Visit my dorm room past 10 pm, and my roommates and I are all doing the same thing: honoring our nightly tradition of religiously scrolling through TikTok for hours. Lorde said it best: “Maybe the internet raised us.”
There’s a trend on the app that seems to persist in making itself known: post a paragraph of why you feel unfulfilled with your teenage years, whether because you haven’t yet fallen in love yet or climbed a rooftop to look at the stars, with the song “Ribs” by Lorde playing in the background, and you’re guaranteed to earn thousands of likes. It’s not surprising that these videos do so well. People can relate to the notion of not having lived out an indie film adaptation of their lives, and the resulting reaction is communal dissatisfaction.
If you don’t take anything else from this article, remember this: young adulthood isn’t supposed to be reminiscent of a coming-of-age Indie Film. Regardless of what any John Green book-turned-movie tries to convince you of, we are supposed to be lost and a little bit scared.
The concept of living the romanticized life that seems to exist only the big screen is, in of itself, a fallacy, perpetuated by an unattainable notion of perfection. We are repeatedly fed this glorified idea, whether through film, music, or books, that we must be driving off into the sunset on a California highway in a convertible every night of our lives in order for our years to count. Everywhere you look, another artist releases a soundtrack about staying up all night and how we won’t ever be this young again, another coming-of-age movie romanticizes high school, conveniently failing to acknowledge that high school is a breeding ground for toxic social hierarchies and the constant lingering feeling of never actually being enough. And it’s not the artist or the production companies’ fault. No one wants to watch a movie or listen to a song about how mundane and lonely young adulthood can be— we live that reality every day. The problem comes from the fact that we expect ourselves to abide to an unattainable level of cinematic perfection in order to be happy. It’s treated like a paradigm, so much so that we’re conditioned to feel an intense unfulfillment if we aren’t living out a picturesque, filtered version of our lives.
At what point did we decide that the most confusing, uncertain years of lives were supposed to the most romantic, the most fulfilling, or the most put-together? Young adulthood comes with questioning everything we think we know, from sexuality, career choices, and relationships, with friends, family, the world, and ourselves.
This is not to say that our lives are only ever meant to be grey and unkempt, devoid of emotion. Rather, we need to remember that beauty comes from confusion. Never did notable art, film, or anything worth consuming ever come out of structure and finding oneself exactly where one was supposed to be. Revel in it.
You aren’t wasting your youth if you aren’t abiding by a falsified notion of living out your best years, and growing up isn’t a threat to the possibility of ever being truly and fully happy. Where you are now is just as valid, whether its battling a mental illness, figuring out what you want to major in, or starting new in an aspect of your life you never thought would fall apart. We’re young, and we have a whole life ahead of us.
A couple weeks ago, I was embarking yet again on my nightly routine, scrolling through the explore page of TikTok. Amongst a scattered mess of POV’s and dancing videos, I found a gem, with “Ribs” by Lorde in the background:
“Growing up isn’t as bad as everyone makes it seem. Abandon perfection. It’s all about where you laugh and where you cry. You’ll realize they both matter the same.” I saved the video.