3/4/24

Individuality, in theory, is something I would want to encourage others to explore within themselves. The idea that one is living their life for oneself, exploring who they are without the constraints of the "norm" or worry of others' perception sounds like an inherently positive thing, and until recently I would venture to say that it is. However, recent developments, or rather, regressions, in the current generation's ape brains have been dramatically halted by the rising influence of social media and the echo chamber of the same thoughts on repeat, only validating the thoughts we have; negative or otherwise. Why this has become such an evil thing in primarily Gen Z minds because TikTok has essentially removed our critical thinking skills and the ability to differentiate between negative and positive affirmation.  

When social media first started, thinking specifically of sites like MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, it was a space for friends to connect from all over the world and share what they found interesting. As these sites gained popularity and celebrities began running up the most liked posts and most followed accounts, our mindset towards them quickly became competitive and resulted in a mass shift in mindset almost exclusively pertaining to our perception of ourselves. Though celebrities have always been famous, and people have always had problems, it goes without saying that cuts for Zayne never would happened without the existence of Twitter, relationships would last significantly longer without Instagram, and I never would've started an Onlyfans without TikTok. The point being, social media's influence on the general public quickly went from silly trends featuring mustaches, galaxy backgrounds, and a strong dependence on Lorde, to countries holding global conferences about social media's interjections in the election. 

What makes this shift so pressing now, is the way it has shaped this generation's entire perspective of their place in the world. Gen Z is the oldest generation to have had social media be a part of their most formative years, and the impact that that has had on us is something I think even we aren't ready to properly address. However, the reason I felt this was an issue important enough to discuss two weeks in a row, A; is because I don't feel like I made my point last week and B; because we are genuinely like so fucked. 

As easy as it would seem to just blame TikTok, as an app that quickly became a capstone for "influential" fame, I think the real root of the issue at hand runs deeper than that. While apps like TikTok play a massive role, which I will give a more in-depth look into later on, part of the problem that I hate to address because of how beaten down this conversation is, but is a conversation to be had, is how the lockdown affected everyone, but especially those in their 16-18 years of age. Gen Z's perspective of life was inevitably skewed by the media coverage constantly surrounding us, and while we were saved from the pressing desire to be and look like a 20-year-old at the age of 12 that so many young kids seem to struggle with now, the pressure to "act our age" before getting to that age was certainly still present. One thing I think accelerated this in many people was older siblings, and seeing the lifestyles they experienced in their teen years as we watched and expected to gain that life for ourselves. However, upon reaching that age, we were unlucky enough to be forced into isolation. While the lockdown itself only really lasted a few weeks, most people continued to quarantine unless they had no other choice. Because of this, we all lost a lot of important socialization and experiences that could've greatly changed the perspectives we had on life in our 20s, had the Summer of 2020 gone a little differently. And TikTok did not help.

Not only was 2020 a strange year for our brain's development, but it was also a difficult year for everyone's self-image and perception of themselves and those around them. 2020 was when things like Hype House, "Alt TikTok", and many other extremely embarrassing trends to reminisce on occurred, and began categorizing every socially online active teenager into an overarching category. Meanwhile, because these trends were all we were seeing at the time, we all simultaneously tried our very hardest to be associated with the trends we liked, while also not blending in as an attempt to be our genre of the hip-happening life. A lack of socialization and desire to stand out in our own, unique ways resulted in an individuality complex that I think we are still suffering from to this day. 

I'll start by saying that having a sense of individuality and separation from the masses is a good thing. Period. Being able to differentiate yourself from the trends you follow is something I don't think everyone can always do. The downside is that individuality as I have just defined it is not everyones agreed upon guidelines, and many who agree that individuality is a good thing, go about pursuing such an achievement in a wildly damaging way, primarily to others, but just as damaging to themselves in the long run. The way I see it, people have confused ego and egotistically driven behavior for individuality or "protecting one's peace", and have acted accordingly for the past few years. In addition to the lockdown's effect on our self-image, the polarizing political divide that occurred in this era, especially in the realm of misogyny and misandry, did not help the issue. Society's view of sex as a whole became vastly skewed in more ways than one. While yes, it goes without saying that sexting certainly spiked in popularity at this time, and I'm sure there is plenty to be said about what that did to people's minds, (maybe a later post) it was the discourse about sex occurring online that is what I think the main culprit of our current view of one another, especially in romantic settings is. 

