Are we creating a generation of victims?

[endtherapture]

I will preface this by saying I'm a fairly left wing person, I lean more to the right on some issues but broadly I'm a bit of a dirty commie.

Anyway...is this generation, the internet generation, creating a culture of people being victims? All I see online is complaining about various issues which in the grand scheme of things, are either incredibly hard to quantify, and not a huge problem - cat calling, women in videogames, looking at a person the wrong way, being called a word that someone finds offensive and building a mountain out of this. Everyone seems to act like a victim nowadays, and the internet is just helping this, creating echo chambers where people can build up these victim complexes about simple everyday things.

These "movements" don't seem to be about actual activism or changing something, they are just content to moan about being victimised and make YouTube videos about it rather than getting out there and actually doing positive action about it?

Are we creating a generation of victims basically, when people should just grow thicker skin?

inb4 flamewar

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I don't think so.

It's just more whiners being heard, along with the rest.
If anything, internet use should actually toughen people up.

sorry for the short reply.
I can't think of anything more to say.

 

[tippy2k2]

Short term (through High School) it might but kids/teens ALWAYS believe that they are the victims (sorry kids but you know it's true )

"Dad! You're so embarrassing picking me up! I could JUST DIE!!!"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T GO TO THAT PARTY!!! I HATE THIS FAMILY!!!!!"
"I don't want to buy my pants at Wal-Mart! All the cool kids are wearing $300 jeans from Hot American Gap Eagle!"
"I'm the quarterback of the football team and the most important person alive!"

The internet just let's a collective whiny group (again, sorry kids but I guarantee if you're a kid looking at this and agreeing that kids are whiny, you know you're the exception and not the rule) whine a lot louder in public.

I suppose there might be a few more of these kids who are going to get left behind who wouldn't have previously because it's so en-grained in their brain by the internet that they're special (see Mr. Crazy Pants who shot a handful of people in California for "not wanting to be with him") but the real world doesn't allow you to stay with this mindset. The real world crushes these people and spits them out. It's always been that way and I see no reason to think it's going to change just because the internet let's them be louder with their complaints.

...and with that post, I think I just hit my "get off my lawn you damn kids" moment. If you need me, I'll be at the cane store.

 

[Lieju]

Erm, depends on what you're talking about.

But keep in mind that the reason things like abuse and oppression go on is because people don't recognize it. Not even the people being victims in it.
For example, when I was sexually harassed in high school I was ashamed and thought it was my fault. But when I finally told my mum about it she got really mad at the boy doing it, and I was shocked at that.

I guess she tought me to recognize if someone is being victimized but not stay a victim?

To fight for the rights of others as much as you do yours?

I dunno, depends on whether you're actually victimized too.

not a huge problem - cat calling, women in videogames, looking at a person the wrong way, being called a word that someone finds offensive and building a mountain out of this.

So, what? If it's not a problem that bothers you enough, no complaining allowed?
Why not discuss female representtion in videogames? Especially on a video-game forum.

Are we creating a generation of victims basically, when people should just grow thicker skin?

The problem here is that it's not fair because it would mean different people will have to 'grow thicker skin' to different extent.

Is it fair that I have to listen to my relatives make nasty remarks about my sexuality when my straight relatives don't have to put up with that shit?

Or that a black person walking on the street (here in Finland) will have to put up will strangers yelling at him to 'go home', and call him 'Neekeri', when a white person won't have to worry about that?

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

In my experience, the best way to create victims is to tell people who are trying to speak up and get problems solved that they should just shut up and put up with it.

Moaning is annoying, but saying you have problems isn't "being a victim". Suffering because of those problems is, and a great way to turn a small problem into a large source of pain is to have to hide that it's a problem at all.

Also, everyone deserves to let off some steam and have a good whinge now and again.

 

[Strazdas]

No. I think the reaons you may think so is the same reason as some people think there is a lot more crime nowadays. It has always been there, its just that now its much easier to acess this information and there is much more attention given to it by the media. It did not increase, just were noticed more as the information flow we recieve is increasing. take, 50 years ago, people had much less acess to information. most people did not own TVs, not everyone even had radios, so a person could easily work for weeks without any new information available to them. now just turn on internet forums like the escapist for an hour and theres tons of new information getting in.

 

[Phasmal]

On the other hand, are we creating a generation of people who have trouble empathizing with problems that do not affect them directly?

Speaking of thick skins, I enjoyed Polygon's recent article, `No Skin Thick Enough` [http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/22/5926193/women-gaming-harassment].

