Beneath the piles of all that we’ve hidden and buried somewhere far away, there are withering slivers of guilt, shame, and conscience. With phrases like “You do you,” “Haters gonna hate,” and “It is what it is,” our modern world has put idealism in prison. These expressions have become millennial hallmarks that we use as cures to consequence and convoys in self-indulgent play. Together, they reflect our culture’s false solace and narcissistic grace.
Whether we hear them in Taylor Swift’s music, a Vine on Reddit, or the latest James Franco and Seth Rogan movie, these mottos are just variations of the life-affirming cheer, “Just be yourself,” a phrase heard from a young age that echoes eternally within. It’s a sort of freedom, given from one person to another, that encourages a sugarcoated carelessness. It’s what children hear on the first day of school, it’s how we prep our friends for first dates, and it’s what we tell ourselves in unfamiliar situations. It’s how we cope with discomfort or uncertainty, without having to endure any moralization.
While they defy all contradictions, these phrases proudly glorify imperfect realities and human flaws. Instead of recognizing imperfections and making way for improvement, these phrases foster a culture in which we accept weakness simply by dodging criticism. In a single gesture, it’s a shrug that absolves us from any moral liability.
And that shrug is what keeps us in the realm of blissful ignorance because a culture that celebrates selfies needs phrases like “You do you” and “I am what I am”, not only to justify its narcissism but to survive. Even grammatically, these phrases are self-justifying. Their inherent redundancy makes them tautologies, expressions that are essentially impossible to disagree with. And this grammatical strength arms our society with the power to rightfully end difficult discussions, blindly accept the issue at hand, and move on.
Our beloved system of tautologies spoils us further with these: “What’s done is done,” “Boys will be boys,” and “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” Instead of honing our sense of conscience, these phrases empower the individual with a license to make mistakes. They flatter us, they excuse our potential immorality, they let us leave kisses upon our mirrors.
Regardless of what our mirrors reflect, we are allowed to fall gently under the spell of ignorance. Enveloped in hollow frames that feign immunity, we can resist lines of inquiry that might lead to criticism, never acknowledging our own immorality. We can call our rivals haters, so as to perfect ourselves without even trying. Somewhere along this path, we might knock on the hollow frames surrounding us, just to play, and nothing will be there to greet us.
