Maybe this is the wrong platform to pose this question given the average tumblr user but
Is it just me or did our generation (those of is who are currently 20-30 ish) just not get the opportunity to be young in the ‘standard’ sense?
Like, everyone I talk to who’s over 40 has all their wild stories about their teens and 20s, being young and dumb, and then I talk to my friends and coworkers and classmates, and we just… dont.
My mom tells stories of skipping school to sneak across the border and spend the day at a bar in Mexico. I was threatened with not being allowed to graduate because of senior ditch day. One of my friends had to go to his first hour class on senior ditch day because the teacher, who almost exclusively taught seniors, arranged a huge exam that day with no available makeup days, specifically to punish kids who took part in ditch day. Our wild and crazy ditch day was playing mini golf and then stopping for ice cream on our way back to one of our friends’ houses to play cards against humanity.
Don’t get me wrong, we had fun. But all of that, threats of not graduating, threats of failing classes over a single test, over some mini golf and ice cream?
Throughout high school and early in college, my friend group got kicked out of malls, stores, and even a parking lot just for being there wrong. Not being loud of disruptive. Not causing problems. Just being there too long, or without buying anything.
My mom graduated high school, after repeating her senior year, without a single grade above a D, and was offered a full ride scholarship to a state university to play on their women’s football team. I had a 3.8 GPA, multiple extracurriculars, a summer job, and over 100 hours of volunteer work, and barely got into that same university, and then couldn’t afford to go there anyway.
We’ve made getting into college so important and yet so difficult that kids are sacrificing their childhoods for it.
Then they become adults and it doesn’t go away. Your employer/ potential employers are searching your social media and internet presence so you’d better hope no one has ever posted a picture of you at a party, or with alcohol, or wearing revealing clothes, or whatever else they’ve deemed unprofessional. And if you want to go out it’s a 10 dollar cover and drinks are at least 8 dollars, and you need to tip if there’s any kind of live entertainment, who can afford to do all that regularly?
My physical therapist, when I was 18, told me about his 21st birthday, how the last thing he remembers is people taking body shots off him. I spent my 21st birthday alone, was in bed by 10pm because I had to be at work the next morning. My boss had already told me that they knew it was my 21st, and if I called out, she’d write me up for improper use of sick leave because you’re not allowed to use sick leave for a hangover. I don’t know anyone whose 21st birthday was a big deal. No one went out and partied for it.
I dont really know where I’m going with all of this. I guess I just don’t understand the point of it all. We spend our youth working hard to provide a future that we still can’t afford. We have to be responsible and professional as teenagers. And we get nothing out of it. We can’t afford life or friends or fun. At least our parents got to have fun being young and dumb, we just got groomed on kik.
So I’m not the only one noticing this. I wish I had an answer or at least something to say about it. But I dont. I’m just tired.
Original report (waybacked PDF) is from 2007. That’s Gen Z kids.
When I, Gen-Xer, was about 12 - in my rural home, I had about a three-mile range. (Could’ve pushed it to more, but didn’t want to walk that far.) In the city, it was about a mile. Not that anyone was checking; again, that was about the distance I wanted to walk, and besides, that covered all of “downtown.”
My kids? Closer to that 300 yards limit at the same age. Not because I wanted to restrict them, but we live next to a freeway on-ramp and between two sets of train tracks… and there is absolutely nothing kid-friendly within a half-mile for them to visit.
I spent my 21st birthday bar-hopping. My kids spent their 21st birthdays at home with a nice meal. I don’t think either of them wanted to go bar-hopping - but yeah, as a society, we’ve removed a LOT of teen-friendly options.
See also: End of Third Places, switch from video game arcades to home consoles (hey, then every kid has to buy their own copy–great for game-makers!), shutdown of malls or restrictions on youth at them, closure of public parks, reduced/removed after-school programs, etc. Plus the places that think it’s illegal for a 12-year-old to walk to the corner store unsupervised.
I am, however, DELIGHTED to hear that the booze & other vices industries are panicking over Gen Z not going out to party. Like, you spent 30-odd years removing all the places and ways people can hang out together and have fun outside of someone’s personal house, and… guess what, when people hit milestone events (graduation, milestone birthdays, job promotion, whatever), they don’t immediately flock to the Party Zone that they have never been welcome at. How shocking.
