Is it me or are we all taking sides these days; do we all have itchy trigger fingers? I was at a party the other day and someone complained that the host was serving Red Vines, not Twizzler. I could barely keep my composure — WHO would ever want spongy, red goo, that will take a Waterpik on steroids to get out of your teeth? Because of the obvious superiority of Red Vines, I thought she would be easy to flip, however, I couldn’t change her mind, and learned she grew up in Texas, where getting Twizzlers was a childhood highlight. My bad.
Where is this tribalism coming from? It seems to be coming from everywhere, especially my phone. After sharing clever Gen X rules videos (I feel seen!) with my cousin, my Instagram feed was inundated with generational warfare videos. I didn’t know this was a battle now, too? I can’t figure out if I am jealous of the entitlement I saw from a whiny Gen Z’er in a recent TikTok video, using terms like “performative tasks” in regards to her job, or just truly annoyed by what looked to me like a person wanting life delivered to her on a silver platter. When I brought the video up with two of our college-age interns, they agreed that the TikToker was annoying, and suddenly my armor was down. Phew, we aren’t on opposite sides. I was falling for the click bait of our 2-second media cycle. Dare I bring up politics? Nah, let’s leave that topic off the table.
Speaking of getting along, we all got a smile from a letter we received without a return address. The request was to include street addresses so one doesn’t need to navigate via computer. He or she makes a really good point. And the final sentence, although expressing irritability, could be perceived as a nice olive branch to the mental health obsessed Gen Z’ers…