At first I was going to title this post “Let’s Talk About Sabrina” but then I’m sure most of you would have automatically thought of Sabrina The Teenage Witch and although that was a very wonderful show, that is not the Sabrina I am about to talk about.
So I watch a 15 year old girl on YouTube talk about nerdy and quirky things…. That sounded really weird – it’s not supposed to be. Basically her channel is called “Nerdy and Quirky” and she is a nerdy and quirky 15-year-old teenager – hence then name. Why am I telling you about this wonderful human Canadian person you may ask? Well besides that fact that she is hilarious and very entertaining, she made a video recently (more like 3 months ago) that’s called “Young on YouTube”. What’s it about you may ask… or not because you’re smart and understand that it’s about her being young on YouTube – YAY gold star for you!
So, in her video she basically just addresses the stigma that as a ‘young’ person (this being classified as anyone younger than 18) you cannot create good content on YouTube. Now if you are a part of the 76,634 subscribers on Sabrina’s channel you will know that she is young and creates great content. Nonetheless I find this not just happening in the world of YouTube but just everywhere.
I find that… (NOTE: I’m going to generalize here so take note of that. If you are of the few amazingly decent human beings that do not do this then kudos to you now on with the post!) – I find that people who are older than other people tend to look at the youngins as if they are inferior to them in anything! You can find this in the work place, at school, with teachers, or even friends and complete random strangers who haven’t even earned the right to judge you. I’ll even admit that I have been a victim of this and I have also been a perpetrator. And my conclusion is that people can’t help it. We’re brought up, ever since we were wee little people, that the adult is always right – did you’re parent ever give you the excuse, “because I’m the adult” or “because I’m older than you” – yeah I got that a lot. Children! Just listen to them talk, they’ll say the most pure hearted, philosophical, simple things sometimes and we just step on it and say that they don’t know what they’re talking about because they’re young. No! We should flourish this kind of thinking creativity, and we should flourish it not based on age, but on how much promise this idea might have.
Yes, kids can say many stupid things. Yes, people who are older tend to have more experience with the world and the people in it. Yes, older people tend to have more education and tend to know what they’re talking about more than say a 5-year-old child.
I’m going to get to my point now so you can go back to doing whatever wonderful and more important thing you were doing before. Ok, so my point is that as a society we shouldn’t judge a person’s qualifications on a subject or medium because of the sole factor of their age – that’s age discrimination people! Instead we should look at all that they have to offer, and yes this might lead to a tremendous waste of time but it might actually all be worth it too. People have great ideas, whether they’re young or whether they’re old – that’s why we have a fascinating thing called a brain – it gives us fascinating things to create and think of and talk about. So next time you’re about to listen to a younger person talk don’t be ageist and suddenly start judging their knowledge, just listen with the intent of listening and who knows, you might actually learn something – or maybe not, I mean I really don’t know, this is all situational so you could get lucky or just strike out.
Thanks for reading my thoughts on Sabrina’s thoughts – she’s actually quite wonderful and funny. She made a video called “How To Take Care Of A FANGIRL” that merits some looking into, don’t you think?
Anyways I leave you with this.
BYYYYYEEEEEEEEE
– Miranda signing off
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