It sucks that Gen Z does not get to party, does not have good celebration options. REALLY sucks that that’s often because school or job has decided to tell them not to celebrate, rather than just not having places to go. I’m just not upset over party capitalism taking a hit.
We know many of you have seen NaNoWriMo’s recent statements on generative AI…
Well, we have too—and that’s why we’ve made the decision to retract our sponsorship of NaNo.
Your support and belief in human creativity, transparency and collaboration mean everything to us, and we’re committed to staying true to that. Thank you all! 💙
We know many of you have seen NaNoWriMo’s recent statements on generative AI…
Well, we have too—and that’s why we’ve made the decision to retract our sponsorship of NaNo.
Your support and belief in human creativity, transparency and collaboration mean everything to us, and we’re committed to staying true to that. Thank you all! 💙
Your boss eyes the two of you, he seems nervous while he slightly shakes in fear. The two of you have been doing nothing but suspecting each other the entire time. Yet you haven’t even suspected the fact that,
they should legalize polyamory. everywhere. and im not kidding at all. if someone wants to marry multiple people they should be allowed to. for any reason.
before anybody tries to say some bullshit about this, extending the definition of marriage to include multiple people would give members of religions forced into abusive polygamy the same rights any divorcing spouse would have without putting them at risk for being charged with bigamy. this would make it easier for people to leave abusive plural marriages.
hope you don’t mind me weighing in on this. my family members practice polygamy illegally in the US and mexico. i was raised by survivors of that culture and i have been surrounded by them my whole life. i have a lot of thoughts on this issue and i haven’t stumbled upon anybody with the same level of knowledge on the topic weigh in.
this person is right. it is the illegality of polygamy that forces young girls and women to stay in these communities. if they have been forced into an incestuous, pedophilic, or abusive marriage, they cannot go to the police. the victims of polygamy will be punished for their role in this system. my family has graveyards filled with babies that were born with defects (i can’t think of a more respectful word, but these issues are what killed them) because hospitals are simply not an option.
absolutely, yes, factor victims of cults and polygamy into our discussions of this conversation. but don’t use us as a prop for your anti-polyamory agenda. the opposition of polygamy only hurts victims of this system. it reinforces the cult tactics used to prevent anyone from leaving and controlling women.
i have complex thoughts on the way abusive polygamy is completely ignored as a whole and not factored in to any nuanced conversations about plural marriage that i don’t quite have the words for just yet, but i’ll do my best. surely we can discuss how disenfranchised communities (often, in my experience, poor white & mexican women) have historically been abused by institutions of loose marriage guidelines/requirements, and we can factor this into the way we shape changes toward legalizing plural marriage in a way that respects everyone involved. surely we can acknowledge that ANY form of marriage can be used in a violent way against women in a way that is respectful of both victims of abusive polygamy and polyamorous people who struggle living outside of the norm. (not that this post is disrespectful, i’m just bothered by how many discussions are flippant and how abusive polygamy is treated as an issue of the past when it is ALIVE AND WELL TODAY, but these people live in complete isolation and are largely ignored by the US and mexican governments.) like many issues, progress toward fixing one social issue (lack of marriage opportunities for polyamorous people) also helps another disenfranchised community (those who are victimized or susceptible to be victimized by abusive polygamy)!
this is crazy bc I remember when i was in school, if a guy had spare tampons in his backpack he was deemed the most universally popular guy by every single woman in school. The rizz you get from having tampons on you as a man is immeasurable.
Most of my friends since i was like 14 have had periods and they mostly stick to two brands, the day i started carrying them on my backpacks i unlocked a level of loyalty and care i could not articulate if i had a poetry degree. I met my soon to be wife because that day i was the only person around her who carried pads and she has never stopped telling people about it, i’m getting married because of the immeasurable rizz given to me by openly carrying pads as a dude
Treating menstruation as something dirty and shameful when it is a thing that about half the human population experiences for half of our lives is fucking insane, Megyn. Hiding it from boys only reinforces the idea that its something girls should be ashamed of, which is bad for everyone.
this is crazy bc I remember when i was in school, if a guy had spare tampons in his backpack he was deemed the most universally popular guy by every single woman in school. The rizz you get from having tampons on you as a man is immeasurable.
