Adulthood? In This Economy???
Gen Z on living, learning, and loving in the time of corona
This week has me feeling like Carrie Bradshaw because I can’t help but wondering how COVID has affected so many young people my age.
Returning back to college for an in-person graduation a year after graduating for the first time over Zoom is a weird fucking thing. You have to grapple with thinking about how you’ve grown and changed in your first year of adulthood, but you haven’t really because you’ve been living in relative isolation and getting drunk off white wine in your friends attic (which actually sounds like a backward progression now that I’m saying it out loud).
In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about how this past year has affected different aspects of my life and wanted to know if other people felt the same. I sent out a survey and received twenty-two responses from older-edge Gen Z’s ranging in age from 24 to 18 asking a variety of questions about how the pandemic has, simply put, fucked up our shit.
Reading through everyone’s responses was one of the most heartening experiences I’ve had over the course of this stupid year and I am so grateful for the honesty offered in the answers. I think this is a much more accurate portrayal of my generation than SNL’s Gen Z bit this week.
What is the number one way the pandemic has affected your life?
Jane, 21, she/her: Online college. She’s been a doozy.
Audrey, 19, she/her: It’s affected my college experience exponentially and completely changed my expectations of college, life, relationships. I feel cheated out of a lot of these.
Chloe, 24, she/her: ~lost my job~
Abby, 23, she/her: Ruined my senior year of college and now I cannot get a job.
Riley, 21, he/him: Removed any ounce of motivation I had in terms of school and finding a job.
Sojourner, 21, she/her: I feel long-lasting effects on the way I interact with people, both friends and strangers. I spent 6 months only seeing my mother and switching to the opposite side of the street when someone was on my sidewalk.
AG, 23, she/her: It has made me so much more thankful for what I have, but on the flip side I have become so much more anxious in ways I didn’t know before and often feel depleted without social interaction!
A, 20, she/her: I think I just learned to live with myself. Before we got sent home from school, I had already begun understanding that I prefer to be alone and do things by myself, but once we went into quarantine, that feeling was definitely solidified. This year, I started to concentrate on myself: I lost weight, I gained confidence, and I just learned how to be alone and how to be happy alone.
M, 22, she/her: I seriously cannot emphasize the degree to which it has shown me just how little most people care about others.
How has the last year changed the way you view adulthood? Has it at all?
Blair, 23, she/her: I came into adulthood during all of this and it made me realize no adult knows what the fuck they are doing and also it’s hard as shit.
Ruby, 20, she/her: If anything I have more of a sexy domestic life these days, but the shift was coming either way so I'm not sure if it is COVID-based or just getting older.
Audrey: It made me realize I don’t have to live adulthood by the book the way our parents raised us to believe.
Liv, 20, she/her: I have become more responsible since I had to put my wants and needs aside to realize what is best for my entire family.
B, 22, he/him: I think it emphasized to me how important experiences are and I think I will always be more likely to say yes whenever I am invited to things moving forward because you never know when your entire social life can just disappear.
Abby: Adulthood is scarier in COVID times! I had wanted to move to a new city or country post-graduation this spring but am not going to now because it'll be too hard to meet people and adjust to a new place with COVID.
Riley: Everyone always says it but even adults have no idea what they're doing and this pandemic made that evident.
Calvin, 21, he/him: It allowed me to delay confronting it naturally cause I just existed as a shit head but now I squandered my last year of life's trial run and have to go in kinda raw. I also think it’s pretty bleak.
ML, 24, she/her: I feel like I felt super mature and adult my whole life and that was really exciting for me and now since the pandemic, I definitely feel like I am not an adult and I am forever 17.
AG: I feel as if I have aged 5 years in 1.
A: Yeah, I don't want to be an adult at ALLLLLL.
S, 21, she/her: I guess now we have been forced into adulthood before fully living out our college years.
How has the last year changed the way you view your career in a long-term sense? Has it at all?
Jane: I feel like my career has been so not a priority for me this year.
Blair: It made me realize that a five-year plan is BS and you have no idea where you will be or what you will be doing.
Ruby: It is easy to get swept up in having a plan and the security of that plan and it isn't until you have a stupid amount of free time and nothing to do that you get to figure out what you actually want to spend your time doing.
B: I definitely hate work from home and want to be in an office.
Chloe: Getting laid off after only 6 months sped up my timeline immensely since I decided to use my free time to take the LSAT and then once I had my score, I decided to apply to law school this year instead of trying to get back into the workforce.
