Apparently I am part of the same generation that is
currently going through undergrad. I find this hard to take because they seem
to be fundamentally different to my peers. In particular, the present cohort appears
infatuated
with itself and positively excited to tell everyone. Moreover, everyone else is 'supportive' of this. Student media not only
attracts more and more articles that are essentially diary entries but it also
publishes more of them! I herein intend to speculate wildly on the reasons for
this and other distressing phenomena.
Everyone in high school shares themselves (or a
constructed self) on social media and this is fine. What’s less okay is that
the importance of social media to everyone’s self esteem seems to have made
people desensitised to others talking about themselves all the time. Indeed,
the current cohort seems to actively endorse such narcissistic behaviour.
Let me give a case in point. A recent issue of Woroni featured an article where some
undergraduate activist I’d never heard of spent 800 words responding to a
conversation she had that nobody else was privy to with a psych professor I’d
never heard of who criticised her for advocating in the mental health space despite
her utter lack of the appropriate skills or experience.
Who the fuck is interested in such a staggeringly
self-aggrandising piece?
The problem isn’t that the student in question wrote it. It’s
very important in such cases of identity crisis to put your thoughts to paper and
fire it into your diary or personal blog. But surely anyone would recognise
that the general populace has no interest in reading your lame attempt to
justify your activities to someone dramatically more credible than you. In my
day such self-indulgence would have gotten you relentlessly mocked. But no,
this person decided the student body needed to hear her thoughts, so she sent
the piece to Woroni.
And then they published it! What the fuck!?
The ‘Identity’ issue of Woroni this year was basically 8
feature articles where people masturbated for 800 words. First stand-out title:
‘My glorious rivalry with normal’. How about a little humility mate! Is it
glorious or is it just a pretty standard rivalry? Is it ‘normal’ you’re having
a rivalry with or mediocrity? How
about you let the audience be the judge! My second favourite was ‘You know my
name, not my story’. This is the opening paragraph:
I’m not your stock-standard anyone. I find it
very difficult to stereotype or label myself because I find that I’m just too
different. This is great. I don’t like the idea of being a sheep in a flock.
Rather, I much prefer the notion of the ugly duckling—or in my case, the
ridiculously handsome one.
Pass me a bucket! What happened to tall poppy syndrome?
Since when do we tolerate someone saying they are both handsome and a special
snowflake in the first breath of an article?
The mental health issue was more of the same: just
personal stories, as though anecdotes hold all the transcendental truths of
this world. As though the only thing young adults want to read about are the
half-formed thoughts of other young adults. As though getting over mental
health is just a matter of knowing there are others like you.
Now don’t get me wrong—sometimes this stuff is useful.
Occasionally you get someone who has a genuinely interesting personal story,
the wisdom to draw out the insights and the talent and humour to communicate
them in an accessible manner. I am thinking, for instance, of The Anti Cool Girl.
But the rest of the time it seems as simple as courtesy to think
that maybe your peers don’t just want to read about you.
And the alternative is obvious—some actual fucking
journalism: do some research.
For example, that masterpiece ‘You know my name, not my
story’ contains this profound insight: ‘I argue that humans feel the need to
identify with others who grant us a sense of belonging’. I love how he dresses
up the most elementary observation of sociology, psychology and anthropology as
his insight. Then, convinced of his
genius by this thought bubble he’s had, the author declines to consult the
literature to see what actually profound insights this first step might lead us
to and instead embarks on an analysis of ‘urban tribes’, by which he actually
means the hipsters of Braddon.
If the author had actually read something instead of
stopping at the borders of his own mind he might have stumbled across Simmel’s
work on the dynamics of social differentiation in the metropolis (c. 1903), or the
neuroscience of why we seek group identity before we move onto individuation, or
Kekes work on authenticity, or literarily thousands of other, deeper thoughts.
This isn’t hard. One of the better articles this year was
a piece suggesting high school sex-education programs should be re-oriented to
focus on discussions of date rape given that the overwhelming majority of
sexual assault cases among young girls flow from there rather than stranger
danger. We have a winner! And it was little more than an outside statistic, a
topic that might interest people other than the author, and a clear point.
Equally, the mental health issue might have involved
interviewing the world-leading staff at ANU and synthesising the research that
was interesting to students. The author of that torrid tripe might have
requested a discussion with the expert who lambasted them so as to share with
students the complexities of the case rather than just her view of herself (blurgh). Coverage of the cost of living might feasibly
have involved asking one of the uni’s welfare economists whether centrelink
really is impossible to live on or whether it might instead be quite manageable
so long as you don’t feel entitled to craft beer. The identity issue might
involve correspondents reading some of the more important books on the subject
and sharing some of the insights with readers.
The key thing we seem to have forgotten is that ‘you’re
not special’, and even if you are that won’t become apparent for another decade
while you get educated. Student media could, feasibly, be a place to share your
recent education with your peers rather than sharing your inflated ego.
Moving on to more wild speculation (this is my blog so it’s
okay that I’m not researching this further—I won’t be sending this to media), I
have a creeping suspicion that this masturbatory aspect of social media is
substantially implicated in the current social justice war playing out on
university campuses. When we are so comfortable not only with promoting
ourselves publically but also with others publically promoting themselves it is
easy to make people’s ‘feelings’ into idols. If old mate above is so far up his
arse that he passes off herd mentality as his own idea it seems reasonable to
consider that others in this cohort might think there is no possible reason not
to ban Germaine Greer from a talk on feminism if you, a half-baked young adult,
are made ‘uncomfortable’ by her views. After all, you’re a genius, everyone
keeps telling you so, especially yourself, so if you think a feminist icon is
actually an oppressive monster then of course she should be banned, even if you
can’t articulate an intelligible argument beyond I disagree with her.
I’m reminded here of an anecdote from the raging
controversy at Yale. A student wrote an article in which they said: “I don’t
want to debate. I want to talk about my pain”. For the most part, I think that’s
fine. Take it to a counsellor whose job it is to listen. The problem comes when
talking about your pain involves causing pain to others by censoring them or forcing them to shut up because ‘this song is all about me’ (see here). Then we inevitably
need to have a debate, because there is more than one person involved. But if
you live in the i-land of the i-generation, then the fact that you are upset is
more than enough grounds to shut it all down.
The rage is now mostly gone from my system so I’m going
to end this rant. I sure do hope these crazy pills wear off soon or we’re
fucked.
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