Hookup culture is no new thing, and there have always existed individuals who feel very differently about sex and relationships than the stereotypical norm. However, continuing to think of this through the effect media has had, consider shows like "How I Met Your Mother", "FRIENDS", and "New Girl". There is a group of people trying to find love, one or two with commitment issues, and one who has no interest in relationships at all. Even in more adult, sexually empowered shows like "Sex and the City", Samantha was the only one actively uninterested in relationships, though they all enjoyed sex as is, Miranda, Carrie, and Charlotte had sex with those they were looking for love from, Samantha being the only one who just wanted to fuck. These mediums in media portrayed a more realistic to the time view of sex, and an equally realistic to the time diversity in perspective regarding relationships, resulting in the people consuming it following suit. 

The discourse that occurs on apps like TikTok revolves almost entirely around these ideas, but takes it a step further into black and white definition; sexual promiscuity becoming either the worst thing in the world or the most empowering thing in the world. We were all so bored, and most of us in Gen Z being underage, we came into contact with our sexuality and the sexualization of our bodies in very strange ways; almost entirely through the internet. And because this time was a time in which we all wanted to be included, but also separated at the same time, we followed the thinking of whoever was most popular, people who often carried the ideas that, for example, Onlyfans and porn, in general, were sexually liberating in a feminist context, and not at all us buying into a misogynistic narrative that we should provide sex for men without them even asking because we knew they would anyway. 

In the midst of all of this, we had to rationalize with ourselves, and also our older peers, why sexualizing our bodies was a positive thing, a concept that frequently encircled the aforementioned idea that men are going to sexualize us regardless, so we may as well do it ourselves and make a good buck off of it in the meantime. However, from the mindset came an entire generation of people now heavily involved in their own and others sex lives, posting pictures ranging from a post-shower pic with a little more than a suggestion of a dick print, to a full uncensored hole. While fine and dandy as it is to post whatever you want on the internet if you want to, along the way some of us capitalized on the pre-existing expectations of our bodies, and some of us got into it because we normalized it, resulting in a high population of very normal men with a very normal sex drive now existing in a space in which their fuck-boy antics are not only validated but encouraged; now we have an entire generation of people, men women and literally everyone else, who get pleasure from sex and have no real reason to look for anything more. We created a paradox. Sex became a focus in pivotal years, promoted by the growing number of people creating Onlyfans and 18+ Twitter accounts as soon as they turn 18, resulting in the benefits (sex) of a relationship being essentially the only attainable connection and relationships themselves becoming too convoluted with labels and terms for people bold enough to say they do not want one, but too much of a pussy to admit they do not know how to have one. 

In 2024, I have experienced my fair share of the negatives from this paradox we made for ourselves. In 2021, one month after turning 18, I made my onlyfans account. My defense being exactly what I've detailed above; enough people had expressed interest in my naked body that I figured it made sense, to make a quick buck, minimal effort, and continue with my life as normal. It continued in this manner until I started dating, and found others doing the same thing as me, but for very different reasons. These people actually enjoyed showing off their bodies, which is in no way a bad thing, however, their attitude towards their role as a sex worker and their role as a human being was significantly more blurred than mine. Whereas I felt I was playing a role when I posted pictures with captions like "my pussy feels so tight", knowing it would garner more activity on my account, others posted genuine feelings of desire to hookup, be 'daddy', said 'good boy' unironically. I was aghast at the realization that some people actually existed as their Onlyfans personas, the issue is they had yet to come to that conclusion. These people continue swiping on dating apps not exclusively designated to hookups and tell others they want a relationship but don't have the time, or they want 'something casual' as a way to mask their own feelings towards only wanting one thing. The issue with this is that, while hookups used to be two people meeting and fucking and going their separate ways, the overabundance of sex essentially turned it into something else, an unspoken expectation from anyone you meet, rather than something mutually expressed. The relationship itself could be anything, romantic, platonic, actual dating, nonexistent, but the expectation of sex remained the same, because, at the end of the day, what else is there to do? We disconnected from what sex actually is, and, prompted by the TikTok therapy lingo, continued to look for what we want with disregard to what others' motives are. And that is the meat of this entire essay I have for some reason been committing to for the past four days. 