Abby: Eh not really.
Riley: I now know that I want something that will give me an opportunity to travel so I can get out of the house more. I also want the ability to work remotely.
Calvin: More pessimistic about opportunities because the world I liked stuff in or thought I knew how to navigate doesn't really exist anymore.
Sojourner: Made me feel like I’m never going to get a job that I like but I still have to try anyway.
DO: You can’t really plan out your life so I’m more open to change and unexpected opportunities rather than setting specific career goals for myself.
Rachel: I’ve come to be okay with taking time to figure out what I want to do and find what my passions are rather than getting caught up in the speed of going through college, graduating, going to grad school, or finding a job.
M: The concept of “career” as we were taught growing up is outdated in today’s late-stage capitalism hellscape
S: No.
EC, 22, she/her: It’s made me appreciate the need for having a better balance between work and my life outside of work.
How has the last year changed the way you view interpersonal relationships and friendships? Has it at all?
Blair: It's made me majorly prioritize and pick who is really important to me. Also dating is fucking hard and that political differences are actually a big deal.
E, 18, she/her: I realized who I was actually friends with and what relationships were toxic or one-sided.
Ruby: The pandemic forced you to choose who you wanted to spend your time with and exposed the best and worst sides of people. It was clear to see who was taking measures to be safe and protect their friends and family and those who did not.
Audrey: Philosophically, it has shifted my thinking to believe everyone actually is inherently selfish.
Liv: I think it emphasized how much work relationships take especially when you can’t just casually see someone every day in person.
B: Yes, I think it emphasized how much work relationships take especially when you can’t just casually see someone every day in person.
Chloe: I stopped relying on the physical distance to determine who I am closest with. I haven’t seen some of my closest friends since august or October of 2019 and under normal circumstances, I would’ve assumed our friendships were weakened but instead I’ve found that they’re stronger than ever.
ML: Not really.
D, 22, he/him: Having a unifying experience with everyone you meet has made everyone a little more approachable, a little friendlier, I think. We’re all so starved for interactions of any kind.
Rachel: I feel like I have realized the core people that I want to surround myself with and have become so much less so concerned with making friends just to have a social life and more so have found such a good group of people that are really close to me.
M: There is a long list of people I’m excited to publicly shame after this.
How has the last year changed the way you view politics? Has it at all?
Jane: No ❤️ Fuck Republicans ❤️
Blair: MAJORLY. I realized that it is important to stand for something and that I want to surround myself with people that have the same political views and values.
Ruby: This was the biggest year of political self-growth. For the previous 19 years of my life, I was privileged enough to not care and have it not affect me deeply. This year was a year of learning and action for everyone, regardless of where you started, and you came out with a deeper understanding of justice and equality.
Audrey: It just reinforced all the same beliefs I had prior to the pandemic but amplified my voice in actually expressing the opinions and views I was too scared to do in high school. It also made me realize much more that politics are a game and how much of our political systems are rooted in injustice and discrimination, unfortunately.
B: Fuck the government.
Chloe: I’ve become more liberal and have definitely begun to develop a larger sense of urgency in relation to politics. Politics needs to recenter on the people that make up our country and to take care of them.
Abby: COVID has really exposed how blindly people follow Trump and his bullshit! The 2020 election really spiked up my anxiety and I was so relieved when Biden won.
Riley: Biden has been a pretty quiet president so far which is what we need. It's been too loud for too long.
Calvin: I think they matter a lot less than I previously did and that there are larger forces at play that outweigh the impact of politics. I think loud political movements attract a lot of bad and manipulative people and you are better off applying the morals you wish to represent through your politics to the way you live your life and treat other people.
Sojourner: I’m a liberal now. I used to be more on the fence
ML: Since the pandemic, I was forced to pay attention (in the best way) and be able to form my opinions more based on fact and exposure to information rather than going with the normal thought processes of my family and friends
D: I actually felt like this pandemic was a great sort of case study for the American political landscape. You got to see where people’s priorities lay.
T, 24, she/her: Absolutely. It’s been, I think it would be safe to say, radicalizing in many ways. Without going into a whole personal thing, this past year has put many issues and their urgency into the forefront for me, in many different ways.
A: No, I've always been this way, but what it has done is change how I view other people's political views.
E: This past year has really just strengthened my political views and it has helped show me how important it is to keep up with current events and be engaged.
How has the last year affected your mental health? Has it at all?
