Millennials ruin everything

     Millennials ruin everything

Blessing Mhlanga. 18 - 09 - 2019

We have a crisis and it’s not a joke. Millennials have become slaves of social media to an extent where they have divorced their true identity and are willing to live a life of mirage while pursuing to become what they’re not and sacrificing their priceless and precious destinies in the process.

Youth and teenagers have shun the innovative power of education and chosen the path of quick fixes, a life of comfort, pleasure and leisure. Here is the problem, young people have made social media their close darling dramatically by thinking, desiring, envying and emulating the glitz and glamour from prominent celebrities of Facebook, twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp etc. Without finding out the source and catalysts of their wealth or fame, they begin to aspire not only to be like them but also to be them, somehow.

There’s a nightmare called identity crisis among the young people and it’s slowly eating them up to the point of obsession, if not madness. Young girls have harboured a misconception that if I don’t have a Zodwa Wabantu butt, then I’m not sexy enough. They have believed that if I don’t have a Pearl Thusi skin, then I’m far from the merit of true beauty. Yellow bone seems to be the preferred definition of beauty.

Boys on the other hand have internalised the deceit that floods of money, power, fame, fast cars and dating a skinny model is the acceptable standard of achievement. To some extent, they think being a celebrity brings fulfillment.

I’m petrified and furious for this trending deceit. When they compare themselves with these celebrities on social media, low self-esteem dawns within them because they don’t have what these celebrities are showing off online. This gives a desperate feeling to want to be someone else that you’re not, slowing losing your sense of self. When sense of self diminishes, knowledge of one’s purpose and potential vanishes. That’s where criminality becomes the order for survival.

This is why we have countless young people desiring to be celebrities without knowing who they are. They want to be famous but they don’t know in what. They want to be the next Bonang Matheba but don’t know how. That’s why some date blessers, sugar mamas, some sell their bodies, others kill, steal and defraud trying to fulfill that empty desire to be what they saw on social media.

I drowned in a river of my own tears when I discovered that 55,2% of youth aged 15 - 24 in South Africa were unemployed in the last quarter of 2019. The root problem is that the youth don’t know who they really are, hence they are clueless about which direction to take for their life to birth fulfilling results.

They want to be rich but they’re not willing to put in the work because social has told them that you can take a shortcut or quick fix to be rich. This is why most of them study courses that don’t suit them and this normally results in dropping out or having a useless qualification.

They want to drive the same car T-boo touch is driving, they want to sip the same champagne AKA is drinking, they want the same dress Minnie Dlamini is wearing, they desire what is not theirs, which will probably never be their own. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with admiring or getting some inspiration from social media and it’s dazzling gods but there’s deadly danger in emulating someone or desiring to be them.

From their website, Mayo Clinic (2018) assert that excessive use of social media among the youth may lead to feelings hopelessness, worthlessness, agitation and social isolation. These feelings are toxic enough to make a youth commit suicide because they are fed up of poverty and joblessness due to the fact that they copied a life that was not their own, a life of mirage from social media. These feeling are deadly enough to turn a handsome youth into a slave to drugs because they failed to achieve the glitz and glomour that social media depicted.

Here is my plea to parents: teach your children that social media is not reality. It’s a platform of showing off and seeking applauds from the lazy crowd that doesn’t want to work hard to attain true success. It’s a tool to sell a mirage, vanity and fake identities to those who haven’t discovered themselves. Teach the youth that genuine achievement is pursuing your inner talent and passion which will not only bring fulfillment but also change the junk status of our nation.

The future belongs to the youth but it’s the youth who are wrecking up their future before walking in it. Parents must monitor how much time their children are spending on social media, who they are following, what they’re posting and to whom. If not, social media will negatively affect the child’s personal development and thinking capacity.

Teachers must also encourage millennials to think outside the box instead of forcing them to stick to the curriculum which boxes graduates to send endless CVs with no success. Instead, community leaders may also conduct entrepreneurship programmes where young people can be taught how to use social media to establish a profitable business and how they can use it to generate passive income using the knowledge and skills they have.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it surely takes a village to wreck one through social media. Instead of envying a celebrity’s skinny and flawless legs, curly and glossy hairstyle, luxurious car, sensational dress and seemingly cool lifestyle, Millennials must be encouraged to learn how these celebrities came to be where they are now and pile that wisdom for themselves.      

They must also detach themselves from social media celebrities by not desiring to be them. They must listen to the inner voice in their soul which is calling them to pursue their unique destiny not the one that says you can be the next Bonang Matheba, though you know that you don’t have a face for television.

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