page about “The ME ME ME generation” or The Globe and Mail’s “Millennials: Generation Disengaged,” the people of our generation are consistently pushed into a stereotype of laziness, narcissism, and apathy.
What older generations fail to include in this conversation is the reason we are this way. Not only were we born and raised in a world of endless, unnecessary war, rife capitalism, economic instability, and an entire system without hope, but we have also been taught from very early on that nothing will ever change. We have faced global terrorism and conflict, genocides, political corruption, and discrimination of every form, but we are not valued on our aspirations to change the world, only how we perform in school, which is increasingly resulting in life-long crippling debt with no employment. Our apathy comes as a direct result of the hopelessness we experience. What is the point in working hard if it brings us nowhere?
We are taught now, more than any time in history, that our appearance is the most important aspect of who we are. Not just girls, but people of every sex are now trained to only care about waist-size, attractiveness, and how much we appeal to others. How can our parents expect us to not be obsessed with how we look when every one of us is told we have to be a certain size or look a certain way? Quite frankly, the narcissistic “selfie revolution” is a positive societal movement – it’s the ability for us to be comfortable with how we look, we and want to share that with our peers. Yet we are criticized for being happy with our appearance.
Our apathetic nature comes as a direct result of what we’ve seen our parents and grandparents do. With the generation before us having most marriages end in divorce, how are we expected to aspire to marriage and strong relationships? We are criticized time and time again for being the “hookup culture” generation. It’s no wonder, when the adults before us couldn’t come close to teaching us how to keep it together. Furthermore, we’re told that all kinds of social movements like feminism and the civil rights movement were successful – that our predecessors changed the wrongdoings in the world – but every one of us has experienced or witnessed extreme sexism and racism in every aspect of society, and we’ve all watched war and genocide in the news. Our politicians ignore us, and the systems of society disregard us. How are we supposed to think that anything we do will cause change?
What the older generations need to realize is that we are not apathetic and entitled because of something inherently wrong with us, and that we are using what we have to do what we can. Rather than reprimand us for spending too much time on Facebook, pay attention to the fact that young people around the world are using social media to create massive upheavals to social systems in order to promote a fair and equitable world. We now live in such a global world that thought-provoking conversation and discussion can take place from one side of the planet to the other in a matter of seconds. We are sharing ideas in a way that works – teaching each other different ways of thinking in order to look at the world in a new lens. Even the most average kid on Facebook is taking part in a global revolution – the revolution of youth.
Our generation has learned to depend on one another to fix the wrongs in the world, to create sustainable development, and to shed light on inefficiency and inequality, without depending on our broken political systems. We have created global kinship, found humour in one another, and challenged every norm instilled by our parents and grandparents. Instead of talking to CBC about our obsession with selfies, narcissism, and laziness, start realizing that we are doing things our own way – a way that works.