E: I am way more stressed and also developed insomnia.
Ruby: Hot take— I think it got better. I was blessed with the greatest quaranteam to grace the planet and focused a looooooottt of time on selfish things.
Liv: I was not able to deal with the start of the pandemic very well and have been in therapy throughout the entire pandemic.
Chloe: My mental health definitely took a hit given the social isolation but I’m lucky that I’d actually spent a good part of 2019 focusing on my mental health and taking control and building myself back up so while I definitely took a hit I was able to survive a lot more than I believe I would’ve if the pandemic had happened a year earlier.
Abby: Oof so bad! 2020 was one of the worst times in my life for my depression and anxiety. I was finally was able to start seeing a therapist, got diagnoses that have helped me understand my mental health better, and began taking medications which all have really changed my life!
Riley: I finally got on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication after having more time to really reflect on how I can be the best me
ML: I definitely feel more lonely which makes me more depressed but my anxiety fluctuates.
D: As a graduating senior when the pandemic hit, I felt an odd sort of relief, in a way. I was essentially given this unexpected gap year where I suddenly had more time than ever to contemplate my life and career choices, and really plan for what I want to do next.
T: Yes. I am fortunate to not have any major mental health issues to navigate in the first place, but my mental health was definitely affected in the day-to-day, general sense.
DO: My anxiety got exponentially worse and I became depressed for the first time in my life. I started therapy and realized that in order to start healing you have to first take responsibility and put in a lot of work!!
Rachel: I feel like growing through these things has helped me become much more mentally tough and able to work through harder times in my life. I also feel like these things have opened up a lot of conversations with my friends and family about mental health which I think has been helpful and important.
AG: I’ve definitely let myself cry more.
A: I think I am a lot happier than I was a year ago.
M: Hahahahahahaha!!!
What do you hope the next year of your life will look like?
Blair: I hope it gets better.
E: I hope that it will be more predictable in terms of less disasters and more good happy things
Liv: I can’t wait to be able to return to work normally.
Chloe: I’ll be starting law school this fall in a new city so I’m thinking it’ll be rather busy given school work but that it’ll be exciting and overall just different from this past year.
Abby: I hope I will be able to go out to bars and clubs soon. I miss going out and not worrying about COVID.
ML: The complete opposite of what I’m doing now.
D: I’m really excited to be gross again. I think if we all turn into germaphobes our immune systems will suffer. As soon as I’m fully vaccinated against COVID-19, I’m going right back to eating things off the ground. And bowling.
T: Back to normal in a sense of general health and routine, being able to see others. More purposeful in a sense of doing things with purpose, making conscious and purposeful decisions, making an impact outside myself in the ways I am able.
DO: I hope to spend lots of time in in-person classes, meet lots of new people, and travel when it’s safe again.
AG: Probably pretty similar to now! Hoping it will be because honestly, I love my life right now.
A: I sure hope I pass math next semester. That's my only goal for now.
If the pandemic was a person, what would you say to it?
Jane: Fuck you. But also, thanks I guess for a couple of things. But mostly fuck you.
Ruby: Thank you for the health of my family and friends, for the added time spent with them, for their lives to be affected as little as possible.
Audrey: Fuck you.
Liv: I absolutely hate you.
Chloe: Ya suck.
Abby: Fuck you!
Riley: Whoa, just take it easy, man.
Calvin: Hey big head :3
Sojourner: You taught me a lot of things I never wanted to know.
ML: You did this for what?
DO: Thank u, next
Rachel: I would say you definitely had a huge impact on my life. Maybe not for the better but also I appreciate the personal growth that I’ve gained from having you in my life.
AG: Where the fuck do I even really start ...... I’d say fuck you to COVID but it’s really these stupid ass anti-vaxxer, anti-masker people that set me off.
A: Thank you.
M: Lose my number!
Riff Raff screaming “SUMMERTIIIIIIIIME”
On my survey, only three questions required responses: name, would you like to be anonymous, and what kind of summer are you planning on having.
With hot girl summer right around the corner and Chet Hanks formally endorsing a white boy summer (tag your REAL vanilla kings #respectfully below), I simply had to know how everyone intended to live out their first post-vaccine dreams:
Thank you to everyone who replied to this survey for taking the time and sharing all that you did!!! There won’t be an Emily For President next week because, as I’ve very clearly stated, I will be graduating again next week and sitting on Substack all day doesn’t seem to be on the schedule.