The kids are afraid of feeling. They, for whatever reason, have an aversion to showing any sign of caring, frustration, sadness, the like. In the minds of young people everywhere there is a block that has been developing and solidifying against the vulnerabilities of being human. They call this ‘nonchalance’ a new way of being, the proper way to go about living, and just a sign of the times.
But why?
It’s hard for me to say that old phrase, ‘the kids are alright.’ Especially these days, where it seems that having emotions and showing them somehow equates to being weaker than your peers, or having less resolve to the pains of everyday life. And beyond that; showing positive emotions, like excitement for things to come, or even love. Why is it that we’ve decided that showing love and affection is weakness?
‘Nonchalance,’ as the word has been assigned to this phenomenon, is something that was popularized by the mass media spread of Tik Tok. Things like this, such as ‘mewing’ or ‘clean girl aesthetic’ (you can name a few, there are thousands) become ingrained in the media that many people, young and old, are consuming. It starts as something weird and needing to be explained, creating curiosity, eventually making itself clear through thousands and thousands of people claiming to subscribe to that concept or idea.
What’s different about Nonchalance, I think, is that it seems to affect the younger generations a lot more than the older. This is what makes it particularly harmful and even dangerous. The overwhelming damages we were left behind post-pandemic, such as the 25% increase in mental health issues (according to WHO), I believe play a role in the orientation towards the younger folks that exist online. Our world is not the same one we knew before we spent two years away from it, confined to our living rooms, watching as the shift took place. There are some people who say things didn’t change, that this was inevitable and the pandemic only made it seem this way. But the children, the young minds that knew the most important years of life as separation, plastic walls, and distance, those are the ones who would feel it the most.
The kids, for now, aren’t alright, because what else have they known? There is so much hatred, confusion, and pain, for some it’s easier to push those things to the side, pretend as though they aren’t really there. When was there time to learn how to process the many pieces of everyday life? We were so busy doing everything we could to get the masks off the children, we forgot about the minds that hid behind them. Now, they are scrambling through the brambles of growing older with their only guides being terms that have drifted far from their original meanings, trends that push them further into the patterns of quick dopamine rushes, and coping mechanisms that do more harm than good. On top of all that, the constant horrors that are constantly taking place in our world on a global scale can become overwhelming, and many kids never learned how to regulate those fears and worries.
I won’t claim a bias case for my own sensitivity. I have always been the kind of person who feels things very deeply — my own emotions, and the emotions of others as well. As a child I always had to be the first of my siblings to get my shots at a doctor appointment, because if I heard their cries from the needles I would be in tears almost instantly. They’d stab my tan skin and send me out to the waiting room. I have always been, and still am, the kind of person to bear all the weight of hurts, pains, loves, joys. I can’t imagine being any other way. Sure, there are times when being this way can feel almost burdensome, worn down by extremities and sorrows that can become consuming in every corner of my life. But, without those feelings, especially those good ones that come with the light parts of being human, I would not have the people in my life that I love so dearly, or the experiences that have made the person I have the opportunity to be. And even if this applies a bias to my argument, it would be unfair to say that there aren’t other people who are just the same, who feel as I feel.
Who are we as people without feelings and emotions? Every part of being alive is about how we react to the things we see or the things that happen to us. I’ve seen people wanting to blame the kids for wanting to be ‘nonchalant,’ pinning them as soulless or lost. But how would kids know any better when they’ve barely been shown as such? To love, hurt, cry, scream, and laugh is all human, all vital to being. The slow joys of an evening spent with friends, or the prolonged blues of losing something or someone — both are two small parts of a larger whole, one that could never be replaced by nonchalance or dopamine hits that come and go seconds at a time. That is the vital difference between then and now.
So then, the question is: how do we recover from this? What will it take for the pendulum to swing back?
It has to start small. In the ways that we not only treat the ones who are already pushing it all down, locking away the feelings and shutting off — but all the people around us. There is always time to spend loving, learning, showing, crying, laughing, and there shouldn’t be any shame in those things, no matter how daunting the world around us may be.
