Today, there is a significant portion of the media directed towards and supplied by a youthful population, or young adults. Much of the content arriving from this specific population falls under the category of personal experiences, advice, how-to’s, opinionated topics, news related summaries, and much more. A vast majority of the pieces come in the form of an “open letter.”
Allow me to say this, I am not opposed to open letters, in fact, I have actually written and published one. My issue with open letters does not lie with its format, it lies with its conceptual misuse that has ultimately lead to its popularity, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
The youth, this day in age, is the millennial generation -- those are the people bringing you the how-to’s and advice for your tragic break-up. I’ve read these pieces and I have taken advice from these pieces, as well. That is their purpose. Now, I’ve come to notice the overwhelming amount of open letters offering advice on loneliness and loving a best friend or a recent loss. These pieces have great intentions, but in the words of Jonathan Mendes, “It’s time we pack the letters into an eternal envelope and send them off... for good. These writers are focusing on minor issues by thinking that the person they are now at 20 is who they’re going to be 10 years later. It’s not realistic."
It is absurd that our youthful and intuitive generation has nothing better to write about than the last boy that broke their heart and to some girl who loves their ex-boyfriend next. We are better than this! Contributors to the media society need to take a moment to look around and see what is actually going on beyond their own backyard. There will be plenty of break-ups and everyone is bound to get over it eventually and, one way or another, it will get done.
There are more important and pressing issues in this world that we are involved in. Our generation is the next generation to step into the real world and make the difference that everyone has been waiting for. It’s time to be an active participant in our reality. There are wars and presidential elections, there are charities trying to do good in the world lacking publicity because their spotlight is shadowed by an open letter to a roomie.
Left and right I hear people, classmates, acquaintances, friends complaining about how terrible this world is that we live in and how much change needs to be implemented. I am here to say that we can all be apart of the change, we can revolutionize the change, we can be the change. It starts with an end to the insufferable, accumulating number of open letters to an old friend, boyfriend, whatever… we all get the point.