I really don't think dismissing people as wanting to be victims is very helpful to anyone.
EDIT: Accidental post before I was finished typing.

Anywho- just because something isn't a problem for you doesn't mean it is a problem. Just try to be empathetic, and if you really don't care, just leave it alone. Don't make yourself look like an ass by declaring everyone bothered by -thing- must be overreacting because you say so.

 

[Vegosiux]

Ehhh, not really. But it does sometimes seem to me as if we're creating a generation that will not solve its own problems, but will instead try to force/guilt/exasperate others into solving those problems.

You know, just like pretty much every generation so far. So I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[Thaluikhain]

People are upset by problems that you don't think matter?

That is not the same as making themselves into victims.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I think that it's just more noticeable since this is the internet age, and everyone can whine all they want and hide behind their anonymity and the entire world can see it.

That being said, where I do think we're doing a disservice to people (mostly young people) in general is society's obsession with "self esteem" and "everyone wins!". This idea nowadays that we shouldn't keep score in youth soccer games because it will make kids feel bad if they lose, or that everyone has to get a trophy, no matter whether you are the best or the worst, is really doing people a disservice by injecting this idea into them that it doesn't matter whether you actually succeed or not, just as long as you feel good about yourself.

Sounds great on paper, but when people grow up and work for companies that don't give a damn how awesome you think you are, but expect you to actually produce something, some of these people are going to be in for an enormous wake-up call.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ah, the "victimisation" generational argument, right up there with "kids these days" as one of the oldest notions. We're also always living in a time of great strife, possibly the end times.

Are we creating a generation of victims basically, when people should just grow thicker skin?

Yeah, that comes off as "you're the problem for feeling things."

There's also a general hypocrisy of the notion of thicker skin, since it usually only applies towards things that don't personally bother us. "I'm not offended, so you shouldn't be." Case in point, watching the delicious butthurt over The Big Bang Theory from people telling feminists to STFU and stop being offended at women in media.

Humans are emotional beings. We tend to prioritise our own first, and that's somewhat understandable. But people go one step further and dismiss or berate others for things we don't prioritise, and that's just hypocritical, since few people are so untouchable.

But then, is wanting women in video games anything related to victimisation in the first place? That seems like a bit of a stretch. I'd talk about cat calling, but that's literally not a new point of contention. That would be asking like if we're raising a generation of miscreants because of all that Big Band music that's so popular nowadays.

I really don't think dismissing people as wanting to be victims is very helpful to anyone.

More to the point, it's a common dehumanisation tactic.

 

[Saetha]

Is that "inb4 shitstorm" meme not cool anymore? It is? Meh.

On topic though, do I think we're creating a generation of victims? Not particularly.

Do I think we're creating a generation of nosey assholes who think it's their right to tell others what to do, think, say, etc? Yeah.

Now, there's two part to this. One is the hostility, the idea that everyone has to either be with you or against you, and those who fall in any category but the former are idiots/bigots/whatever. Before someone accuses me of being a dudebro/SJW, I'd like to point out that this is a lesson everyone, no matter their stance on certain issues, needs to learn - you do not have a right to be respected, admired, listened to, or anything of the sort. You can complain about whatever you want - cat-calling, feminists, representation, social justice types - but absolutely no one is obligated to listen to what you have to say, much less care about it and side with you. People who treat anything as a "Us vs. Them" issue need to climb down from their bloody high horse and realize that all they're doing is preaching to the choir. This philosophy only harms one's cause more than it helps. Now more than ever more people identify as politically independent... and now, more than ever, general hostility between the two parties is at an all time high. Studies have shown that militant feminists and environment activists alienate rather than attract supporters. Now, more than ever, people are sick of those who turn everything into a war between enemies. They're not changing minds. They're not some grand hero standing against the tide of bigotry/SJW. They're just an asshole ranting to people who already agree with them anyways.

Part numero duos - you really haven't got a right to tell people how to live their lives, unless it directly and seriously harms another individual. Just today, I saw someone try to aggressively convince someone else that their sexuality was invalid. Now, is it invalid? Maybe. Is that anyone's business? Not really. The same goes the other way. I wanna write a book about a bunch of white dudebros. Is that directly harming anyone? No, and thus no one really has a right to stop it.

No one is obligated to live their lives and define themselves by your values. No one is obligated to care about your pet peeve. No one is obligated to give a damn about what you have to say. People need to learn that. The world will not bend to them.

