Episode 21: Kids These Days

"Everyone is changing/and the storefronts rearranging/I picked up a quarter and I just saw my face/but it's all coming back now/I can feel it isn't over/hey, I know I was lost/but I miss those days."

                                    -Bleachers, "I Miss Those Days"

   You can't go a few days without hearing someone complaining about younger people. There's a good chance you do it yourself. As you age, your definition of a young person widens, and your opinion of them likely worsens. Most people tend to look back on their childhood fondly, so when they see that people are going through a different childhood/have gone through a different childhood, they assume that theirs was better and those younger people have it worse and are worse off because of it.

The Cycle

   What you see mostly these days is boomers and gen x-ers judging millennials and zoomers. What the boomers and gen x-ers don't seem to realize, though, is they're just perpetuating a cycle. It's not some new thing to judge the younger generations. People born in the 1970's making fun of people born in the 2000's isn't some new thing. People who were born in like the thirties and forties were making fun of people born in the seventies. I'm sure people born in the 1820's were making fun of 1860's kids.

    The judges of millennials and zoomers like to use technology as one of their main gripes about new generations. They complain that social media and the ease of the internet has messed kids up. 

Are they right, though?

   Social media and internet are definitely new things that past generations didn't have, or at least didn't grow up with. And I agree that these things are mostly bad (see Episode 17). But boomers and gen x-ers had things that the silent generation and the greatest generation didn't have and judged them for.

    Having been born in 2000, I'm in this weird stretch of years where it's not really clear what generation I am. Some sources say I'm a millennial, some say I'm a zoomer. So, I've just chosen to accept my role as a representative of both generations.

Doing it Myself

   I'm only 21 years old as of the writing of this blog. I'll be 22 in couple months. I'm young, right? I can't even rent a car or run for most political offices. But I still see things kids are doing these days that make me cringe and/or shake my head. I think it's weird that kids are getting their own cell phones and tablets at like age four. I think kids are too dependent on social media and are too emotionally reliant on the amount of recognition they do or do not get on it. Kids are coming up with weird new slang that I don't quite understand. 

    So, I understand that I even I am becoming part of the cycle. I am doing it myself. I just think we all need to realize that older people will always be picking on younger people and vice versa.

See you next week!