In My Room

After reading Ananya Udaygiri’s How Animal Crossing Will Save Gen Z, it reminded me about how Gen Z has changed since lockdown was first enacted back in March of 2020. From our impulsive hair dying and cutting, exploring our sexual identities, and even to taking a 360 in the way we dress and present ourselves, this past year has seen a noticeable increase in the way Gen Z express themselves. Why is that?

What I’ve noticed as the biggest factor to this is that for the most part, we no longer attend school in-person. Of course this is obvious, and I’m not saying I don’t miss going to school. I miss the in-person class environment, eating lunch with my friends, the funny moments I have with my friends, the school dances—I still wish we could return to this in-person enviroment. However, something that has been granted because of this pandemic is the fact that we are able to be by ourselves more.

Being by ourselves has allowed us teenagers to explore ourselves in a more safe, intimate, and comfortable space. As much as I miss the high school experience, one thing I definitely don’t miss is the enviroment in which I’m constantly being looked at, judged at, and assumed at. There’s a notion to be precieved as “normal” and “conformed to society’s standards of appearance”. However, being able to be by ourselves more has enabled us to explore what we actually want to be. Our lives as teenagers are so fast paced with school, sports, and extracurriculars that we’ve never had the time to stop and think for a second to take a look at ourselves for once. Now with the pandemic, we’ve finally been able to sit and think for ourselves for once. We are less afraid to try new things with the reassurance that we won’t be judged or commented at by our peers at school. This is what I think has cause Gen Z to be much more open to change—we’ve had more time to ourselves to become confident in our decisions and thoughts.