People have come to identify the millennials as the lazy, entitled and narcissistic generation, while also characterizing us as liberal, open-minded and passionate about equality. However, how much passion for this "equality" is too much passion?
The Millennial Generation, or the generation of people born between the early '80s and early 2000s, has a lot of defining characteristics that differentiate us from other generations. We're the first generation to grow up with computers; we have been shaped by the technology that is constantly advancing around us, and we have been deemed "the worst generation."
Growing up with social media as a pivotal part of our lives, pretty much anything and everything on anyone's minds is publicized and shared with the world. Feeling annoyed about a rude employee at Forever 21? Tweet about it. Just had the best hamburger you've ever tasted? Instagram it. Feeling personally offended by the use of the N-word on someone you don't know's Tinder page? Post about it on Facebook until it attracts so much attention that the person loses their job.
As the "me, me, me" generation, many millennials have come to think that their opinion is in fact the only opinion that matters and needs to be shared with the entire world. A great example of this would be all of the op-ed articles written by writers for Odyssey. Scrolling through your newsfeed without seeing someone complaining about something that has personally offended them for its lack of "political correctness" is virtually impossible.
Our generation has been babied and tip-toed around our entire lives, creating a bunch of young adults who are easily offended by things that are in fact not offensive at all. You're not always going to like what you hear, see or read. Things are going to hurt your feelings more than once in your life, and that's something that all of us just have to deal with.
Crying out every time something lacks the political correctness you so desperately wish was out there isn't going to make it all go away, and it isn't going to make you seem like a noble and educated person; it just makes you sound like a cry-baby. If something out there that is being posted on the Internet or said on the news really offends you so deeply that you can't keep it to yourself, do something about it. (Commenting on the post does not constitute as doing something.)
We have become the generation of people who recognize the world's problems, complain about them and then do nothing about it. So don't be the guy who starts a comment war in the Facebook comments of a Donald Trump meme. Don't be the girl who posts about how anti-women's rights Beyoncé is because she likes to show her cleavage. Emerge from behind your computer screen and do something about it instead. Or better yet, #StopBeingOffended2016.