 

[1066]

Sadly, I generally have to agree, but I'm not sure it's the internet doing it. There's the safe spaces and global community arguments, both effectively allowing for communities where things can be said openly, and that dovetails into the Echo Chamber argument.

In short, you wind up with a lot of people who see any disagreement with the point of view they've had reinforced constantly as a direct attack. I'll also state, loudly, that people who quote statistics publicly should be required to actually read the study and that people should try to verify any information given them.

May be apocryphal, but an old favourite on that was an apparent newspaper headline about a rowing race: USA Second, Russia second last!

The joke being there were only two boats in the race.

It's nothing new, but the net does allow for people to be a lot more reactionary that they would be if given the day or two to calm down and consider what was just said.

All that aside, I think the better answer would be what's sometimes called the pendulum effect.

Before getting into that, there's also the 'hardship' argument to bring up. Not sure I necessarily agree, but it's a reasonable point. Not counting the higher-rungs of society and speaking of the first world, we are probably the first generation in a long time that hasn't had major conflict. The industrial revolution was pretty crap for a lot of people, the depression, two world wars, Vietnam and Korea. Everyone born before the late 70s or so has a big something that both connects and points to how bad things can be.

The argument is that people define themselves by their hardships and without the bigger, global ones, will seek or create conflicts.

There's Iraq, 911, the recession and all that, and make no mistake that they are bad things no matter what side of whatever fence you're on. I'm not arguing that, but for the culture, they're largely background noise now. I'll even go so far as to say that the older generations simply don't get the challenges that the younger faces just on the grounds that they couldn't exist back in their day. I spent over an hour explaining to a recently retired Air Force guy (fairly young) that his low-twenties son wasn't just being lazy, but that he'd gotten a degree in a narrow field so there weren't many openings and that his degree was actually a detriment to getting lower-paying labour work.

The concept of overqualified being anything but a compliment was so foreign to the guy that it took me twenty minutes for him to get it.

Getting back to the pendulum effect, I think the scenarios in schools now, does a lot to cause the issue. Time was, not that long ago, that teachers had a lot more power than they do now, and they used it. Often enough, abused it. The pendulum comes from that power being taken away, which is probably a good thing in proper doses, but having it done so hard that the momentum swung it clean the other way.

Now, with the no child left behind and teachers being unable to even fail kids who do nothing (and other stuff leading into these) you wind up with a lot of kids who grow up and quite simply don't understand the concept of consequences. I've had so many discussions with people who simply can't grasp the concept that what they've made is outright bad.

One guy I knew basically shut down any time someone disagreed with him. Didn't matter about what. He couched venting sessions (which I think are fine and healthy) as 'wanting a philosophical debate' and was completely incapable of answering a counter point. He'd never been challenged before and simply couldn't grasp the need to defend his work.

He was right... because he was...

He wasn't an idiot, either. He was possibly the smartest man I've ever known; just no common sense.

Me arguing with him (often pointing out why things had logically developed in such a way or his preferred method would fail, often on interpersonal or trivial stuff) was, his words, employing the Socratic Method. And that was wrong. Because it's mean.

Anecdotal, yes, but he just made for a good example. I see it a lot.

You are in no position to tell people what should be important to them.

You do realize that you're telling someone off for expressing a point of view, right? In short, telling this person that they are not allowed to have this be important to them and express that opinion?

 

[Verlander]

I think it's more like a generation of blame shifters, and it's already been created long ago.

 

[Malkav]

People adapt. When I was going to school, I bitched about having to get up early, not having enough free time. Then came working and university, and suddenly, my days would start at 5am and end 11pm. Or countless times, not end at all, and I'd manage two skipped nights and not even want to go to bed afterwards.
But none of this feels any better or worse than school days. And just as soon as I have holidays, getting up at 8 seems just as unbearable, because that's the earliest it's gonna get. Everyone I ever worked with manages and bitches just the same as me, so I'm not stronger or weaker than anyone put in my position.

You adapt to be able to deal with the hardest you have to face, which will feel like the hardest thing in your life because it is, at the moment. If someone who grew up in war gets a glance at your life, they might be surprised you ever complained about anything. But by that logic, how could any of us ever get mad at anything that isn't mass murder? Teenagers seem whiny to us because they even have less of a perspective on time and suffering. For them, being denied one party or being embarrassed in front of a girl they just met can only look like their whole life is ruined.

