- By: Amira Gamil, Editor-In-Chief
Earlier this semester, Reem Nafie, one of my favourite professors in the JRMC department, bumped into me, huffing as she recalled some of her least favourite interactions with her batch of students.
She told me our generation is in- sufferable, that she can’t deal with us anymore. I laughed and agreed that sometimes we can “lowkey” be too much to handle. Hours passed, but her disappointment in our mannerisms and quirks kept ringing in my ears all day. I went back home, feeling off and in a desperate need to just doomscroll in bed.
I argued back and forth with my mother who eventually got frustrat- ed with me and told me “ento geel mehabeb!” (you are a messed-up generation!)
Okay, two complaints in a row might mean something. Could they be right? In true Gen-Z fashion, I decided to take things personal.
The idea crept in suddenly but care- fully: could my special issue as Edi- tor-In-Chief be about Gen-Z? I mean, The Caravan has had numerous special issues of lasting impact on topics like Palestine, sexual harassment, addic- tion and issues of global concerns more than I can count. Could discussing Gen-Z ever stand in comparison? The generation that drowns itself in mat- cha, oversized hoodies and owns an embarrassingly absurd digital foot- print of TikToks?
And that’s when it hit me. If, as one of this generation, this is the internal perception I have, then it would be
naive to expect others to see beyond our trends and quirks.
Why would I be disheartened by their comments, when I too believe the same? It’s like everyone has a perfectly curated opinion about our identity, yet we still don’t even know what this identity comes down to.
Within this noise, we fell victim to a projection of Gen-Z rather than our reality. In between the complaints of us being ‘too anxious’, ‘always online’, ‘too negative’, we started to believe those statements, and our true essence took a backseat.
We forgot that it all comes back to this: we are the generation that had to adapt.
When it came to the Arab Spring, we watched our countries fall to the ground, our voices echoed in the streets, we lost our family members, our friends and homes. Yet, we still believed in the power of change.
When it came to a global pandemic, we started baking, we started creating choreographed TikTok dances, we ex- changed laughs and music in between vaccine rounds and Instagram stories flooded with ‘RIP’s.
When the censorship got to us, we shared memes, whispering our defi- ance of authority even if only through hints of references understood solely by other Gen-Zs.
When we saw neighbouring coun- tries being burned to the ground, we had our phones in hand and the kef- fiyehs in the other to contribute in the way we know best.
We witness and overcome simulta- neously and we keep doing so across so many fronts. Yet, at the end of the day, we remain ridiculed to just a gen- eration that is merely ‘always on that darn phone’
But if being ‘on that darn phone’ means speaking up, driving for change and seeing beyond the potential, then yes, this is something I can live by.
Hand me that darn phone.
