In New York City's Manhattan borough, my dad grew up in a two-bedroom apartment with one brother and two loving parents. My childhood does not seem too far from his, with good schools, close friends, and many family vacations. However, during our conversations and efforts at relatability, he shared a detail about his childhood I found disturbing.
He mentioned that his family always hosted dinner parties and that he was rarely allowed to interact with guests. Due to the closeness I have with my parent's friends, I, too, found this disturbing, but it wasn't the main point. Instead, he shares that he never heard his parents discuss region, politics, or divorce with any guests or among themselves.
Now, my generation gets a lot of flak for being the way it is, and I agree we all need a little bullying. We knew we were weird when we opted for Snapchat instead of texting and FaceTime over hanging out in person. We are far from the conventional, but this gives me hope. As a generation, we talk constantly with no subject boundaries. We talk so much that we have created ways to speak even when our mouths are shut, and half the world has gone to sleep. It's a wild concept but beneficial.
You see, even though our listening skills and potential delivery of subject matters may be utter trash, at least we're having the conversations. The current generation is so open and so honest that we don't even know what to do with ourselves. The subject is so vast and fragile that we don't even know where to start, but we will bring it up.
Numerous social movements over the past century have changed the world as we know it, and I don't disregard them. Our freedoms result from the protesters who moved on foot and changed the world by mouth. However, there once was a world where if you didn't like what someone stood for, you could walk in the other direction and never see them again, and that's not the reality of the Internet. You may never actually see them, and they could still be everywhere.
While previous social movements continue to stimulate us, the Internet and social media have allowed uncomfortable conversations to gain a new stage.
My dad, for example, talks about going all the way through college before understanding that having mental health issues didn't always mean you needed to be in a psych ward. The National Alliance on Mental Illness shares that they ran into problems trying to raise awareness in the 70s and 80s with no email, Internet, or social media. It wasn't until the early 2000s that NAMI's You Are Not Alone, an awareness campaign, could use the Internet and social media. Media platforms enabled the campaign to get personal testimonials to show the hope, recovery, and support of "people like you, your brother, your best friend..." Mental Health Education | NAMI.
The Internet brought the uncomfortable topic of mental health to people's faces, and wild enough, people took to it. Since then, through many efforts, the conversation of mental health has moved from medical records to your dinner table.
The conversation about sexuality is no different. In the past three decades, public support for lesbians and gay men has doubled, according to the University of Los Angeles Williams Institute. National Trends in Public Opinion on LGBT Rights in the United States - Williams Institute. Additionally, support for LGBTQ+ rights has increased not only because younger, more accepting generations have replaced older ones but also because a cultural shift toward acceptance has impacted people of all ages and ideologies.
The younger generations have sparked a cultural shift, affecting more individuals than we can imagine, regardless of age. Increasing awareness of the LGBTQ+ community has led to trust and ease in sharing stories because of the openness and freedom of conversation along the intent. Although these challenges persist, Internet activism and global solidarity have brought these issues to the forefront and highlighted other broader social justice movements.
A seemingly insignificant detail of my father's life changed my perspective on how I receive information today. The older generation will focus on the abnormalities of the youth, while the youth will chastise their environment for being unable to change it. While neither side is right nor wrong, understanding this cultural shift may help unite the world.
My faith lies in the fact that these topics of conversation, such as religion, mental health, and sexuality, are no longer being swept under the rug. This generation might be off on its hinges, but that's simply because these topics are being openly discussed for the first time in a digital age. The current generation can be criticized for many things, especially its communication style, but its ability to embrace uncomfortable conversations isn't to be dismissed. The way current generations approach conversation may not be the best, but at least we're talking about it, and it will continue to stimulate a more well-spoken and understanding environment for generations to come.