The kids are F*cked

The two most likely causes of death for someone my age are: A school (or other mass) shooting, or a suicide. Once in a lifetime weather events occur weekly. The taxes I am learning how to pay will fund bombs to kill kids whose bodies I will one day see on my phone screen. The gas in the car I am learning to drive is the only reason many adults around me know we are bombing anyone. The science I am learning is meaningless, the president says it doesn’t even exist. The history I am learning is either far too familiar or far too outlandish. I walk past a cop at least twice a day. That cop has a gun. That gun is more likely to be fired at me than it is to be fired at any school shooter. If ICE agents storm into the school, that cop will likely help them. The degree I go to college for in a year might be irrelevant by the time I graduate, and even if the degree isn't irrelevant, the odds I get a job are much lower than they were for my parents. Let alone the insane cost of that college degree. Our planet is on fire, and no one is doing anything. It flips from 90 degrees to 20 degrees in April, and we pretend this is normal.

We are growing up in a crazy, fucked up world.

So yeah, America’s youth might be a little fucked up. The world’s youth might be.

But it’s not because Gen Z is “entitled” or because we’re too lazy.

It’s not because of our phones, or the social media we use, as so so many of our leaders will claim. It is not because we have the right to free speech, or because we dont have to give instagram our ID in order to make an account.

The problem is that the people who are now blaming phones and social media, the adults in the room, fucked up the world.

You have given us a broken world and the Sisyphean task of fixing it.

You have given us a world of climate change, school shootings, ice raids, and ongoing genocides. A world of pain. You have given us a broken economy, a fucked up jobs market. The world is broken, so yeah, the kids are fucked up. It’s not the goddamn phones. But it is the fault of the many people who are so eager to blame the phones. It is the fault of the parents who failed to parent, it is the fault of neoliberal thinkers such as Jonathan Haidt, or Ezra Klein, or Jake Tapper, who write books or host podcasts offering made-up solutions to our problems, while simply allowing the world to accelerate deeper into this late-stage-capitalist hellscape. Our leaders, the people meant to protect us, have failed us. They let climate change go on, because oil companies paid them. They let school shootings go on, because the NRA, paid them. They let genocide go on, because AIPAC, paid them— and for some of them they just really hate brown people, apparently— They let companies consolidate, because those companies paid them. They let monopolies win, because the monopolies had deep pockets. They let unions die, because the unions didn’t have the money to pay them off.

Our leaders, failed us

Our thinkers, failed us

Our parents, failed us.

And you want to blame the fucking phones?

maybe.

Just maybe.

The problem is you.

The kids dont have to be fucked though. A brighter world is possible, a better world. A world where people matter more than profits, where the earth is no longer on fire, where school shootings no longer happen. A world where young people are heard, not ignored. A world where ICE is no longer rampaging our streets. a world where innocent people do not die simply for the crime of being born. A world where taxes go to healthcare and not bombs. This world can be ours. It nearly was, and it must be. Without change, I firmly believe human society will cease to exist soon enough. We have to fight.

We have to fight to ensure our voices are heard and represented at every level. There are many important people already doing this work, such as Leaders We Deserve or Sunrise Movement NYC But I am also running an organization called We the Youth Which will work to ensure that America’s youth, particularly those who cannot vote, have a seat at the table, and can give our input on the issues that are most important to us. Young people’s voices have to be centered, and we have to make change. Or the world will never be ok.

We have seen this work, Poeple like Zohran Mamdani in NYC or the youth of Nepal have made their countires, or cities, better. And the youth of America must rise up and do the same.

We must:

Fix the world.

—Aarav Puri

Please go follow We the Youth to stay tuned! We have some exciting stuff coming very, very soon!