These self obsessed people, where have they come from ?

[SirVixofVixHall]

This was in my email inbox this morning. Sigh. There have been other articles like this recently. The bullying undertone, the entitlement. This is someone “non binary”. So someone just like everyone else. Apart from the patronising hectoring tone, it is all so tedious. BORING, BORING, BORING. Must make for some very earnest and deathly dull parties. Where are all the wonderful GNC people with their interesting outfits, self deprecation and wit ? I know that this is from America, but stil.. Never mind generation snowflake, this is more generation dreary. No irony, no self awareness, no sense of humour.
Is this all down to identity politics ? Is this teaching ? Parenting? The product of a decadent and privileged environment ?

I feel despair at the environmental disasters looming, and what my daughters might be facing, yet there is a generation of people spending their time policing how others refer to them, when they aren’t even present.

Younger people seem to need to struggle and rail against something. Remember the Angry Young Man of the 60s?

It must be something to do with their social development. They have the energy and focus to devote to some worthy cause and then take it to extremes.

Perhaps non-liberal parenting contains much of that energy (‘God, Dad, you’re such a fascist’!) instead of it being turned on the world.

Your modern blue-hair seems to treat the world as its oppressive parent.

I have wondered whether it could be something to do with a lack of exposure to adults other than family members and teachers, and a lack of experience of the adult world.

Some of these young people really seem to live in a bubble of unreality, fuelled by social media. That's what they think the world is really like.

But who can blame them? In the late 80s and early 90s, young people in my area tended to get part-time or Saturday jobs once they turned 14/15. They went into the workplace and experienced not only what it was like to work, but also how to negotiate with adults that weren't family members or teachers. They learnt how to operate in the adult world.

But it seems these days that only a few young people do this, and their first experience outside the protective bubble of childhood is when they go to uni.

I've noticed this inexperience at work. We've had some recent graduates come into the office as juniors and pretty much behave like stroppy teenagers. One lad was incredibly rude to a very senior member of staff. But it was pretty clear that he just had no experience of how to conduct a professional relationship with an older male.

And I think this all kinda ties in. You can't go into private industry and start demanding people call you by your self id pronouns (unless you are guaranteed to make your department millions, then you can paint your skin green and call yourself the archangel Michael and no-one will bat an eyelid).

Likewise, I look at it all and think: how the fuck are these people going to cope with real adult life? With the workplace? With the general shit that being an adult brings?

Why make life harder than it needs to be? But then I reckon these young 'uns just no idea how tough life can get.

The shift seems to happen once the teens have left the parental home and gone to uni, which is exactly when we all flexed our independent muscles, too. It was CND marches and anti-apartheid campaigns in my day, that's all. A lot of the student protests seem now to be about self. Self, self, self. Whilst I appreciate that there's definitely a hint of self preservation about stopping nuclear war, the fact that we're dealing with massive movements of people from war-torn countries, and poverty, starvation and disease on an epic scale, yet these seem to be treated as less important now than whether you call someone he or she.....this is the generation of the ego.

AngryAttackKittens - Hahahahaha.
PackingSoap - I have heard this from other people, and also experienced it. While eating out locally, DH politely asked the stroppy teenage waitress for something...
She then mimicked what he’d said in a sarcastic voice ! 😮😮😮. It was so unbelievable that we found it funny, but crikey, how someone imagines that they are employable if they behave like this is quite beyond me.

Agree with your posts Bloomcounty.

I wonder if moving the focus internally to their own personal stuff is about avoiding the horrific stuff that's going on in the world? I don't find any of it easy to deal with, and I'm 50, so I can imagine looking at the state of the world is pretty sodding terrifying and utterly overwhelming for an 18, 19 year old.

Life isn't always pretty. Life can be literally bloody, messy, stressful, overwhelming, dangerous and ugly. These kids have been brought up in the instagram worthy world of perfection. I'm really just realising quite how sheltered a lot of them have been. I've been wondering how on earth a 23 year old (daughter of a friend) can not know about the migrant camps near Calais, in this day of massive access to news, 24 hours a day.

