I’ve been on social media since my freshman year of high school, and yes, I realize how late this is. Therefore, I didn’t have a MySpace, but I know all about the Top 8 friend ranking thing. I honestly believe that this right here may have been the root of our generation’s pettiness. We didn’t have real issues when MySpace was around, let’s be real, we moved someone down the list the second they forgot to respond to our last aim. To be even more petty we’d change our away message to call out that one friend who wouldn’t let you copy their homework assignment #notrust (not that we’d admit that it was actually about them, that is).
Today, we’ve evolved into a world of subtweets and finsta blog posts, complaining about issues that really aren’t issues and avoiding any true form of direct communication.
And you wanna know what makes all of this even worse?
We don’t just act petty, we glorify it.
We write articles and blog posts about our petty escapades, like the time we took all of our roommates’ dishes and piled it on top of her bed. We laugh over that time we “accidentally” broke our boyfriend’s favorite video game because we saw him snapchatting his ex-girlfriend. We publicize stupid arguments with our friends to gain sympathy and in turn, taking a simple misunderstanding and blowing it way out of proportion. And when we do this, we get congratulated. People think you’re so funny and so clever, when really you’re just petty.
And now you’re sitting there like, hell yeah, I am petty, is that a problem? Because for some reason our society is so messed up that it’s talked you up to think that the way you’re handling your problems is brilliant, and I will say that there is a certain level of creativity that comes into the act of being petty af, but at what cost?
Well if you don’t know the cost, I’m going to tell you. Every time I see a subtweet or some random post that’s obviously about someone, I just think that you’re so immature, to the point that you don’t even know how to talk to someone when you have a problem. And that’s not funny, it makes you a coward, and it’s sad. Here’s the thing, pettiness never actually solves anything. In every case that I’ve ever seen, it just takes a miscommunication between two people and turns it into a long drawn out process where in the end, you both end up hating each other more than before.Â
I don’t know why our generation has become so obsessed with being petty, but I can promise you that if you ever want to really solve your problems, the best way to do it is to be straightforward and talk it out. You’ll gain respect from whoever may be involved and you won’t end up with no one but a couple followers. We need to love each other and push each other to be the best we can be, and the only way we can do that is by facing our differences and working it out the old fashioned way, like kindergarten, except now there isn’t a teacher there telling you to hug it out.
So please, from one member of our generation to another, can we all just grow up?