I run into this a lot and I have no clue what the hell is wrong with people today. Why do people spend so much of their time online desperately searching for personal validation from complete strangers?
What the hell is wrong with you?
I’ve probably talked about this before, I don’t remember, but it really feels like everywhere I go, people are looking for praise from complete strangers online. “I wrote this thing in 5 minutes, tell me how awesome I am!” “I scribbled this thing in crayon, tell me how perfect it is!” I wouldn’t say if it was something that actually took skill, but so often, it’s barely any effort involved. Half the time, they even acknowledge it’s garbage. “I know there’s a lot wrong with it, but tell me how good I am anyhow!”
No. You shouldn’t need that kind of external validation. If you’re trying to do this for a living, your validation is when people buy it. If you’re looking for advice, don’t get mad when people give it to you and tell you the truth. Honestly, what the hell is wrong with people today?
This might have to do with a lot of the social problems that we see today. Most young people have no clue how to become functioning, rational adults. They’re trapped at some intermediate stage where they’re physically old enough but mentally and emotionally stunted. They are still little children, desperately seeking the approval of others.
We see this, often, in two places, both of which I talk about a fair bit around here. On the extreme right, you get the hyper-religious who need it constantly reinforced that God loves them. That’s become the only standard of their worth. They’ll take personal affirmations from other theists, but what really matters is if they have Jesus on their side. It’s just stupid and childish.
On the other end of the spectrum comes the far left, who can’t handle being individuals. They have to be part of a pre-defined collective and they have to constantly seek the endorsement of their peers that they’re practicing the proper “right-think”. They’re desperate to become the most “progressive” they can be so everyone will love them and tell them how great they are.
Granted, this has probably always happened, to some degree or another. It’s just so blatant these days that the idiots on the extremes can’t operate any other way. Honestly, you don’t need constant affirmation that you’re good enough. You just need to grow the hell up!
It’s really hard these days to find anyone willing to talk about these topics intelligently. For anyone professional, these are their meal tickets, people who are so emotionally frail that they don’t dare speak out against it. For a lot of the rest, they seem to be so closely tied to the extremes, either emotionally or politically, that they don’t want to piss anyone off.
Honestly, it’s hard to even help people anymore because they can’t handle hearing that they’re not perfect in every way. Someone showed up on Reddit and asked how to use a particular tool to make a particular cut. I explained it to them because it’s not necessarily intuitive and they got mad because I suggested they were doing it wrong. Well, they are! How that makes you feel doesn’t matter, the simple fact is, it’s operator error. Here’s how to fix it! they just don’t want to hear that. They want positive affirmation that it’s the tool to blame because they’re special and can’t possibly be wrong.
It’s enough to make you want to quit trying. I might not say if this didn’t happen multiple times a day on every platform under the sun. These people don’t want help, they want validation. They want to be told that it’s not their fault. It’s never their fault. The universe has conspired against them to make them look bad, but that can’t possibly happen, right? You have to tell them that it’s not them to blame. It’s a constant challenge to tip toe around on the broken glass of their shattered emotional state.
Well fuck that. I talk to adults. I expect you to behave as an adult. If you can’t, you’re not going to be happy and I’m not going to care.
This goes another way too, if you notice. Recently, my father-in-law passed away. My wife is the trustee for all of her parents’ money and all of that rests on getting the proper death certificates in our hands. The bills keep rolling in, we’ve been paying them out of pocket, but we have no access to the actual estate.
We don’t live in the area so we left it to the mortuary to handle a lot of the details. We were paying them enough to be certain. They were supposed to submit a request to the county for death certificates to be mailed to us and… they didn’t do it. It took us a lot of time to hunt down the culprits. It was the mortuary. Their response? “Oops!”
Once I got that fixed, I was mad and I got on Reddit and complained on a subreddit designed specifically to bitch about things like that. Some asshole comes by and whines. “You’re just being a Karen!” No, I am expecting these people to do what they are legally and financially obligated to do, by the contract that they signed. They’re not doing me a favor, I am paying them for a service and they damn well need to come through.
So anyhow, fuck that asshole. This has become a standard defense mechanism for the emotionally insecure. “You’re asking too much!” No, I’m asking exactly enough. This is how reality works. I don’t care if that makes you sad, fuck off. Luckily, most other people in the subreddit downvoted this dipshit into oblivion, but I’m really tired of people like that. Are there people who are too extreme? Of course. Does that mean everyone is too extreme? Obviously not.
People honestly need to grow the hell up. It’s about damn time that the extended childhood that we’ve allowed people to have goes away. By the time you turn 18, you should be a fully-functioning, emotionally-competent member of society. Right now, that’s not what we’re getting. It’s time we got back to it.