Most of my friends since i was like 14 have had periods and they mostly stick to two brands, the day i started carrying them on my backpacks i unlocked a level of loyalty and care i could not articulate if i had a poetry degree. I met my soon to be wife because that day i was the only person around her who carried pads and she has never stopped telling people about it, i’m getting married because of the immeasurable rizz given to me by openly carrying pads as a dude
Treating menstruation as something dirty and shameful when it is a thing that about half the human population experiences for half of our lives is fucking insane, Megyn. Hiding it from boys only reinforces the idea that its something girls should be ashamed of, which is bad for everyone.
they should legalize polyamory. everywhere. and im not kidding at all. if someone wants to marry multiple people they should be allowed to. for any reason.
if someone brought karl marx back to life the first thing I would do is have a shopping montage to get him modern outfits where I shake my head yes or no to the outfits he picks out but then after that we’d get down to serious business
by the way, for people who don’t understand what the issue with “delulu” is, let me put it this way. i know a kid who uses delulu in day to day speech to refer to her crushes, or her favorite fictional ships, or other people liking things she doesn’t. this is common. one day, she found out from an ex friend of mine that i used to honestly believe i was the second coming of jesus christ. when she asked me about it, i told her it was a delusion. she said “honey, you’re not delusional, you’re straight up insane.” if non-psychotics take “delusional” and make it mean anything less than what it does mean, it leaves us with no word less than insane, or nuts, or crazy.
Narinder: never mind my failed assassination attempts, im going to kill you one day and i hope every waking second you have is in fear of my soon to be revenge. die
Lamb, who’s blood pressure lowers when Narinder enters the room: okie dokie <3
Narinder/The One Who Waits: befriended a distrustful-of-gods angry Lamb at their first meeting, provided emotional comfort and company over several hundred years, showed patience and care to someone he saw as an equal when he shouldn’t have, would ask the Lamb to die just to have ‘sleepovers’ in the afterlife that had nothing to do with their mission to free him:
Narinder: idk why the Lamb is so comfortable around me, their biggest threat. hmm. they must be stupid. yes thats it.
friendly reminder that characters don’t need to be saints to be entertaining. and telling a story does not mean endorsement. art does not need to be all about morally good people.
IDK if this was meant as hyperbole but it’s literally true:
We are genuinely in a crisis of media literacy, with ever fewer genuinely factual resources available in the style and language used by contemporary audiences.
It may sound condescending, but we genuinely need to remind people, or worse, explain to them for the first time that art is not evidence of real world behaviour.
So, thank you, for this reminder. Genuinely.
You’re correct:
Art does not need to feature exclusively morally pure characters. Art is not proof of the creator’s secret, violent desires.
friendly reminder that characters don’t need to be saints to be entertaining. and telling a story does not mean endorsement. art does not need to be all about morally good people.
IDK if this was meant as hyperbole but it’s literally true:
We are genuinely in a crisis of media literacy, with ever fewer genuinely factual resources available in the style and language used by contemporary audiences.
It may sound condescending, but we genuinely need to remind people, or worse, explain to them for the first time that art is not evidence of real world behaviour.
So, thank you, for this reminder. Genuinely.
You’re correct:
Art does not need to feature exclusively morally pure characters. Art is not proof of the creator’s secret, violent desires.
I LOATHE “we didn’t need to learn Algebra” people. Believe it or not it’s good for you to know things and engage with different subjects. And it’s highly likely you got an education for free on top of it? Idk I’m getting to a point where now that I’ve been out of school for a sizeable amount of time it’s like. Holy shit I got to be taught and instructed in so many things for FREE? FREE?!?!? And I didn’t have to work?!?!? I still would never relive high school but like. Damn my boomer take is you should be damn grateful you’re getting or have gotten an education.
I know this is the “arts and creative writing” website, but for all of the backlash against the “why were the curtains blue?” lack of critical thinking in english lit classes, there sure are a lot of people who are loud and proud about their profound ignorance of math.
Like, you’re going to have to calculate a tip, do your taxes, figure out if your mortgage broker is screwing you over, so many things. Don’t worry about it, you’re never going to need to know how to figure out whether you’re really getting the 32% commission that you’re owed, or be able to tell how many 1 inch boxes can fit into a 1 foot container, or work out how much paint you need to buy to cover the area of the walls of your home.
Hell, at the university I went to for undergrad, all of my peers in the physics program were required to take non-major courses in history or the arts or foreign languages, so that we could be well-rounded citizens of the world. But the art students could go their whole degree without taking a single math class and the university was just fine with it!
