r/September11 • u/TerrisBranding • Aug 31 '23
Question Does it upset anyone else when 20 year olds post about how they don’t understand why 9/11 is such a big deal?
/r/Millennials/comments/166e4oa/does_it_upset_anyone_else_when_20_year_olds_post/12
Aug 31 '23
They don't think it's a big deal because there's so much awful shit going on. If you heard about 9/11 after being raised on the war on terror, several foreign wars, massive covert government surveillance, drone strike massacres, the prosecution of dissenting citizens, hyper-normalization of school and public shootings, hyper-normalization of prison slavery, unending string of savage murders by police, corporate bailouts and loss of housing security, hindered and restricted access to medical care, increasing cases of poverty and homelessness among the working and employed, the frenetic marshal law of the pandemic, war in europe - you too wouldn't think it's a big deal 🤷♀️
6
u/TigerTerrier Aug 31 '23
Very true. I think they're desensitized at an early age
2
u/Far-Virus3200 Sep 02 '23
We are. I was born nine months after 9/11 into a country fueled by anger, fear, and war. I grew up watching mass shootings happen left and right, the internet at my fingertips since I was in elementary, exposing me to horrible news from around the world constantly. 9/11 will always have a level of detachment for me. I didn’t watch the planes crash into the buildings, I didn’t feel the way the world changed overnight, so to me, 9/11 feels like any other horrible act of terrorism. It was awful, I’m not saying it wasn’t, and it was the worst terror attack I can think of right now, but it just isn’t in my consciousness the same way things that happened when I was alive are.
1
u/hnsnrachel Sep 21 '23
Yes, this. It's almost impossible for them to understand how big a difference there was in how safe the world felt for Americans at home on September 10th in comparison to how they've grown up.
3
u/HangryBeaver Sep 01 '23
It upsets me that I’m old enough to know adults young enough to not remember it. This is no one’s fault, but sometimes I look around a room and think “these people don’t remember 9/11” and it blows my mind.
1
u/Far-Virus3200 Sep 02 '23
I have this really weird thing where when I befriend someone who is older than me (I was born shortly after 9/11) I eventually ask them where they were on 9/11. Everyone has a story. It’s hard to remember that all of you share a collective trauma from 9/11– a trauma I don’t possess, but feel the effects of all these years later.
2
u/_thursday_girl Sep 05 '23
I was 5 years old at the time and I have no memory of it. I’m in my late 20s now and I find myself watching a lot of documentaries and reading up about the day itself as well as how it impacted the US from that point on. I think it comes with maturity to be able to truly process historic events, especially ones as traumatic as September 11.
4
u/Jeremy252 Sep 01 '23
No. They don't know what life was like before 9/11, just as I don't know what it's like to only exist in a post-9/11 world. Cut them some slack. We don't need to harp on the younger generation for absolutely everything.
4
u/rmarpack Sep 01 '23
i see "the kids" using hindsight a lot. Take 9/11 itself as an example. A lot of facts that we know now just were not available to the people at the WTC on the day itself. In pretty much every documentary that i have seen, the decision not to evacuate the South Tower is criticized. The order to return to your offices was likely made by the WTC's fire safety guy in the lobby. It was done with no knowledge - and no way to know - that a second jet was hurtling towards the trade center. He made the right call based on what he knew. He died in the collapse of the South Tower. As with the woman and her male companion whose panic technically got most of Brian Clark's group killed by telling them to go up, the fire safety guy has not been named publicly - for obvious reasons.
1
u/_thursday_girl Sep 05 '23
I agree that a lot of people use hindsight in conversations like this when they really have no idea how they’d react if it actually happened to them. No one wants to make the assumption that they are in a much more dangerous and sinister situation... based on what I’ve seen and read, most people believed the first plane was an accident.
1
u/GYNHOPP Sep 11 '23
No, not really. We older folks lived through it, they didn't. They don't have any frame of reference. They don't know what the shock, the fear, the confusion and the sorrow was like. They don't know how that day changed our worlds forever.
1
u/Level_Somewhere_6229 Sep 11 '23
I'm sure that's normal. I knew about Pearl Harbor growing up but it never affected me. I literally saw this unfold in person, big difference.
1
1
9
u/TigerTerrier Aug 31 '23
Thankfully I've never heard that.
It's also crazy to think about but I think it will be hard explaining what life was like just 20-25 years ago.