The Instant Gratification Generation

When hard work and patience is lost in the loops of likes, viral posts and content. Why can't the new generation learn the golden word: Wait.

Photo by Filipe Nobre on Unsplash

I grew up in a pre internet age where I was told by family members, teachers and even friends of family: To get anywhere in life, you have to work hard. The world is not going to come knocking at your door, you have to go and see the world.

And I took that to heart,those words. Of course you have to work in life. There’s no way around it, you have to sometimes do things you don’t want to do until you find what you want to do in life and work towards that. Nobody said it would be easy.

I have taken those words with me to every job that I have had over the years. Any job, even the ones that I disliked and also the ones that made my stomach turn, I always showed up, braved the bad parts and got on with it. I bite the bullet and did what I had to do in that job. Hard work pays off.

Now to the point of my article:

The internet along with social media has given a false pretence of fame, hard work and getting by in life by doing very little. The likes of Tik-Tok, X (formerly Twitter,) and YouTube and other platforms gave birth to a whole new way for people to get their names, faces and also their work out to the grand public. You upload you thoughts, ideas, music, articles and even some stupid videos of yourself or your friends acting out. You press send and share the video to the world. Depending on the content, It’s reach and relatability you could have a viral moment, you could have a hit? Who knows? That’s the gamble.

But what happens when nothing comes of it? What if you don’t get the likes, the shares, the viral moment you have been looking for? What’s next?

Then the question start come to mind and doubt starts to form: Why did no one interact with me? Is my content bad or is my music not as good as I thought? Am I a bad person? Does the world hate me?

The problem with online spaces and the constant attention that it demands, is that everyone wants to have their moment in the spotlight. They want their 15 minutes of fame, their viral moment and to have their opinion’s heard, be it political, social or just entertainment. They want people to engage with their content and theirs alone.

What is wrong with this mindset is that they expect the world to come to them when they say something. They want their roses given to them right there and then, they want instant gratification the second they upload their thoughts, work or music to these platforms. And when they don’t get exactly what they want, The blame finger comes out and the tantrums start.

This has given rise to a certain demographic of people who need, require and feed off instant gratification through their social media accounts. This is a huge problem for the younger generation, and also people with this instant gratification reward system that is on social media these days. These platforms are given people the wrong impressions and the wrong mindset when it comes to actually working hard towards a goal.

They post a video, hoping it gets picked up by the algorithm and they’ll get famous but in the end it only gets 10 likes. What are they meant to do when it doesn’t go their way? Well, they get depressed because in their heads they put all their energy into making online content, an article or even a music video but nothing happens and the needle doesn’t move. What then?

Instead of going back to the drawing board and taking a different approach to their content or how they make it, taking the loss and reevaluating themselves in what they are doing, these people tend to lash out against everyone that they see doing better then them. They become bitter.

Rather then actually having any accountability or patience, they blame everything and everyone else because their work is not seen. They rather tear down others for doing the same thing that they want to do. They play the keyboard critic’s from afar. Their mindset is to take someone down a peg because they are not been seen themselves. They don’t want to just climb the ladder, they want to skip all the rungs until they reach the top. Hard work is seen as a waste of time. They want everything now, in the moment and can’t believe when they scream, criticise and throw wobblers online they don’t get their way and wonder why the world does not bend to their whims.

This is very prevalent in the new generation of young people that I am seeing quite often on social media platforms and even in real life. They have this particular mindset and beliefs that when they talk or make a point, you should listen to them like it is gospel. What they have to say is not only the correct point or opinion, but it is the only one. They never heard of a rebuttal before, a opposite view to theirs and when they are even challenged at all, the knives are out. You don’t have to look far to see these examples yourself. Take any topic that you can think of and see how people react to it online. Tik-Tok is a great example of this. People upload their opinions on a subject to the platform and then are bombarded by people in the same boat as them. This bolden’s their opinions further, their stance as well. This is the instant gratification that I am talking about. Within a few minutes, you are love bombed by online communities and you feel like you belong. Your voice matters and your thought’s on any subject does to. However, the second, and I mean the second, they are criticised or maybe one of their points is called out, it is instant warfare. They rally the troops and go to war online. With each post they feel seen, feel noticed and just get affirmed further into a cycle of going back and forward with people outside their own circle, re-affirming their beliefs further and make a hard line stance on it. This is a problem with a whole generation of young people.

The constant chase for validation should not be sought and looked for in some corner’s of the internet. This is a problem with so many people that I see everyday. They are trying just to reaffirm what they already know, believe in and what they only want to hear. They don’t want to work towards anything. Becoming famous on the internet, becoming an influencer or a content creator is all they really want to be. So they seek this out and are surprised that they get nothing back at all or what they are putting out to the world does not resonate with the vast majority of people. It is a worrying trend when a massive part of the population are searching for this instant hit.

This is not a way to go about life and how to interact with the wider world.

Do you want a shortcut in life?

Are you willing to do everything and anything to get to there?

It’s just that these new generation of people want all of that without actually doing any hard graft, work or research into what they want. I’m sorry but that is not real. You can’t skip to the end and gets everything just because you demand it now. It has never worked like that and will never be like that.

Everybody wants to be on top of the mountain without climbing it first. Everybody wants to be famous, but without putting in the work. Everyone wants their moment in the sunshine and the spotlight by doing very little and expecting quite a lot.

When a generation of young kids grow up on social media and the see fortune and fame and these influencers getting everything they want just by posting videos and content, the average every day person sees that and wonder’s why it’s not them.

As much as I don’t like influencers and/or online personalities, I have to admit they do put in the work, they actually are hard-working individuals who have teams and managements behind them. There is an actual structure to what they are doing, so I will give them that. They actually put in the work because it does show and the record speaks for itself. It just gives a false reality to the vast majority of people who think that they can duplicate exactly what they see and they will get everything straight away.

This is the major problem with social media. It is when people want instant fame without doing the work. And this fake online realm is making people’s mental health decline rapidly because there they are comparing their own life’s to others which is all fake by the way, even influeners lives aren’t as glamorous as they portray.

Stop comparing yourself to multi million dollar celebrity.

Stop comparing yourself to a well-known online traveller. Whose job is two travel.

Stop comparing yourself in general to anyone else.

You want things in life? Well, you have to work towards it, you have to have a plan, you have to bite the bullet, grind your teeth, get your fingers dirty and work towards your goal.

There’s only a few things certain in life and that taxes, debt and death.

Stop relying on social media to feed your ego. You need to work on yourself first and then show the world what you are made of.

So on that note, I will leave you with this.

The great and mighty , Bruce Lee once said:

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Which means?

You have to put in the work first to achieve anything in this life. Time and patience is the key to success, no matter what you do and what you are hoping to achieve. Dreams can be achieved, you just need to get your head out of the clouds first to do so.

Work hard.Set a goal, set out a time and each day take it as it is.

Somebody is always watching you work. Maybe one day you will get a pat on the back and the recognition you deserve. You just have to show up and prove it first.

Thank you for reading this article, I hope you have enjoyed it and thanks for taken the time to do so.

Slán Go Fóill

-Marc Sean

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