Same as crying, bitching is just another way of venting it out and cope, feel like you did what you could to reach some justice when you can't do anything. On the internet, it might reach "whoever it concerns", and maybe someone who can change things. You are the hero of your own story, so you'll feel like the victim of every problem rather than the villain.
You just get to see lots of well sheltered and often young people who are not thinking straight right now, who are so well off they are at home on the internet. And all they say is documented for you to see days later. Of course you'll see tidewaves of people bitching about the tiniest crap, but that's just thanks to the internet being a part of everyone's life now.

If they are pussies and victims, it's because their good lives demand relatively little of them when put in perspective, and it's easier for you to put it in perspective than it is for their heated heads. Make their lives ten times harder, or ten times easier, and the amount of bitching may not change at all.

 

[Uncle Comrade]

Don't make yourself look like an ass by declaring everyone bothered by -thing- must be overreacting because you say so.

You are in no position to tell people what should be important to them.

There's also a general hypocrisy of the notion of thicker skin, since it usually only applies towards things that don't personally bother us. "I'm not offended, so you shouldn't be."

I see this point made a lot, and it's certainly true. Just because someone thinks an issue doesn't matter, doesn't mean no one should think it matters. However, what a lot of people seem to forget is that the reverse is also true, and that just because one person feels passionately about something, doesn't mean everyone else ought to. Being told you're 'part of the problem' because you're not boycotting whatever company is currently in the spotlight (for example) tends to put people off a bit.

On topic, I'll echo what others have said, it's not that there are more people with victim complexes, it's just that they tend to be more vocal about it, which leads many (including themselves) to believe they are more numerous than they are.

DISCLAIMER: I am not saying that anyone supporting feminism/gay rights/trans rights/etc is a victim-complex idiot and should shut up. I am talking about the minority that kick up a huge fuss about very minor things and treat anyone who doesn't agree with them as the enemy. I would hope that I shouldn't have to point that out, but I've spent enough time on this site to know that that isn't always the case.

 

[Something Amyss]

However, what a lot of people seem to forget is that the reverse is also true, and that just because one person feels passionately about something, doesn't mean everyone else ought to.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the opposite actually be championed.

Being told you're 'part of the problem' because you're not boycotting whatever company is currently in the spotlight (for example) tends to put people off a bit.

Because that's not the same thing as telling people they should or have to care.

Also, simply mentioning there is a problem is off-putting to many of the same people. The irony is you bring up another form of vicimisation: where the ajority makes themselves into victims simply by virtue of mentioning something.

In one thread fairly recently, I had multiple people try and explain to me how they were being put off by people calling them things like dudebros and such that hadn't been mentioned in the thread. It had been, in fact, rather civil, but the response was "why are you attacking me?"

Asking for more women in games actively hurt their feelings and they treated themselves as victims.

Now, what I won't do is dictate to people how they should feel, or tell them that they aren't really offended (as many people will do to the other side of the coin). I do, however, find it utterly astonishing that a topic cannot even be broached without the majority getting offended by it.

Basically, there are many topics in which we cannot even discuss them without this so-called victim mentality striking the majority. Because dammit, think about how not being able to bully gays makes US feel!

Which, while not aimed at you, brings me full circle to my point about thicker skin. Virtually nobody says it to straight white dudes. When it's a black person who's upset, it's "angry negro" stereotype. When queers are offended, it's "drama queens!" Women? Well, women are totally emotional, miriteguise?

But a white dude on TV, offended by something that may not even affect him? That's his right.

The amazing double standard that exists is that minorities are expected to treat them with the same respect for all slights, real or fabricated, while we're told to grow thicker skin. Where's the campaign to get them to put on their big boy pants?

 

[Flutterguy]

Yes we are, but that's normal. Might be a bit worse then usual givin the internet and general ease of living (In some locations).

To make a difference in the world you must first make a difference in yourself. Want to fight for feminism? Don't be a bigot, and if possible tell other bigots that mentality is only harmful to themselves. Posting and reposting poetry how men are practitioners of injustice does nothing but re-affirm negativity... Many people have a most joyous time suffering. Yet they can't suffer alone. The internet is a great for this. Hence why you see so many people rallying to fight for feminism, gay rights and to end some criminal half a world away.

 

[Erttheking]

Don't be a bigot, and if possible tell other bigots that mentality is only harmful to themselves.

First of all, it's harmful to others too. Secondly, I feel like if asking nicely was enough to make people drop hateful mindsets, there wouldn't be as nearly as many hateful people.