In his speech at the Wellesley High School for the Graduation Ceremony of the Class of 2012, Mr. McCullough makes a scathing criticism of the “Me Generation”, the modern youth with their modern popular cultures and modern philosophies. Mr. McCullough’s scathing criticism of the “Me Generation” was justified and insightful because the Young People’s YOLO is corrupt, Me Generation’s people do things so they can show off, and the Me Generation is extremely self-centered.. He used statistics, common sense and simple words to describe how the “Me Generation” is corrupt, self-centered and are show offs. Mr. McCullough believes that the modern people are too busy celebrating their achievements to realize that they are not special.
Mr. McCullough’s criticism is justified and insightful because the new generation’s YOLO, You Only Live Once is not a good thing. Towards the end of the speech, while explaining why the people of the “Me Generation” use YOLO instead of YLOO, Mr. McCullough states, “…because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life…rather than You Live Only Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because it YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter..” (BBROWN). As he explains the Me Generation tends to go with YOLO because they do not find fun in being a good human being. Where a good human being helps others for the sake of being helpful, and helps people in improving their lives, followers of YOLO find no interest in being kind and helpful and instead decide to be harsh and unhelpful. He also explains that although everyone lives once, they all live once every day, once every hour, once every minute, and once every second. Mr. McCullough believes that since people l...
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...s likely to improve the world if it is taken with a positive attitude and used as advice.
The speech that Mr. McCullough gave at the graduation ceremony of the Wellesley High School in the year of 2012 is justified and insightful and can be life changing if carefully analyzed and completely understood. The people of the “Me Generation” are self-centered; show offs, and they follow YOLO rather than YLOO. Through his justified and insightful speech Mr. McCullough showed that people cannot change the world without changing themselves for the better. His speech was justified and insightful and brings more hope for the future.
Works Cited
BBROWN. "Wellesley High Grads Told: “You’re Not Special”." The Wellesley Report. N.p., 5 June 2012. Web. 2 Sept. 2013. .
The article “The Next Ruling Class: Meet the Organization Kid” by David Brooks, published by the Atlantic in 2001, presents a glistening, positive view of the merits of a select sample of young people in our society: highly privileged “millennials”. According to Brooks, these “future leaders” have lives which are highly organized, with time carefully choreographed to ensure future success in life. For example, today’s elite kids “are likely to spend their afternoons and weekends shuttling from one skill-enhancing activity to the next.” Millennials don’t hang out in neighborhood parks with buddies. Instead, they “lead lives that are structured, supervised, and stuffed with enrichment.”
To regard the importance of the bigger picture, he maintains parallel structure and utilizes the repetition of words in the body of the speech. “The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life” occurs when one seizes the day—when one finds the joys in life by realizing “you are not special”. The pauses and short sentences also adds to the conversational aspect and pace of the commencement piece. To continue, he notes how in this moment of time, every single one of them is dressed “exactly the same” and their diplomas are “exactly the same”. The unification of these prospective seniors further augments the message of settling. McCullogh further critiques the phrases that defy logic. High school students have perceived that “good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C”. The goal into doing one’s best has been shaped into doing the capabilities of another, in which McCullogh responds metaphorically to only focus on the betterment of the self: “climb [the mountain] so you can see the world, not so the world can see you”. All of these seniors have fallen into the preconceived mindset of superiority, unifying them together but it is their personal capabilities that distinguishes one from another, successes from failures. The support and inspiration he is aiming for is clearly portrayed in proposing to the students to, “[d]ream big. Work hard. Think for yourself”. He inspires them to experience life instead of accomplish
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Good evening. Some of you out there may not realize this but those of you who attended Suntime Middle School have been with this guy for the last seven years. I would like to ask you all, not just Suntime Middle School grads and who all else, to join me in thanking Mr. Weather for his patience and dedication to the success of our education over the years. We are the Class of 2000. The first graduating class of the new millennium. The past four years have been pretty wild. We started out as a bunch of rats in a small cage, but as time went by we learned and matured and became big rats in a new small cage, but in any case, the cage door is now opening; the handlers turning us wild things loose. As we leave "Where the Wild Things Are," home to some of the best cat fights, fist fights and food fights this side of the Cascades, I have a little surprise for all of you sitting in front of me here tonight in your caps and gowns … we ain’t seen nothing yet!
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Blaising, Craig A., Kenneth L. Gentry, and Robert B. Strimple. Three Views On the Millennial and Beyond. Counterpoints. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999.
Tragically, 58% more college students score higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 compared to that of 1982. They got this way perhaps because of: in 1970s, people wanted to improve kids' chances of success by instilling self-esteem. It turned out in opposite way – not so great for keeping a job or a relationship. It was an honest mistake. Test scores on empathy similarly fell sharply; they have trouble understanding others' points of view intellectually. (2) Millennials might have got so much pampers and so many participation trophies while growing up that the lack of burden denied them the depth of life. They are drifting away from traditional institutions – social, religious, and cultural. They have lower political aspiration than any previous groups. (3) They have higher levels of poverty, student loan, and unemployment, and lower levels of personal income and savings than their two immediate predecessor generations had at the same age. (4) One study shows: at workplace, 40% believe they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance. (5) According to surveys, they are fame-obsessed: 3 times as many middle school girls want to grow up to be a famous person or want to be a Senator; only 60% are just to be able to feel what's right; their development is stunted (more people ages 18 to 29 live with their parents than with a spouse – and now with Obamacare, health insurance is covered against parents' insurance until they're 26); never before in history have so many youngsters been able to grow up and reach age 23 so dominated by peers. (6) They are not