Wednesday 4 May 2016

Why our generation has to stop being offended!


The generation I was born in, the 90’s we have had the best time. And I say it in the sense that we had the better part of the technological revolution, the birth of social media, and ‘smart’ phones that let us do, see and share anything we want with the world. And with that has obviously brought its own disadvantages. Before continuing any further, I would like to say that the world we live in is one filled with hate, and breeds contempt. Of course, we live in peaceful times but that doesn’t necessarily make us happy. One of the issues of that our generation has to face due to the rise of social media and global news deceptively presenting information which spreads like wildfire which leads us to being easily offended, and is something I wanted to discuss today.

Well you might ask, why is being offended a problem? It’s a problem because we get offended easily, and we think this gives us a right to position us as the victim to inequality. This is an outright, completely flawed concept and this mentality is one that has to be changed for the collective good of the society we live in. Yes, there are horrible, religiously offensive and politically incorrect jokes that will leave us infuriated, but that doesn’t give us the right to feel being ‘better’ than someone else. At best, tweets from an untalented comedian will give the rednecks small snort of laugher, but does not give someone the right to go after these people with a mob-like mentality on social media without the proper context. Context is also very important in determining what a certain person, and organization is trying to convey, and since the internet has become host to people with people with very little spans of concentration, the media  has changed their headlines to suit these people and thus has brought upon the ‘clickbaits’.

One of the reasons that we are negatively biased against a certain person or a topic of conversation that has been buzzing the internet is because of the media presenting hoaxes, scams or just deceiving the internet in the most dishonest way possible. Without the proper context, a certain phrase or sentence may be misconstrued by people and for the ‘quick buck’, the media will give the ‘juicy bits’ of the news and leave us feeling us angry, mad or even sad. A catalyst to these situations is the media who either overly dramatize the news, or who use deceptive clickbait titles, are worsening the situation to their profit. Being offended sells, and we have become pawns who are unwittingly exploited. At the end of the day, being offended is ‘our’ problem, not ‘theirs’.

Furthermore, if we do become seriously offended what do we do? We go to social media and write a huge Facebook post that encompasses how a certain movie, remark, nip slip had you offended. A certain snapchat filter of Bob Marley on 4/20 to appreciate his life come under fire as people mistook it as a lense to have a ‘blackface’. This is completely legit, this is very offensive to African American people, but it doesn’t mean we are in the clear because we are the ones that are being oppressed. To be quite honest, there have been more incredibly racist hate crimes carried out by people in the past, like the existence of the whole KKK clan itself.

So it appears that there are actually a lot of sexist remarks, horrible hate crimes, and people do not take into account for other people’s feelings and go too far. So yes, sometimes we really are the victim – but not always. Not even most of the time. This is why I personally think it’s time we stop. There are a lot of really, REALLY bad jokes that push a lot of our buttons but that doesn’t give us the right to mope about on social media and berating that certain individual until he or she loses his or her job. It’s not because we should accept being oppressed, not because of the media portraying certain unrealistic beauty standards, but because we are unique individuals. We only live once and we shouldn’t waste our time being miserable because we were offended. Because sometimes it’s okay to brush off jokes that are pushing our boundaries, and to fight the good fight when our ideals are mocked. Because what our generation needs to learn is that sometimes we just have to let things go.

I would like to end this post with a quote that summarizes what I have said very nicely:

“Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you're doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.”

- Joel Osteen

5 comments:

  1. Nice and a beautifully well built article, and totally agree with you bro. Thank you.

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    1. Thank you very much, much appreciated! :)

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  2. I Agree to a certain degree, I do think that people get offended easily, but your basing it off of the fact that it has to do with technology, I think we can get offended but i also think that the internet has just provided a bigger ground to be on than just locally, if something online offends you, what makes you think its not going to offend you face to face. Your saying people need to stop being offended even though no-one cant NOT be offended. Anything can offend someone. But i agree to the fact of people getting offended way to easily.

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    1. Hello Kaneki!
      The point I was trying to make was that the internet has provided us a bigger ground to bully each other, given that there are little to no consequences as the people we insult are not known on a personal level, e.g. Youtube comments section. Also, I said that people stop need to stop getting offended in the sense that in comparison to slavery, the Holocaust, a snapchat filter that darkens your face a little shouldn't be the least of anybody's problems! My overall point is that somethings you have to let go, and understand what is worth your time and what is not!
      Sorry for this long comment, and thanks for stopping by my blog!
      -Wimpy Asian

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    2. If you like what you see, please do follow the blog or follow me on social media! :)

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