www.commondreams.orgTabloid stalwarts like The Daily Mail are always keen to highlight to their readers that a specific person or group of persons win the title of Britain’s Most Hated – like a kind of Britain’s Got No Talent show where all the contestants are either promiscuous young women, immigrants, or people who take drugs. It probably wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say they’d then like to round them up and let them be routinely screamed at by millionaire judges Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins.
However, a recent Yougov poll has suggested that Britain might actually have a most hated group and surprisingly it’s not benefits claiming politicians, or the walking anachronisms that are the royal family – it’s young people.
Why Do They Hate Them So Much?
YougovSo it turns out that the reasons that young people are so widely derided is based around five negative and five positive traits suggested by questions in the poll carried out by Yougov – all of the worst scoring groups are people of different genders and ethnicities whose seemingly only crime is being young.
The poll asked those surveyed to score people according to age, gender and ethnicity based on how much they’re believed to contain certain positive and negative traits. According to the poll’s findings, young people are basically considered lazy couch potatoes who are likely to tell you to fuck off before dropping a few pills down the club then fucking each other in the toilets.
But are any of these supposed traits all that bad? Who are the pollsters to suggest that any of the characteristics that young people supposedly fail at are positive or negative?
Young People Are Just Rude And Lazy
www.theguardian.comAll cats are rude and lazy, whereas all young people aren’t. The only problem that young people have is that unfortunately they’re just not as cute as cats.
But if it’s lazy to work a 40-plus hour week stacking shelves in Tesco just so you can afford a few pints on a Friday night to enjoy a moment’s peace in the over-priced one room hovel that your greedy landlord is about to jack the rent up on then the answer is – yes young people are lazy.
Or if it’s lazy to be out of a job or priced out of a place at university because successive governments ballsed up the country then again, yes, young people are lazy. They’d probably have a right to be rude too.
Young people, many of whom balance college with zero-hour contract jobs, or work in unpaid internships on the promise of a paid job, are among the most hard-working demographics in the country. They certainly work harder than anyone in a cushty middle-management position who only goes to the office between rounds of golf so they can plan their affairs on Ashley Madison.
Not All People Who Drink Are Messes
MTVFair enough, a lot of respondents’ opinions on drunken drug users probably comes from watching exploitative reality TV shite like Geordie Shore or Magaluf Weekender, where tanned idiots are plied with enough sugary alco-pops to put a rhino into diabetic shock – but most young people aren’t boozed-up mega-cretins with their junk hanging out while puking in a gutter on a Saturday night in Grimsby. And even if they were, who are they really hurting other than themselves?
The ancient Romans were famed for hosting Bacchanalian orgies in massive jacuzzis where wine and jizz flowed for days at a time, but we’re not demonizing them while tutting over the pages of Heat magazine.
Some People Still Think Being Promiscuous Is Actually A Bad Thing?
www.independent.co.uk‘Young people eh? With their late night parties, drugs and casual sex? They’re a disgrace…’ So says every jealous, married middle-aged person you’re likely to meet, problem is you probably won’t meet them because they’ll find it so hard to find a babysitter.
Isn’t it better to live your twenties how you’d like to so that when you finally do settle down you’ll have no regrets?
If The Poll Wasn’t Based On Outdated Moralistic Bullshit, Maybe Young People Would Have Scored Better?
If the poll didn’t try to enforce an adherence to some kind of antiquated moral code that demonizes people for experimenting with sex and drugs then young people would have scored a lot higher.
If it had asked people their stance on racism, respect for alternative lifestyles, entrepreneurship, social issues, or basically any of the progressive ideas that young people anywhere have ever fought for, then the true face of young people in Britain would have been shown – not the one seen through the lens of outdated conservative judgement.
