I’ve always loved reading ever since I was little. Living through Junie B. Jones or Harry Potter gave me the courage and magic to realize my own feelings and beliefs I had about the world around me, both in imagination and in real life. While I don’t necessarily have the spells or the simple fixes my childhood heroes had for their problems, we do share one tangible thing: the truth. I grew up reading stories about how characters dove into messy situations, but the one thing that always brought them out in the end was the truth. Here’s to you, Tom Riddle.

As a college student going into my sophomore year, I’m watching my sisters grow up without my childhood stories from nearly 2,000 miles away. Instead of reading Judy Blume, I see a new generation trading books I cherished growing up for celebrity gossip and political spins via Snapchat and other social media.

In the wake of major celebrity clashes like Taylor Swift and Kimye/Calvin/Katy/Gaga, my generation loves to tear down celebrities just as much as we like to build them up. Even with the passing Republican National Convention, where Melania Trump was ridiculed for basically doing what I expected most from her, that is, of course, reading and spewing whatever words were written for her, she excelled with flying colors in my opinion.

Why doesn’t anyone care that her speech writers failed her completely? Why isn’t anyone questioning that the administration who allowed this speech to go by without apology could possibly become the voice of the American people? I love the Michelle Obama/Melania mashup video just as much as anyone else, but why do we focus on that rather than the people trying to defend Trump as a valid option?

This is a falsely spread photo of Washington Post columnist Helena Andrews, not Michelle Obama, taking notes at the Correspondents' Dinner in 2015.

Rather than focus our voices and energy on issues like Black Lives Matter, equality for not only white women, but the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and so much more, our generation is eating up snakes like Taylor Swift. You’ve probably seen memes and joking Facebook videos about different candidates and inappropriate remarks made about political candidates that have millions of comments and likes, but have you ever stopped to see if those “facts” are even true?

Why do we love retweeting falsified information rather than fact checking to see if we are perpetuating unintelligent lies and propaganda? When did we sacrifice voicing our own feelings and beliefs to make room for hashtags that literally do not even play a significant role in our own lives?

I am tired of seeing the same ridiculous not-real-news spread by people who are my own friends, my family, even my coworkers on Facebook or Instagram.

I am tired of seeing my sisters grow up thinking that Snapchat and Instagram are credible sources of news.

I am tired of people that can’t fathom the thought of googling whether or not something is true.

But I am more tired of the people who are fighting to cover and make excuses for hateful, horrible lies under the “that’s just my opinion” and “free speech” argument.

If you want to "Make America Great Again," it is your role as an American to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. But it is not your role to discriminate others for what gender, race, or religion they are, and for the love of freedom, your mindless hate speech is not welcome on my Twitter, on my Facebook, and definitely not my America.