I'm so stupid.

It's because she's avoided it. She's watched Love Island, and make up videos and cute puppies. Yes, all the bad stuff is here, to be seen, but there's way more good, fun, lightweight stuff to use as a distraction.

Yy bloom about it all being about the self. I was listening to a guilty feminist episode and they had several 'activists' on and they spent the first 10 minutes talking about... themselves. I was pretty taken aback to be honest.

I do think social media, especially on phones, especially snapchat and Instagram really contribute to a type of self centredness (sp?) so prevalent in (mostly young) people. Constantly taking photos of themselves, thinking about their appearances and using all the filters and fucking animal ears. I can see why they become fixated on themselves and their appearances in a way the pre social media people didn't.

However I have a range of young to old teens and whilst they're constantly taking photos of themselves, they don't seem to have that extremely attention seeking thing which you see in people who demand special pronuns. My DC did however initially buy into the whole prevalent "gender fluid" thing and only starting thinking critically about it when I banged the drum massively. The thing is, the schools and colleges (and workplaces for those that work) have also bought into it so if DC don't get the other views presented to them, they swallow it as gospel.

One of my DCs at college especially worries as they have someone who identifies as trans in a class who is allowed to use the toilets of their choice etc. My DD actually wants a Posie bag like mine but knows full well she would get so much grief and it's hard to go against the tide at that age. She does have a range of comments along the lines of "I respect your beliefs but my personal opinion..." and luckily hasn't got into any major fights yet.

At the moment I am really conscious of the fact that on MN I engage with people mostly on the same page, so it's easier to discuss and agree with each other, but I also have a duty (IMO) to engage my DC and young people I know in the conversation and present the other views so they come out of their echo chambers and realise the realities rather than the introspective bollocks wrongly presented to them as fact.

I remember being stunned at a text the daughter of a friend received one day. It was from a friend of hers, and told her that the friend was going to go out for a walk.

"Okay, does she want you to join her?"

"Oh no, she's in London".

We were in Edinburgh.

A 15 year old texted a whole load of friends to tell them she was going out for a walk, like it was a massive piece of news, she was the star of her own reality show and that she was important enough that everyone needed to know that she was going out for a stroll on a Sunday afternoon.

Bizarre.

I also wonder if some of it originates in the whole "feelings and emotions" work that crept into primary schools in the 90s. I now see it in secondary schools where it's an anti-bullying approach: eg. "how do you think it makes X feel when you call him a name?" etc.

When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, no one really gave a shit what you thought or felt about something. You'd complain to your friends, and there would be that whole "I'm so misunderstood" thing, which prompted you to join a subculture or listen to alternative music, but, pretty much, what young people thought wasn't important.

In exchange, however, we did get a lot of freedom and independence compared to young people today, and that again, allowed you to navigate the real world.

But these days, there's so much focus on feelings and emotions that many young people seem to get lost in it all. There's no resilience. People get "triggered" over minor suggestions. Undergrads have to stroke rabbits to cope with stress.

Fuck me.

Sometimes I wish someone would be honest with these young people and just say: "Outside of probably your mum and dad, no-one gives a shit about you or your identity or your issues unless it can make them money. The world does not care and never will. The sooner you figure this out, the better because then you can actually start figuring out how to create the life you want."

But then I'm a hard nosed Northerner who calls a brick a brick and thinks we all might finally get somewhere if everyone stopped fanning around and started being practical and realistic.

I just want to say that there are plenty of healthy not (overly) self-obsessed young adults out here, let’s not get carried away! Speaking for my own 2dds I have found sport to have had a fantastically positive effect on maturity, persistence, lack of ego, teamwork you name it.

My eldest (18) is a cross country runner in the winter and a track and field athlete in the spring/summer. She is not a star on the team but a strong team player and has been committed for 4 years and at times has qualified for county level. She just puts in so much hard work, training with the team daily for 1-2 hours Mon-Fri and then the races/meets at weekends. The team bond really well, male and female, although they train separately they suppport each other.

