How many #UnpopularOpinions have you seen lately? Care to see another that may or may not pertain to you or your roommate? The latest tumor growing on the Twittersphere is to give the public a topic as broad as food or as narrow as Malaysian air travel and, in turn, garner the spiciest of responses. Even the age-old debate over pineapple and its business on pizza has once again reared its ugly head in this format and killed just that many more friendships. Each respective category is titled as an edition, so without further ado, here comes Unpopular Opinion: College Edition. Get ready to have your feathers ruffled, folks, ‘cause you may not like what you are about to hear: College. Is. Not. A. Personality. Trait.
So what do I mean by that? Well, let’s start by just thinking about what exactly it means to have a personality. Hobbies, interests, a sense of humorthese are all valid components to an interesting (and dare I say fun) personality. Lately, though, I’ve seen far too much of what has got to be the laziest excuse for a disposition… adopting “the stressed-out college student” as one’s whole identity.
Now don’t get me wrong, we all go to school here (and if not, how and why are you reading this?) and have many of the same plights: early mornings, late nights, being generally overworked and underpaid- I get it. What bothers me is when conversations with said students are reduced to finals, their daily Red Bull consumption or my personal favorite: “I’m dying but it’s fine; I’m fine.” If no one else is going to tell you today: You are more than the amount of sleep (or lack thereof) you got last night.
Believe it or not there are other facets of life beyond your credit hours. Try to remember that similar to how life went on before you got here, it will in fact go on long after you graduate. Try to use these formative years to invest in what you do like rather than just complaining about what you don’t in a pitiful effort to seem relatable.
The beautiful chaos of individuality is what separates us from the animals, people. It also helps the world see us collegiate folk as less of a helpless demographic to market more caffeinated products toward.
I do hope this has been thought-provoking and not too terribly offensive to those generous enough with their time to read this in its entirety. You could have been procrastinating that five page paper in so many other ways, so I thank you, I really do. And to those on the fence about whether or not to hop up on a soapbox and voice their unpopular opinions, as comedian Eric Andre would say, “Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?”
