The Internet was supposed to bring with it a renaissance, a new enlightenment and a brighter future. It was to be a time when people became smarter, having access to the collective knowledge of humanity at their fingertips, and with the invention of the smart phone, in their pocket, always. What could go wrong? A lot, it turns out. Actually, just about everything. The promise was not kept. All we ended up with was a bunch of narcissists desperate to share pictures of the food they're eating and demanding validation for their existence from everyone else.
Scroll through social media and you’ll be inundated with selfies and pictures of food. Did something really happen, did you really eat a meal if you didn’t tell the world about? It’s not that these people think you need to know where and what they’re eating, they need you to know. They want the likes and comments, they crave those more than the nutrition in the food. Hell, they probably choose where to eat based on how the food looks more than the taste or cost.
There is an entire segment of our population who now lives for the validation they receive from others. They need it. It’s not just because they like it, it’s because they have no self-worth without it.
It used to be that if you didn’t like someone, or they didn’t like you, you’d simply avoid them and the problem wasn’t only solved, it disappeared. Now people you’ve never met, will likely never meet, and probably would dislike if you did, demand you not only acknowledge their existence, but you celebrate it as well. If your beliefs, deeply held religious or simply a matter of taste, hinder the approval they desire you are labeled an “ist” or a “phobe” of some sort, then God protect you.
A recent column in The New York Times exemplifies this mentality perfectly, not because of its content as much as its existence. Entitled, “How Do I Define My Gender If No One Is Watching Me?” the sub-headline of, “Without the public eye, who are we?” completes the giveaway.
It’s a column full of progressive buzzwords and feelings about things most people couldn’t care less about.
Here’s a little fact most people understand: no one cares how you want to live your life, or who or what you think you are. Most people simply want to be left alone. As long as whatever you do is done with willing adults, and is legal, who gives a damn?
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That’s not good enough anymore, you have to give as many damns that are requested of you, lest the mob be sent after your life.
The author of that Times piece wrote, “I was surprised by how much my gender instead seemed to almost evaporate. No longer on the alert for how to signal a restaurant’s waitstaff that neither 'he' nor 'she' applied to me, or for whether colleagues and neighbors would use the right language — devoid of anyone to signal my gender to — I felt, suddenly, amorphous and undefined.”
This is the mentality – validate me. But that quest for validation does not lie in accomplishment, it does not lie within each person to the left, it lies in the attention of others; in getting others to validate them. Friends, family, and strangers alike must constantly validate them. Using the “wrong pronoun” or refusing to use a made up one is not a mistake that doesn’t matter, it is an affront that matters more than anything else.
This isn’t about the transgender issue, this is just the latest example that caught my eye. It’s with every issue on the left. People and corporations are in a woke-off to “prove” how much they support voting rights, even though Georgia’s new law actually makes it easier to vote. It’s not enough that people live in fear of COVID-19, you have to triple-mask while lecturing anyone else who wants to see their family about how they’re worse than Hitler, even after being vaccinated.
Seeking validation for your existence outside of yourself means you’ll never find it, ever. The Internet is the pathway through which people who otherwise would’ve found contentment have found misery. A generation of Americans are seeing this pathway illuminated and praised in popular culture as though it’s something to aspire to, when it is the exact opposite; it is the road to misery and ruin. How we get out of this death spiral remains unknown, but the first step is to stop elevating those who impose it on us. The second is much easier, stop electing the Democrats who fostered and benefit from it.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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