Caption : Harajuku- where the future of Generation Y come together!
Photographer : CherryVega |
This piece was written in response to The generation that chases no rainbows, an article by Adele Horin published by the Sydney Morning Herald on 30 September 2006. You can read this article at
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-generation...
I have to start off my response by saying that I am so sick and tired of the media generalising young people, saying we don’t care about issues or have no real idea what’s happening in the world. After reading countless articles complaining and targeting the youth of today it made me think if this is what the media (thus the majority of the people who read and believe everything they read) think of Generation Y, then ‘Y’ should we try?
But then I thought a little bit more. The media isn’t really known for being kind to the youth of today and obviously haven’t done their research. I’m a 21 year-old social work student at the University of Sydney and I’m certainly known to be materialistic at times. People who talk to me initially think that I’m a blonde bimbo who likes and knows everything about Paris Hilton and the Hollywood brat pack and who think the “Real World” is simply a show on MTV. But there is a lot more depth to young people like me that you think.
Young people do care about issues and do have a good understanding of issues, they just don’t define that interest as “political” because it’s not cool to be interested in “politics” as such. It’s quite interesting, if you ask a young person if they consider themselves political, they ARE often quick to say no. But then once you start to dig a little deeper, you find there is a range of issues that piss them off. Petrol Prices, John Howard, the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers to name a few. But wait a minute; these are political issues aren’t they?’
And THAT is the exact moment young people realise that they are political and that they do care.
Go ahead and put me in the category of young people who don’t care. And to be fair, I probably didn’t care as much as I should until a few months ago. As I mentioned earlier, I am a social work student and I am currently on my placement at Actnow.com.au, a web-based service that allows young people, aged between 16-25 to build the confidence and gives them to the tools to take action in their community. It’s democratic outlet for young people to write issue papers, opinion pieces, reflection stories and create photo galleries. ActNow encourages the youth of today take part in social, civic and community causes which are areas which young people usually feel daunted and incapable to take action in. And seriously, do you blame us for feeling inept of doing so if this is the pretty picture the media paints of us?
Since launch in May we had 822 young people (and after a month on MySpace, we have 1169 friends) who care who want to take action and change their worlds. See, by using the world your/their world you are tapping into the selfishness of society who only care about things that affect them. But big issues like global warming will affect our world if we don’t do something about it soon.
And by the way- I DO know the difference between global warming and globalisation.
