By Rehema Zuberi
Being a young person is already hard as it is. You would think that the raw factor would make the youth be kinder and more accepting of each other but it doesn’t. All we are doing is making life for one another as hard as humanly possible.
We live in a time where if you don’t snap it, it probably didn’t happen. We spend a considerable amount of time online searching, following, keeping up. We basically live on the internet. Most of us are not only frequent users but hardcore addicts of our devices. You would think that is enough, it isn’t.
The youth have set certain standards to be achieved by their peers that are driving them into depression, anxiety and suicides. It is crazy what we want to present on our social media pages yet we haven’t hit those pillars. We want to show off a lifestyle we cannot afford anytime soon. We want to be like so and so yet we are unique individuals.
Labels
If you walk on God’s green, brown and dusty earth with shoes that are not screaming Jordans, Nike, Adidas, Vans, North Star and Oxfords, then you will not live to hear the end of it. Your very friends will taunt you because you are wearing fakes. But what is the endpoint? Aren’t we supposed to simply protect our feet without necessarily caring for what and how it reads? If you decide to abandon shoes because you cannot get the correct labels, the same people will act sympathetic pretending to care for the state of your feet.
I recently acquired a new phone. That I am content, should be enough. But everyone I meet is least concerned with how my phone serves me. What they can’t stop asking is the brand I represent. I mostly laugh it off as they guess the Tecnos and what-nots of this world. You could argue that they like the appearance and want to purchase the same but it isn’t the case, they are looking to box me. What is it that she can afford?
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We are ailing. It is a disease that has caught up very fast with the presence of social media accounts such as Instagram and Snapchat. Just how perfect is perfect? I don’t know if it is the many movies and TV series we religiously follow that have turned us into copycat consumers. Look around, we all want someone else’s thing.
A young person would rather have an iPhone and never have a shilling to top up airtime but walk around swinging the phone. Of course that will draw the likes of the snake to convince Eve of more. There is always more. `Leave Eden Eve, you know why? Having iPhone 6s means you can afford iPhone 7.’ To go big, means, go bigger!
Use your school fees. Miss meals too. Forget that business exploration. Invest in brands with undeniable labels. At the end of the day, you will be the flashiest person on the other end of the screen, “with it all”.
Alternatively, you can choose to go slow on the fast life. You can ditch social media every so often and focus on creating an improved you. As your peers scream their voices hoarse about someone else’s brand which they feel they own by flaunting, build you. In a few years, they will be crowding to take selfies with you while your phone is pocketed. Oh, and they will be wearing, a brand of you developed. Brand you.
