Log with Liv

Like it or not, our generation, technology, and social media are inseparable. We may not be snot-nosed toddlers gripping an iPad with a screen protector stronger than god, but our dependency on technology and the online world’s similar reliance on our consumption will always tie our future to that of technology. It is what we have grown up with. It is what we have dedicated our every extra moment to, and ultimately, it is what brings us together while tearing us apart. You could write thousands and thousands of words about why technology and streaming services and different platforms have produced a glass generation: readily offended, lazy, dependent, insecure, comparison-prone, and easily distracted. We know the pitfalls of the apps and habits we have come to adopt as our own. The point is, though, it is a part of our lives. We have quickly become the media we consume. Phones for hands, button-like fingers, and LED-studded eyes, our generation has become irrevocably associated with the media permeating our lives.

I am not here to complain about this technology — griping about social media, Netflix, or some online trend is a job already well-employed by a majority of the population over twenty-five. This digital trifecta of streaming, posting, and communicating has created a unified, aware generation, connecting millions of young adults in a way no previous generation has related to each other. 

This week, the name “Wednesday Addams” has found its way into a disproportionate percentage of my conversations. Every other TikTok video seems to be a Jenna Ortega interview or a clip of Wednesday dancing. From streaming the show on Netflix to Instagram posts with Wednesday-inspired outfits, I find it endearing that, for a moment in time, we take a collective interest, a shared appreciation, if you will, in the same thing.

The release of season four of Stranger Things this year brought a similar sense of unity. For weeks, we adopted an 80’s style of dressing, Kate Bush played on our Bluetooth car radios, and Metallica became appreciated by a new age of teenagers. Every Sunday night, too, we convened with glittered eyelids and absurd outfits to watch Euphoria with our friends, sharing our theories, ships, and season hopes with each other across social media platforms, with schools buzzing with conversation of the episode the next morning.

We share the same sense of music, watching each other’s Spotify Wrapped every year, sharing the artists we have spent the past eleven months getting to know intimately. We post stories on Instagram with our favorite song of the week playing in the top left corner. A teenager’s show-and-tell, we bare our hearts, hopes, and emotions with a screenshot of whatever album we are listening to at the moment. The generation of instant communication is also that of instant connection and a shared sense of pop culture that prevails in our lives tenfold since the days of MTV and teen magazines. For us, it is not a question of what is “cool,” of what is “trendy,” but a selfless and loving continuous trade of sharing what we enjoy and adopting the habits and tastes of those around us.

“Did you see so-and-so’s TikTok?”

The answer, of course, is “Yes! Did you see *insert other obscure reference that somehow an entire generation has experienced as a whole over the course of a few hours*?” 

There is comfort in our familiarity. A sense of security. We are united for a minute. United while we are young. I’m sure we will grow up, our lives divulging into two, some heading to the right, and others to the left. In due time, we will learn to hate each other (and that is not the cynic in me speaking — that is the realist). For now, though, we are separated from the rest of the world, together. Together in our own bubble of media, unified against the ridicule we receive for our connection to technology. Maybe every young generation feels a special connection to each other, an us-against-them approach to the world. I feel sure, though, that there is no group of people that have shared in pop culture, trends, ideas, and beliefs so quickly and readily. 

In this moment, we are young and growing, knowing each other better than we know ourselves. We share what we love with one another, begging a friend to watch a show that we binged in a day, or blasting our music in the car, asking each other “Who is this? I love this song!” People love to complain about our generation. That is a different problem entirely, but there is absolutely nothing more human than the idea that we are navigating the world as a unit, each connected by a show, an actor, a song, an Instagram page, a TikTok trend. We may spend our time apart, at times watching meaningless videos, editing pictures to post, counting the views on our stories, but we do so weaving the web that binds each of us together. 

We will remain together for a little longer. Our music tastes still shared, commenting on the same video, watching the newest season of some Hulu show simultaneously, hundreds of miles away. I don’t know exactly what the hourglass marking our divergence looks like. I like to think that the sand lies evenly on either side, falling slowly as we enjoy our lives. I like to think we have more time. I imagine the glass cracking as we learn to tolerate, if not love, each other from constant exposure and undeniable shared interests and media. Maybe we will stay loving, sharing, connected across oceans, borders, and socioeconomic divides. Maybe the hourglass will fall, sand spilling across the table. Maybe media will save us in the same way we have breathed a collective breath of life into the industry over the past decade. 

For now, I guess the question is, “Have you seen Wednesday? What did you think?”