12 Olympic medals. Four world records. Ryan Lochte is one of the most decorated athletes in the world of swimming, second only to Michael Phelps. These are incredible accomplishments that should be celebrated following Lochte’s success at the 2016 Rio Olympics. However, after a drunken night out on August 18th that ended in a conflict with armed security guards, his accomplishments have been pushed aside by the media. Instead of focusing on his success as an athlete at this year’s Olympics, the world is focusing on his mistakes as a Millennial, undermining all that he has worked to achieve.
In a way, Ryan Lochte embodies the conflicts currently faced by millennials. Of course, not all of us are going to win a medal at the Olympics (never mind twelve of them). Not all of us are going to break world records. Not all of us are going to find ourselves drunk in Rio, vandalizing a gas station bathroom. What we do share with Ryan Lochte is that our mistakes, once published out into the open, have the potential of erasing every drop of success we have strived to reach in our lifetime.
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The threat of our mistakes almost instantly impacting our future is a unique challenge faced by millennials today. We are expected to go out, have fun, maybe be a little bit misguided in our actions. Yes, we are allowed to do this, but there is a catch—the Millennial lifestyle isn’t tolerated alongside success. When a picture is posted out partying, drink in hand, the image can instantly become detrimental to the future we have worked so hard to build. Employers will see these posts and think twice about hiring you for the job you have been dreaming about. Statuses held at school or on a team can be taken from you in the blink of an eye. What is most horrifying is that our millennial lifestyle and the mistakes we may make can easily be published by a button on a smartphone, sent out into the world within seconds.
This is a scary reality for us millennials, and not all of us may realize it. Ryan Lochte wasn’t thinking about the possibility of his drunken night out being televised around the world less than 24 hours later. He was out having fun, just as he is expected to as a millennial. He made a mistake we could easily make as millennials, given the right place and the right time.
Is this fair to the younger generation? Is it fair that our mistakes are more likely to be publicized and held against us? The bottom line is, there is no difference between the person who is caught making mistakes through the media, and the person who is not. We all have great potential that should not be inhibited by our poor decisions, even if they do become published.
Following his August 18th conflict in Rio, Ryan Lochte has publicly released an apology, but even this cannot erase what has already been published by the media. A lot is at stake for Lochte—his career as an athlete, his plans to return as a competitor in the Olympics, and the sponsorships he currently possesses. The future is uncertain for Lochte, but it has become clear that any one of us can find ourselves in his position. Everything we have worked for can disintegrate through media, and for millennials, this is downright terrifying.
