Early adulthood is a time of both self-discovery and self-doubt, so it’s by no means a new phenomenon that a work of art defines and inspires solidarity within a generation that is coming of age. The online publication Thought Catalog, though, is no Rebel Without a Cause. A collection of short opinion pieces emphasizing sincerity, the site ends up overgeneralizing about the 20-something experience, pigeonholing us as overly self-conscious, egocentric, and ungrateful.
Posts on the site highlight some of what seem to be the defining characteristics of our generation: insecurity (see “5 Types Of People Who Shouldn’t Be Allowed At The Gym”), isolation (“On Loneliness”), overanalysis (“Possible Reasons Your Text Message Has Gone Unanswered”), and nostalgia for things that were really just okay at the time, and didn’t happen that long ago anyway (“TGIF vs. SNICK”). Most articles cover a pretty depressing selection of subjects ranging from unrequited love to failed job interviews, with the occasional cutesy love note thrown in. Thought Catalog essentially amounts to validation for the unconfident 20-something that, yes, everyone else is just as much of a loser as you are.
Regular readers have to have noticed that the majority of posts feature pretty much the same young adult as a narrator. Having graduated college and chosen the big city over their hometown, the Thought Catalog 20-something stereotype nevertheless feels out of place and disconnected from both of these contexts. Authors who are “just like you” confess that they see themselves as overgrown children masquerading as adults, caught somewhere between being a college student and a full-fledged grown-up.
The Thought Catalog narrator can’t really manage time or money as responsibly as his or her parents can but is full of all sorts of wisdom on love, sex, friendship, and experiences supposedly common to today’s 20-somethings. Simultaneously cripplingly self-conscious and utterly narcissistic, he or she overthinks every last social interaction and pretends everything is okay, even when–spoiler alert!–it really isn’t.
Thought Catalog assures readers that everyone obsessively Facebook stalks an ex after a breakup, that everyone has “that one friend” that they’re not sure why they keep around, that everyone is embarrassed of the person they were in high school, that everyone sometimes chooses Netflix’s reserves of Arrested Development over going out. Explorations of the nuances of modern relationships and communication beg readers to post them to each other’s Facebook walls with the comment, “OMG so true!!!”
Certainly, there’s something to relate to in most of the stories; I’m not even out of college and I’m already feeling lost and uncertain. But how can the site’s “About” page claim that “Reading Thought Catalog will probably make you more interesting” when they publish the same articles 10 or more times a day? Between the odd literary submission (and does anyone really read those?), posts on Thought Catalog merely indulge our cravings for evidence of other people’s weirdness, for some reassurance that their Facebook profiles showcasing their seemingly perfect lives are actually totally bogus.
Thought Catalog recognizes its own flaws, or at least to some extent. Snarky lamentations of our generation’s inability to read anything not written in the form of a list serve to acknowledge the site’s irksome overuse of the device. Occasionally the narcissism and general whininess rampant on the site prompt someone to pen a well-deserved “Don’t you people realize how privileged you are?” post (see “32 Problems We’re Lucky to Have”). There’s also a vaguely amusing dimension of Thought Catalog revolving around self-parody, perhaps born of critiques like mine, such as “How To Write A ‘How To’ Article.” Recently a more breaking-news function has emerged, which invites discussion of a meme of the moment, be it legitimate rape or a binder full of women.
The site has been lauded as a sanctuary of sentimentality and sincerity in the sharp, snarky world of the Internet, but the honesty it purports to value so highly is undermined not only by cookie-cutter opinion pieces but also by the appearance of sponsored posts. Corporations use this feature to take obvious advantage of readers’ self-centeredness: Skype, for instance, is responsible for “How To Survive Any Long-Distance Relationship,” and Nissan for “7 Reasons Why You Should Go On a Road Trip.”
A journey into the archives of Thought Catalog, whose earliest articles date back to 2009, turns up a list of contributors virtually unrecognizable to today’s reader. Full of reviews of literature, music, and theater, the site apparently used to be pretty cool—until, like, everyone started reading it. Although it’s still not as bad as the unabashed display of superficiality and materialism that is Pinterest, Thought Catalog doesn’t show off our generation’s best qualities. We get it, we’re not perfect: we’re vain, technology-dependent, and plagued by insecurities and phobias. But somehow I feel like beating a dead horse can’t be helping.
Every generation is entitled to its own expression of the angst of young adulthood; I guess I just wish ours wasn’t made entirely of whiny opinion pieces. I think we can all agree how annoying whiny opinion pieces are.
