Although I like to believe Generation Y is better than any generation that came before it, it’s unprecedented that the adults in our world are actually willing to agree with me on this sentiment.

Both Time magazine and elitedaily.com have wrote articles in high regard of our status in this transformative world we inhabit. But have they heard, I ask, that projectile vomiting-inducing song by the Chainsmokers (an opinion’s an opinion, no matter how small…Dr. Seuss said that, I think)?

In May of 2013, Time magazine plastered your typical teenage girl taking a “selfie” on the front cover of its publication, the headline reading “Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation.” Although the image was intended to mock our culturally formed habit (don’t pretend you’re not guilty of it), Time gives a startling sub-line to accompany the picture: “why they’ll save us all.”

Elitedaily.com (the self-proclaimed voice of Generation Y) responds to Time’s article with their follow-up piece “Why Generation ‘Me’ Will Change The World.”

I love flattery, trust me, but there is just something not sitting right with me about this whole “inherit the Universe” business. For one, how are we supposed to save the world if…oh, hold on; someone just liked my Instagram post…wait, what was I saying? Right. How are we to save the world if we’re constantly attached to these inhuman devices at our fingertips 24/7?

There are claims that we Millennials have the capability to improve the world around us since we have a much better understanding of technology when compared to any other generation. This culture of ours is something that previous generations were not exposed to growing up. We grew up with social sites and chatrooms on the World Wide Web, and as a result are subjected to helping our elders updating their Facebook statuses.

As distressing as this act may seem, it tells us a lot about the shrinking generation gap. Now more than ever parents and their children can relate to similar issues thanks to the growing accessibility of media (we just didn’t anticipate “twerking” to travel outside of our age groups).

But beyond this is the comprehension that we are not a new species. As Joel Stein, the author of the Time article, puts it, “Millennials' self-involvement is more a continuation of a trend than a revolutionary break from previous generations….they’ve…mutated to adapt to their environment.”

Stein claims this adaptation is a result of “globalization, social media, the exporting of Western culture and the speed of change,” which makes our generation as a whole “more similar to one another than to older generations.” What this tells us is that our complex interconnectedness may not be the worst thing in the world (“Let Me Take a Selfie” won that one).

So we may be “lazy entitled narcissist[s]” as Stein said.
“But this is a result of our environment,” said Paul Hudson, author at elitedaily.com. “The fact is that our lives are recorded and published on the Internet with or without our consent.”

This exposure, then, can either kill us or create us. What I’m getting at here is two choices: we can sit down and take “selfies” well into our ‘90s, or we can stand up and take advantage of our cultural experience as it is happening right now.

Stein got one thing right before completely bashing Generation Y into oblivion: we are “earnest and optimistic” — but we are so much more than that.

You are more than how many likes or favorites you get on any of your respective social media pages – none of this will matter in ten years; you are more than how you spent your weekends in comparison to how your Facebook “friends” spent theirs – keeping up with the pack isn’t as fun as running alone; you are more than that major everyone says will leave you jobless and in misery – follow your dreams, for fuck sake.

Simply put my fellow Millennials: We. Are. More.