i want you to extend the benefit of the doubt to the zoomers, generation alpha, and beyond. i want you to remember how many of us had brains brined in reactionary rot from news media. i want you to recall the bombardment of misogyny from impossible beauty standards. i want you to recollect the suspicion and distrust we were treated with.
do not reinstitute generational warfare. do not abhor and decry the future as a lost cause. if you have the power and opportunity to be a good influence to younger people, take it. i would not be the person i am today without the love and good faith extended to me by the people around me on my old forums. i grew up in an especially white, racist, and queerphobic village in Michigan, with a remarkably evil and miserable father while i was bullied literally every day in school until my senior year of high school. i literally had people tell me to my face they thought i'd be a school shooter.
I WOULD NOT HAVE ESCAPED without a moderator on a forum offering me a place to stay on her couch and the love from friends online telling me i could be better, do better. We are all in this together. I know it's safer to hide, to mind your own business. Sometimes you have to extend your hand anyway. I have gone from being a miserable little shit that used jokes to cover up a bruised ego to a loved woman who has been called an angel, a superhero, a shonen protagonist, a knight, and on one most memorable occasion a likely member of the Tzadikim Nistarim.
I DO NOT LIKE TOOTING MY OWN HORN. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to be anything but meek and humble because I was raised Catholic and to be otherwise was unseemly, and even besides that some of the worst people I know have big heads about themselves. With that in mind, I lay myself bare to show you what could be, what can come to pass when you offer love and support to the younger generation. I am not asking you to assume all trolls are secretly deeply sensitive people. I am asking you to look closely, to notice when a bleeding heart is among you. Extend them a bandage and an embrace. The future might be built with their hands.
the reason why we allowed users under 18 on cohost is because i strongly believe that cross-generation interaction is good for literally everyone. the only reason i turned out even remotely normal is because when i was 16 i had a bunch of friends in their late 20s and 30s and they treated me like an actual person.
it saddens me to see other people my age treat The Youth like they're uniquely annoying or whatever, like we weren't a bunch of fucking morons at that point. how many 30 year olds have you had to tell to touch grass. there's just as many obnoxious 40 year olds as there are obnoxious 20 year olds and you are doing yourself a disservice by writing off everyone younger than you because you saw one stupid tweet one time.
you will have a better time if you treat each other like people. the internet makes that hard but it's necessary. we hoped we could lessen that perceived separation somewhat and i'm not sure if we succeeded but that doesn't mean i think it's any less important.
