Being sensitive is a good thing, but being overly sensitive might not be. As someone who is a member of Gen Z, sometimes we have an issue with our sensitivity. Most of the time, we are rightly sensitive and won’t allow certain things to be said, but sometimes we either don’t care or care too much. Because of this, students at Park might be afraid to voice their opinions. With the internet being a place that everyone is on, things spread quickly. When it comes to a student voicing their opinion, whether it be right or wrong, their peers can still perceive it negatively. But sometimes we’re not sensitive enough, which could lead students to say something they shouldn’t.

An example of Gen Z not caring enough is when the Dahmer series came out. Everyone was quick to make comments about the show and most of them were insensitive. Some people were making cannibalistic jokes, while others were mocking the perpetuation of the victims in the series. More and more people started to become infatuated with the show and it was all over TikTok. Some people even went as far as dressing up as the serial killer himself for Halloween. Sometimes people are also just straight-up hateful. People who have said offensive language and those around them aren’t even phased by it. 

There have also been instances where Gen Z has deemed things as “offensive” when they aren’t. An example of this is cancel culture. Most of the time when someone is getting canceled, they’re getting canceled for something that could easily be fixed through a conversation. Instead of stripping someone of their job and telling them that there is no room for redemption, we should try and educate them on why what they said has come off as insensitive. 

Cancel culture on its own is just pointing fingers instead of truly getting anything done. We’ve seen many examples of this throughout the media, and most of the time cancel culture only works if the person was already commonly disliked. Cancel culture is also very selective and leaves everything up to interpretation. Most of the time when someone says something that they shouldn’t have said, it is seen as excusatory if it had happened during a time when their statement would’ve been socially accepted. People leave many things up for others to decide, but never take accountability for how when something is being said by someone with a platform, it can hurt communities no matter if that was the intention or not. 

Those of us in Gen Z have all faced situations where we’ve seen or said things that come off as insensitive or too sensitive. There have definitely been times when I’ve been too scared to voice my opinion because I feared the reaction of my classmates. Now I’m not too sure that there is a solution to this, but I do know that we can make sure that everyone around us isn’t afraid of voicing their opinions by giving them a space where they are comfortable to say what’s on their mind. If something a person says comes off as insensitive, instead of attacking them you can help them understand why what they said may come off that way. Impact always outweighs intent, which is what I believe we all need to understand.