I hope this makes sense cause this makes perfect sense to me but idk.

We became so bored in 2020 that we basically rapid-fire experienced every genre of dating except for actual genuine connection, resulting in an abundance of sources reaffirming we do what's best for ourselves,  and that we don't owe anybody anything, a recent TikTok I saw said ghosting is a better alternative than explaining why you would like to stop seeing someone because it hurts their feelings. This constant and consistent acknowledgment of our own emotions on an individual basis, then combined with the emergence of self-sexualization for the whole world to see, created a new pandemic of very emotionally out-of-touch teenagers. A good example or way of proving what I'm talking about is going to a trained psychologist and telling them that you would rather go no contact with someone you don't like instead of rationally communicating your feelings, and seeing whether or not they would agree with you. On one hand, I wholeheartedly understand and agree with the idea that one should look out for themselves, and if you're not getting what you want there is absolutely no reason you should continue on that path. However, this whole area of thinking becomes skewed when that mindset becomes weaponized towards those who don't deserve it. 

These two issues, lack of commitment and over-sexualization seem like two different, unrelated problems. However, they become overlapped based on their point of conception. The sexual discourse that occurred during this era of TikTok was prompted by an action of reclamation; men will sexualize us so well do it ourselves; men will hurt us so well stop caring; focus on yourself. At face value, these are both things I can and will get behind. But the lack of critical thinking also abundant on that app resulted in the premise of these ideas becoming convoluted, and the thought that men will hurt us so we will stop giving them the satisfaction turned into anyone could hurt me so I'll stop giving them the chance. Why did this happen? one might ask. My thinking is where my thinking always is; men. Men got ahold of this mentality and, especially in queer communities because, let's be honest, straight men have almost always been this way, used it to rationalize their heinous activities without the context of why "focusing on yourself" was so heavily encouraged in our spaces. And now four years later we are faced with a population of young adults almost entirely removed from the ability to create and maintain long-lasting relationships of any kind. 

The premise of individuality crossed over into areas of ego, and self-indulgent thinking in the way of not thinking of anyone else; nobody cares anymore. Relationships mean basically nothing because everyone has a collective mindset that we need to focus on ourselves, and that how we affect others in the process is, while sometimes unfortunate, not really our problem. Sex can be replaced, friends offending you once is an end all be all, partners are almost always selected based on self-satisfaction, and less selected from the idea that you actually enjoy who they are as a person for longer than two months. 

At the start, these discussions were rooted in one's mental health, a mindset to possess to avoid getting hung up on things and people who don't deserve your time of day. However, as a result of the echo chamber that TikTok is, these discussions spread to areas less concerned with self-health, and more concerned with the inability to argue against such points when utilized in a negative manner. What's worse is that this way of thinking can also be used as a defense mechanism for yourself, as it rationalizes things like the aforementioned example, ghosting, to being something done for the other person's best interest; "I didn't want to hurt their feelings by explaining why Im no longer interested, so I just said nothing" meanwhile the person on the other end is up at 4 am wondering what about themselves or what thing they could've said to make someone go from someone they wanted to someone that would ghost them. Having a sense of individuality is good, and healthy, as is protecting one's piece, however, these are not items to be used against others, or to discredit the harm caused unto someone else because you don't want to appear as the bad guy. Individuality is something to make you feel better about yourself, your own self-perception, and your own self-image, yet, because of how good our generation is at twisting the meaning of things and weaponizing them to victimize ourselves, a sense of individuality has turned itself back into what we began the conversation about, to begin with.