Say what you will about this day and age. Gripe all you want about how far removed this generation is from reality and plain, old human interaction. For tonight, friends, tonight I am not only proud to be an American, I am proud to be of the Facebook generation.

That’s right.  I said it.  I think I may have even coined it. The Facebook Generation.

My vote doesn’t matter. Yours doesn’t either. This isn’t about whether you rejoiced or mourned as you watched the election results. This isn’t about whether you want change or a maverick.

This is about realizing that we are living and breathing history right now. And to be in college, where spirits are high and spines are tingling with the promises of tomorrow, and to be an active member of facebook — these are the blessings of our generation.

Tonight, after my roommates and I circled campus, screaming from a car, “Your Bama, My Bama, OUR Bama!!!!!”, I returned to my room to procrastinate. And, like the good friend that it always is, Facebook came through. Heaven only knows how many times I checked my friends’ statuses. And every time, I was rewarded with a surprising split between those with renewed belief and invigorated patriotism and others whose bags were packed, proclaiming things like, “Moving to Mexico. Canada is for liberals.”

I guess I’m just thrilled about what I see.

I’m happy that not only has the youth vote shown up, not only have we turned out to vote like we promised we would, but we’ve got strong feelings to back it all up. We care and we created a culture and place in which to express those feelings. We blog and we use YouTube and Facebook. We see celebrities reaching out to encourage voting, and we mimick their efforts with our own campus celebrities, using the resources we’ve created and popularized to empower our generation.

So whether Obama is your Bama or not, this is our time and this is the age. It’s our turn to venture forth into the world with all the fire we normally reserve for Locust Walk.

Whatever change happens now, it’s our time to react and care, and all the tools we need are in our grasp.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.