Then my 15 year old Dd who is 5’ 9” is a rower. Again she trains 2 hrs a day Mon-Fri and at the moment has regattas for which she travels for which are Fri-Sun. These kids work bloody hard. When you see the girls after getting up at 6am and then crewing an 8 and they get to the finish line and get out of the boat and lift it over their heads, carry it in de-rig etc. it’s impressive. Physically they have to be strong. Again the boys and girls teams are very supportive of each other. Egos are squashed pretty hard! No one has any time for it, they all know they need to work hard for everyone else.

Studies have shown that being involved with sports protects girls from eating disorders and I’m sure has a positive affect on mood in terms of reducing depression and anxiety. It helps them have a positive view of their body as strong and capable.

Some of the traditional routes teens have taken such as involvement in sports is still hugely beneficial for emotional and mental maturity and it of course disconnects them from screens! My eldest also worked at a supermarket this summer and volunteers shadowing a nurse working with low income mums at a local hospital, so have faith!

It is Puritanism isn’t it? So earnest, so dull. So utterly fanatical against anyone who doesn’t agree.

How long until the restoration?

The thread title reminded me of Bo Burnham's comedy gig 'Make Happy' (on Netflix). He is very good at identifying social trends and understanding how people tick. One part of the performance was exactly about the need for people to get attention.

Outside of probably your mum and dad, no-one gives a shit about you or your identity or your issues unless it can make them money. The world does not care and never will. The sooner you figure this out, the better because then you can actually start figuring out how to create the life you want.

Bit long but I think I've found what to put on my badge PackingSoap

Ida I too know a lot of teens and early-twenties people who are amazing, bright, individuals who give me a great deal of hope, and yes, they're mostly involved in sport. There must be some kind of correlation here. Being a team player probably is the most obvious one, but the whole self-esteem thing too, it not being bound up in how your body looks, but in how it performs and what it can actually do.

I agree with Ida and think there are some mean spirited posts on this thread. Every generation faces their own challenges and I think in some ways young people today have it a lot harder than I ever did. (Mind you I’d still swap places )

I certainly don’t think the young people we see in student politics are typical. My son sent me that infamous Goldsmith gulag Twitter thread and the spoof one about the University of Pomoshire. They’re not daft.

Did you know that October 17th had been designated "International Day of Pronouns'?

No, me neither.

On that particular day, I had a selection of builders and fitters around to quote for a kitchen refurb. Somehow, I feel that I would never have or heard or seen from them again if I asked them for their preferred pronouns.

Asking for pronouns is ableist. What about all the people with poor memory? I can't remember their NAME, let alone their goofy pronouns.

how the fuck are these people going to cope with real adult life?

This is why so many of them are grifters.

I can remember other things, faces and dates for example, just can't remember names. I've always had a problem with names for whatever reason.

I'd end up using the wrong ones. For everybody who wants to be called zir, I'd probably call them zonkers. Or use their pronoun for a name. Or just make stuff up. I'm too old for this childish nonsense, arrest me for being irritated. "Zonkers, would you tell BroomHilda that someone just gobbleddegooked HER bezzlewick? What do you mean you don't understand, I AM speaking english!"

I can't think what the hell I would say though
I'm going with his holiness, or her highness.
Depending on the femme/masculine type of day I'm having.
If pips bounce can do both so can I.

🤣

Yes exactly! All the lonely people...

It's unlikely that anybody will agree with me on a feminist board, but I think certain types of feminism have likely helped lay the foundation for these self obsessed, perpetually offended individuals.

Not 2nd wave feminism or the type that fights improve human rights for women, but more the type who get bent out of shape about the inherent sexism in calling something a 'manhole cover' or 'workman' (despite over 95% of workmen being male).

The purple haired, perpetually offended individual used to be the stereotype of the third wave feminist but now feminist are using it to derisively describe 'oh so woke' millenials.