Just in the past 20 minutes I've seen 15 things that made me feel judged. I went from post-yoga relaxed to inst-pissed in the seconds it took me scroll through five election year memes, four racist Kaepernick articles, a Brock Turner support post, and three or four anti-Muslim rants. The question is, when did I start allowing myself to be so sensitive to others and why am I continuing to read things that make me feel bad? Millennials are always being told we're the generation that can't take a joke. Have we become so PC that even the slightest branch off of our beliefs is a critique felt in the depths of our soul? Why are we letting social media platforms where the elderly share pictures of their grand kids and idiots share chain memes define who we are as people? Do we crave the negative? Or are our actions justifiable because the world is just "to judgey" and others should learn to be more kind to our opinions.
Almost everyone from millennials, to Baby Boomers have a wide variety of interests, and cultural properties that help categorize the things we choose to read and watch. I'm a mom so I read mommy blogs and vaccine news to keep me up to date on what I can do to better my parenting. More than that I'm a Jew, a college student, a liberal, and a women, so i'm circulating everything from the Jewish News Headlines to Buzzfeed's Top 20 Reason's Feminist Women are Better In Bed. At any given point in the day I can see, read or hear something that I find core-shakingly offensive. In my “supportive” mommy groups a mother could post an article about why exclusively breastfeeding is the only way to parent. My aunt can comment some religious jargon on one of the Pro-LGBT memes I’m fond of posting. Some girl on Instagram can wear an all camo ensemble. The top two might be a little more justifiably offensive than the camo clothes, but still not one of these things should be enough to heat me up or make me feel bad about how I’m running my life. My son is happy and healthy and never touched breastmilk, I’m still going to love the gays even if my conservative, dinosaur of an aunt doesn’t, and as for the camo well I’m just thankful my closet has never seen such a fashion catastrophe.
I know it’s not just me who is taking the over sensitized road. For a little research I decided to check out the comments section of some of the post that really got me. Sure enough there were thousands if not millions of people offended by the same things as me. One of the various homophobic, white-power, Trump-esque pictures my great aunt had shared, had several negative, verging on-abusive comments and two moms got into an all-out, cyber bullying fight with another mom who vocalized her opinion to vaccinate her newborn. Unfortunately those responding in comments were mostly using hate to fight hate.
Why are we wasting our time bothering to argue with people who disagree with us? Am I clicking on the article with the clearly offensive title to hear them out or just get pissed off? The news, our parents, anyone over the age of 30 are saying we’re the most offended generation. Perhaps we as the generation in question need to become less offended with the views of those both older and of equal age to us, and instead need to focus our energy on what we’re doing that is working for us. Arguing all day with your grandma for her completely ludicrous affection for Donald Trump is not going to make her suddenly start Feelin the Bern. Similarly, shaming someone for voicing their opinion isn't going to make them change it. Furthermore the opinions that offend us can only do so if we let them. If we fight hate with hate we're certainly not going to end up with anything more then a mess of grammar critiques and Wikipedia Facts. If something is working for you then it shouldn't matter what CBS, or that Facebook article, or your aunt's first husbands's pastor brother thinks. Sure, we live in a “judgey” world and yes it is probably “too judgey” but nothing is going to change unless we spend less time worried about people saying we’re doing something wrong, and more time sharing what we’re doing right.
I'll leave you with the wise words of millennial, poet laureate Taylor Swift...
"Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off
Heart-breakers gonna break, break, break, break, break
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off"
