Lately my generation has been taking some heat from the rest of the world, and by lately, I mean since the dawn of our generation so much so that it is easy for people to agree that, thanks to today's teenagers and 20-somethings, the world is headed to its inevitable doom. I’m not one of those people, like every generation we have our problems, but I’m here to boldly stand behind mine.
I’d like to first look at dating, which seems to be one of if not the most criticized area of our generation. We “talk” before we date, we send a text to ask someone out because we’re too afraid to do it in person and we have seemingly ridiculous names to call our significant other like “bae” or “boo." Our parents' generations will bark “back in my day...” and then discuss how they picked up the phone and called the girl/boy and how they went steady. But while our parents are too busy criticizing where we have taken their generation's love story, they seem to forget that at a time that was a taboo. Their elders would once complain, telling stories of love letters sent hundreds of miles and “courting” before asking for a women’s hand in marriage. And this idea was only a step forward in time from a man asking a father for his daughter's hand in exchange for a couple of goats or pigs, or if they were lucky, status. And I ask you, is that better?
We are a generation who wastes time constantly on our phones and, more specifically, on social media. This is looked at as a disgraceful thing that is separating the youth from each other, our elders and from life’s own experiences. I challenge that. I find nothing more comforting in knowing my friends, especially those I’ve made through college which I may have to separate from for months at a time, are a quick tap away when I need them, and never has talking through a screen effected my ability to talk to them when I finally get to see them again in person.
My boyfriend and I, who have now become a long distance couple, survive on our hours of texting conversations during the day, funny Twitter posts we share with each other, the ability to stalk one another’s Instagram when we miss their face, a goal to continue our Snapchat streak despite any fights of that day and a comforting phone conversation to end every night. Older generations, are we doing something wrong? If your answer is yes, I beg to differ. And don’t get me started on, “Why don’t you get off your phone and actually experience real life?” In a time where college tuition and student loans can tally up to the price of a small house and the fact that someday the safety of social security may become obsolete, I semi-rely on the Kardashian’s annual family vacation pictures to show me the world, because I’ll never be able to afford seeing the places they go on my own.
We’re even criticized for something as beautiful as our music! Our generation’s main form of expression. Our parents hear foul language and loud bass, but they are missing the messages we’re trying to give them. Like when Kendrick Lamar wrote, ”Look at my life and look at yours/ Get some ambition while you’re bored/ Time will never wait on no man/ Society will never hold your hand.” It’s empowering, it’s our own form of poetry, it is everything but a reason to look down on us. Do you think Elvis was something parents at the time loved? Don’t you think parents of an earlier generation had raised eyebrows and rolled eyes at the Beatles' “I am the eggman/ they are the eggman/ I am the walrus goo goo g’joo?” Of course they did!
Instead of parents being disgusted with the young minds they helped mold, they should be proud of our acceptance of other. People can marry whomever they want now because we believe in nothing more powerful than love, the love that our parents first showed us. Every year, more confederate flags are falling for a more hopeful look into a future without racism. We are starting a movement every other generation before us was afraid to take on, and things such as social media and music have been our greatest sidekicks in doing so.
So be proud to be a generation Y or a generation Z, we’re going down in the history books, and it's not for the reasons our elders are shaming us with.