That can’t be good in a society where everything is based on numbers, from paychecks to logistics to computer code. I think everyone would be well served by having a passing familiarity with how the infrastructure of the world works. Otherwise, you’re always just taking somebody’s word for it, and the people selling you this stuff have every incentive to lie.
This isn’t even scratching the surface of the “why do we study any organism that isn’t human science funds are so wasted wtf” style of sheer science ignorance
I LOATHE “we didn’t need to learn Algebra” people. Believe it or not it’s good for you to know things and engage with different subjects. And it’s highly likely you got an education for free on top of it? Idk I’m getting to a point where now that I’ve been out of school for a sizeable amount of time it’s like. Holy shit I got to be taught and instructed in so many things for FREE? FREE?!?!? And I didn’t have to work?!?!? I still would never relive high school but like. Damn my boomer take is you should be damn grateful you’re getting or have gotten an education.
I know this is the “arts and creative writing” website, but for all of the backlash against the “why were the curtains blue?” lack of critical thinking in english lit classes, there sure are a lot of people who are loud and proud about their profound ignorance of math.
Like, you’re going to have to calculate a tip, do your taxes, figure out if your mortgage broker is screwing you over, so many things. Don’t worry about it, you’re never going to need to know how to figure out whether you’re really getting the 32% commission that you’re owed, or be able to tell how many 1 inch boxes can fit into a 1 foot container, or work out how much paint you need to buy to cover the area of the walls of your home.
Hell, at the university I went to for undergrad, all of my peers in the physics program were required to take non-major courses in history or the arts or foreign languages, so that we could be well-rounded citizens of the world. But the art students could go their whole degree without taking a single math class and the university was just fine with it!
That can’t be good in a society where everything is based on numbers, from paychecks to logistics to computer code. I think everyone would be well served by having a passing familiarity with how the infrastructure of the world works. Otherwise, you’re always just taking somebody’s word for it, and the people selling you this stuff have every incentive to lie.
This isn’t even scratching the surface of the “why do we study any organism that isn’t human science funds are so wasted wtf” style of sheer science ignorance
I LOATHE “we didn’t need to learn Algebra” people. Believe it or not it’s good for you to know things and engage with different subjects. And it’s highly likely you got an education for free on top of it? Idk I’m getting to a point where now that I’ve been out of school for a sizeable amount of time it’s like. Holy shit I got to be taught and instructed in so many things for FREE? FREE?!?!? And I didn’t have to work?!?!? I still would never relive high school but like. Damn my boomer take is you should be damn grateful you’re getting or have gotten an education.
I know this is the “arts and creative writing” website, but for all of the backlash against the “why were the curtains blue?” lack of critical thinking in english lit classes, there sure are a lot of people who are loud and proud about their profound ignorance of math.
Like, you’re going to have to calculate a tip, do your taxes, figure out if your mortgage broker is screwing you over, so many things. Don’t worry about it, you’re never going to need to know how to figure out whether you’re really getting the 32% commission that you’re owed, or be able to tell how many 1 inch boxes can fit into a 1 foot container, or work out how much paint you need to buy to cover the area of the walls of your home.
Hell, at the university I went to for undergrad, all of my peers in the physics program were required to take non-major courses in history or the arts or foreign languages, so that we could be well-rounded citizens of the world. But the art students could go their whole degree without taking a single math class and the university was just fine with it!
That can’t be good in a society where everything is based on numbers, from paychecks to logistics to computer code. I think everyone would be well served by having a passing familiarity with how the infrastructure of the world works. Otherwise, you’re always just taking somebody’s word for it, and the people selling you this stuff have every incentive to lie.
This isn’t even scratching the surface of the “why do we study any organism that isn’t human science funds are so wasted wtf” style of sheer science ignorance
actually everyone making fun of these and writing about how they bully other drivers on the road by tailgating and driving aggressively in their 2 ton death machines is a cunt. if your response to someone admitting they’re nervous to be operating a massive dangerous machine they usually require to lead a normal life is to make their life even scarier and potentially cause an accident you have problems straight up
Lots of grown-ass adults in the world who think it’s cute or cool to be like “if you display any sign of weakness or vulnerability where I can see it I will pounce on it and savage it like a starving coyote”
