Genuinely, what is going on right now?

I was watching a video essay recently on the moral superiority of Gen-Z, exploring the simultaneous oversensitivity and insensitivity, and it got me thinking.

In a world where our generation is petrified about what future we will be stepping into, everyone is grasping on to some kind of foothold. However, I believe what we are using to stay afloat is the root of our generations demise. We are seeking absolute certainty in a world of complete uncertainty, and it is destroying us.

I believe it has created three detrimental issues to the way we function as a collective:

1. The hive mind

2. The death of morality

3. The obsession with certainty.

I: Hive minds.

Our generation is a hive mind. Our opinions shift as one, even if you don’t realise it.

We are a generation obsessed and addicted to novelty. An issue will fade once the next arises, and it will disappear into just background noise; and we will all move on to the next one without a thought to spare for it.

We have lost the art of discussion and debate and only function in rigid statements. We move from one statement from the next, never dwelling on one long enough for it to genuinely cement itself, and never long enough for people to truly understand it.

Such as recently: as our generation calls for critical thinking and original thoughts, we don’t realise that we are actually working against it. The strict belief that we need to ‘bring back critical thinking’ is baseless, because all people are actually doing is just saying it instead of trying to understand it. Once someone makes a point, everyone has to make it, or you risk falling behind. It doesn’t mean that everyone is taking on this information with interest in implementing it in their life; it’s a putting up the cultural safe guard, joining in line with your eyes on your shoes, rather than making the judgement yourself.

This isn’t critical thinking, this is quite literally the farthest opposite from it you can get.

The language used in the discourse ends up becoming so oversaturated and overused that it looses all meaning, and then issue becomes so convoluted and misjudged that it ends up cannibalising itself and people no longer find themselves able to agree on anything. Then it dies, and we move on.

On the topic of oversaturated language, a new era is rising, which is what sparked me to write this essay in the first place. If you are online at all, you may have seen how everyone’s new year’s resolution this year was to ‘go analog’, ‘create more than you consume’ and start using ‘physical media’. And I bet you, every person participating in it will believe that this goal will become to be a permanent state of being. But the truth is: you are participating in a trend, a phase, a fad that will pass once people get sick of it. Not only that, but now books, art, magazines, CD’s, notebooks that were once outliers peaceful at the fringe of the capitalist storm swirling around technology have now also become commodified and will soar in price. This ‘resolution’ will become another measurement of privilege, and worse, superiority. Just because you own a notebook doesn’t mean you are ‘disgustingly educated’ and better than someone who doesn’t.

‘Disgustingly educated’ is a great example of social media is taking language meant to encourage or inspire people and turning them into meaningless titles. What does disgustingly educated even mean anymore? Is it someone who’s well-read? Someone who enjoys academic pursuits? Or, has it become another goal post for people to try meet to be deemed as socially acceptable, another aesthetic, another kind of ‘cool girl’ that social media will wring dry like the office siren, or the art hoe (if you remember Tumblr) until its cringe, and people who genuinely enjoy the hobbies attached to it will be deemed outdated.

I truly want society to be better read, to be creative and explore a world outside of their phones. But as a reader, writer and creative person, when your lifestyle suddenly becomes commodified and swallowed by a trend, it becomes hard to keep a grasp on what is yours and what is the algorithms. I have begun to question the authenticity of my decisions, of my interests. I also fear what happens when the fad passes. Will I be out of date?

What scares me the most about this seismic shift from the digital obsession to a desperate longing for the analog age is what it says about our ability to think for ourselves. We move like a school of fish. A singular entity that moves with each other’s movements. We all feel a collective need to get off social media, yet are still using social media as our compass for what we are supposed to do. Rather than trying to find something your interested in outside of your phone, you are just trying to find something aesthetically pleasing and trending to replace it with. You are still dictated by social media.

This hive mind mentality also can be seen in how people switch from one cancelled individual to another.

1, part 2:

Our obsession with celebrities is genuinely frightening. And what we demand from them is so incredibly detached and parasocial that I cannot believe the extent that it has grown.

The current political climate, specifically in the looming presence of America, is shocking. It is so frightening to see the lack of humanity within the world right now. But when real people are dying, when real lives are at stake, when there is horror beyond anyone’s imagination, why the hell are we going to celebrities to define the right or wrong? To test their morality rather than our own?

