By Henry Nickerson | Associate Editor
In a recent Facebook post, my former high school teacher, Mr. Gregory Buckman, shared a story of him informing his students about the recent Parkland, Florida school shooting which left 17 dead. In response to the news, one student noted, “It’s just a shooting. Not like it’s a terrorist attack.” The response, while unsettling, is bitterly revealing; Americans have become numb to mass murders. Moreover, Generation Y’s familiarity with active shooter situations is having a profound effect on their culture and entertainment.
Particularly for Generation Y, internet culture often reflects modern zeitgeist. Although internet challenges, memes, and blogs are primarily created to entertain, they provide great insight into America’s cultural landscape. Currently, the biggest viral fads include eating Tide Pods, publishing heavily filtered and grammatically incoherent memes, and over-the-line social commentary. Admittedly, I find these hilarious for the same nihilistic and absurdist reasons my peers do: in a country under constant nuclear threat, and where mass shootings are resolved with thoughts and prayers, people can’t help but embrace the fragility of life. Social media presents people with hotly contested and unresolved injustices daily. Particularly after mass shootings, online debate flourishes with arguments that are muddled and fragmented. There are so many opinions and proposed solutions that the prospect of unity and resolution seems impossible; moreover, elected officials continue to be ineffective in preventing mass murders. Nihilistic and absurdist comedy therefore provides comfort for those who are attempting to come to grips with injustice; tragedy + powerlessness = comedy.
Because America continues to value guns over innocent human lives, taboo jokes about active shooters find an audience. In fact, according to students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, other students were taking videos and cracking jokes during the shooting. Their ability to find hilarity during the tragedy should be enough evidence to suggest that legislative inaction has left a deep and lasting scar on our youngest generation’s morality. If our elected officials continue to offer thoughts and prayers instead of legislation after mass murders, American culture will certainly embrace a new wave of dark, nihilistic entertainment that has not been widely popular for half a decade. In the early 70s, comedy writers such as Michael O’Donaghue, Tony Hendra, and Alan Zweibel tapped into a particularly dark, nihilistic vein of American culture in response to the staggering mismanagement of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. With trust in the government at an all-time low, biting satire pieces such as “The Vietnamese Baby Book” and shows like “Lemmings” pandered to America’s deeply shaken psyche. Modern entertainment has adopted a similar tone, particularly because five of the ten largest mass shootings have happened in the last four years.
Outside of entertainment, the effects of widespread nihilism among Generation Y are yet to be seen. Will the mindset of meaninglessness yield a generation of ruthless business men and women who are unconcerned with morality and mortality, or a generation that strives to find meaning and enlightenment in freedom of expression? I hope and pray it is the latter.
