Do I actually not care about this world event or am I just incapable of processing any more bad news? As Generation Z is growing up and has finally gained the right to vote, it feels like we are being bombarded with some of the worst political news we could have gotten: from it being 2024, an election year around the world and some of the most far-right politicians being elected in every continent (prominent examples in both Argentina and the Netherlands), to an infamous U.S. election by two politicians from different political parties, yet whose policies are not as different as they suggest. At the same time, climate change is not spoken about and there seem to be more wars starting. Let us not forget that we are also the generation that had most of its formative years in lockdown, witnessing the Black Lives Matter and numerous other movements that brought about… well, no significant political changes. I can continue to add to the myriad of less-than-pleasant news that I have found out over the past year, and trust me I would love to, but instead I want to discuss how I think this has impacted my generation.

We are the ‘online’ generation. We are the ones who are supposed to be able to get on our phones to get away from real life, but I have lost the ability to ‘run away’ from the news like I used to. Staying ignorant in this political and economic climate feels like a form of violence and I can no longer justify not being on the news every day, or keeping track of how many people have died and where. Social media has become an alternate form of the news, and keeping up with friends’ lives takes second place to being up-to-date with world events. This has been my life for a year now, and I feel like I cannot say that I am fatigued by the news, because I am in a position of privilege and I have to keep learning people’s stories in order to memorialize them. I have to keep sharing the news because if I do not share them, they will cease to exist at some point. However, most students are put in the position of having to prioritize themselves, whether they want to or not. We have to keep submitting our assignments, writing cover letters, and trying to figure out what we want to do in the future. It feels dystopian.

Write a 3500-word essay. Breaking news: 400 people dead. Meet with your group for a presentation. Former president Donald Trump gave a speech again, and people are angry. Put this meeting on your Google Calendar. Another flood in a new country, 300 people displaced. Text your friend back, they want to grab dinner. Three people died of starvation. I can no longer justify living life as I used to, and what used to be a constant stream of information coming from memes and videos has now become a stream of notifications from the News apps I have downloaded. Instagram pages are filled with numbers and metaphors used to get us to grasp how many people just died, or how many buildings were just destroyed. This might only be my experience or a couple of other people’s, but I am not experiencing political fatigue, I am experiencing political outrage.

It is disheartening to see the election year turn out the way it has while being able to do nothing. I know of a lot of people who have said that they feel lost, betrayed, and fatigued from watching one bad news story after another. It feels never-ending. There does not seem to be a way out, and no one and nothing can stop it. While I do not allow myself to feel fatigued, I know others do, and they should. It is the normal human emotional reaction to the current state of the world. If it feels suffocating, that is because it is. While feeling fatigued is normal, I would have to say that it should not be the only emotion we feel. It should not even be the overarching one. It is understandable and justified, but there is so much more we should do with these headlines and the subsequent emotions they are forcing us to feel. Fatigue leads us to give up, to hopelessness, to despair. It is a feeling devoid of emotion. Our generation simply cannot afford that, and as much as we hate to hear it, it is the truth. Have we been handed down this world and its problems? Yes. With that, however, comes a responsibility. It should not have been a responsibility placed on us but it is. Now, it is up to us and how we handle it. So, to answer the question, yes, we are experiencing political fatigue. But for the people who are only feeling fatigued, I ask you to please feel more. Remember that we need hope and empathy to create a better world. We need emotional strength and resilience. We need to remember to rely on each other. Let us use this political fatigue for a better world.