I am all for people using their platforms for the right things. That is an extremely important part of social media that has been abused relentlessly the past. But why do these shallow, uber-wealthy people mean anything to us? Why are we spending more energy critiquing some mercenary-focused celebrity than the actual people in power? Or better yet, ourselves? Celebrities aren’t role models. They are part of the same 0.1% that could easily live a life where they wouldn’t need to look at the news at all, because it wouldn’t affect them. I hate to break it to you, whether Kim Kardashian speaks out about the current political climate or not actually doesn’t mean anything. To think that we are focusing more on the state of an A list celebrities political views than the actual people suffering is wild. Because what it is, is not a desire to try make change, it is a desire to just simply be right- for certainty. But sometimes, being right doesn’t mean being good. You may be right to call out a celebrities political views, but using that time and energy doesn’t mean its exactly good.

What I believe this obsession truly stems from is our generation sees celebrities as investments of distraction and the scouting for a saviour. We want a hero. We are desperate for a hero. But these are regular people who have given the golden ticket for shallow, mercenary reasons. They are no heroes. Real heroes are people like Greta Thunberg- but her bravery drowns in the perpetual noise of social media discourse and the eternal wall of comment sections.

For such an oversensitive generation, we are incredibly desensitised. We hook onto one, controllable variable- the power abuse of morality- the one thing we feel like we can hold over people in our powerless state. But when that abuse translates into real life, where does that leave us?

II: The death of Morality

Morality, true morality within Gen-z is dead.

Morality has turned into a concept rather than a construct. It has been weaponised to enforce fear into our generation to the point where people can barely socially function anymore. People sit and wait like predators, waiting for the ‘gotcha’ moment, where you can catch someone out and claim yourself superior, because, again, it gives us certainty. But there is nothing moral about that. That is superiority-complex veiled in ‘good’ intentions.

Our vocabulary within the discussions of morality are limited to the extremes: hate or love, perfect or evil. You have to be absolutely flawless, or you are the worst person to exist. There are no grey areas, or even room for empathy, because that invites uncertainty.

The irony is that our generation is so, so mean. Gen-z is so judgemental that it becomes suffocating. Some of the comments I hear about others are so incredibly cruel that I cannot believe my ears. There are even times I catch myself about to say something, and force myself to stop and think about it. I may hate this person, but there’s a point in time where if I remove my empathy completely for the person, does that dehumanise them? Or worse: does it put me on their level.

What I see as the crux of this morality death is hypocrisy. People will rush to crucify others for their misdoings and mistakes, but it’s also these very people who self-proclaim such perfect morality that are the biggest hypocrites. I have watched with my very eyes in real life the same social justice warriors who would abandon all their values to make a funny joke, to make an awful, prejudiced comment about someone, and completely exclude themselves from their own standards of morality because they are too focused on being right than being nice.

III: Our obsession with certainty:

But the reasoning behind this is because our generation obsesses over being certain over every action. We are so strict about morality because we like the certainty of being right. But this need for absolute certainty has translated into everyday life- particularly from my experience, classrooms. Classrooms are dead silent because of this. I was the only person who put my hand up in most of my classes for an entire year. The Gen-Z stare is real- a teacher could walk into the room, greet the entire class, and no one would say a word back. People will avoid greeting others because they cannot be certain that it will go exactly to plan, or that they won’t stumble on their words, or make a fool out of themselves. The reliance on AI and consistent reassurance is a product of this. Educators teach silent classes, talk at blank faces, to then receive ChatGPT written essays, all because a student fears what would happen if they did something with uncertainty. By this process, the teacher never directly communicated with the student at all.

This obsession over certainty is the breeding ground for the cringe culture movement that is flooding the comment sections of TikTok and Instagram right now: people who take the leap to be themselves are ridiculed, and at worst cases bullied off the app.

This fear means no one tries. Everyone is too scared, too desperate for certain, or trying to walk in-between the perimeters of social medias newest definition of morality, or the next big ‘thing’.

Living amongst all of this makes it feel really impossible to be a young person right now.

We need to confront these destructive parts of our generation’s thought process before its too late, before we find ourselves dictated completely by an algorithm to the point where we think in a predictable, mappable pattern that is susceptible to complete manipulation. Power rests in our hands, but we are using it in the wrong ways. We need to sit down, and think. Turn off your phone and talk with someone. Bring empathy to a conversation you may not fully agree with. Map out your own brain and see where you get your opinions from and think to yourself- do I agree with this? What parts of this contradict itself? What lesson can I take from this? How can I understand it better?

Remove yourself from the collective and look into yourself as an individual. Define your own values and walk life with them in mind.