There’s a new epidemic threatening Western Society. No, it’s not bird flu or a new strain of Covid; this is something much more serious.
Too many young adults are choosing to embrace a nonchalant internet archetype rather than risk expressing themselves.
Allow me to set a scene for you: it’s Friday night, it’s been a draining week, and you feel like letting loose a little. Your friends come over, pregame, and then head out to a house party.
When you arrive, small cliques of people hang out in the shadows. Music is playing, but only a handful of people are dancing. Most are locked in on their phones. You try and start a conversation with somebody but they only respond with minimalistic two-word replies.
You return to your group. Maybe you feel like dancing, but people are watching, and you’re trying to play it cool. You see an attractive person, but the last thing you want to do is embarrass yourself. So you stick with your group and bop your head to the music until somebody orders the Uber home.
Drop the act
Have you experienced this? If not, lucky you, but chances are, you probably have. Being quiet is no flaw, but Gen Z seems to have romanticized being ‘nonchalant’ more than we should. Somehow, being vague, unamused, and acting ‘above it all’ is now associated with being cool. I’m just too cool to care.
Spoiler alert: you guys aren’t coming off as cool, calm, and mysterious; you are coming off as straight boring! I’ve often found myself in social settings, sometimes with friends and other times alone. Instead of feeling a warm environment of people dancing, passionately conversing, or expressing themselves in another form, it seemed like most people’s top priority was to look as cool as possible.
I’ve become caught in this trap as well. As a naturally quiet person with a head full of dreadlocks, I’ve been unintentionally labeled as a ‘nonchalant dreadhead,‘ one of the internet’s most used vocabulary terms of 2024.
All this talk about being nonchalant made me think about how Gen Z (especially Gen Z straight males) have normalized a certain emotional coldness. We’ve dulled out our precious, fun personalities to fit into a rigid internet-based archetype. Whether we realize it or not, this archetype has limited our ability to fully express ourselves as creative, free young adults.
The nuclear bomb of our social lives that was the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t help this situation either. According to an article on Vox, bartenders notice that Gen Z doesn’t quite know how to act in bars and clubs. We’re not as social as past generations. As one bartender put it:
“They’re impersonal. They don’t care about where they are or what’s on the menu, they’re not sitting there and getting to know who I am … I feel like they have lost this idea of appropriate social currencies and social transactions.”
While this is a massive generalization (with a hint of saltiness), some of his points ring true. Striking up a conversation with some young adults can feel exhausting because many prioritize “playing it cool” rather than putting ourselves out there.
With that being said, I’m taking a stand against being nonchalant. Here are four tips on breaking out of this stereotype as a generation and making radical self-expression cool again.
1) Caring is cool
Writer and relationship expert Tracy McMillan said it best when she said, “Caring – about people, about things, about life – is an act of maturity.”
Why do we associate the act of not caring or not trying with being cool? Perhaps it’s because caring takes effort. Caring can involve being emotional, vulnerable, and selfless. It involves exerting oneself for the sake of a larger cause, whether that be personal or political.
The vulnerability that comes from caring deeply about something or someone has the potential to harm us or hurt our feelings. In an attempt to protect themselves, many people simply choose not to care. They mask themselves with nonchalance.
From this perspective, the act of care can be transformed from something cringe-worthy into something courageous. Care about your planet, friends, partner, and health, even if that means putting your heart on the line. Even if it means risking failure.
Nothing good comes easy. Those who choose not to put in effort end up settling for the mundane for the sake of looking cool to their imaginary audience. But looking cool ultimately offers no tangible reward. As Medium writer Sonam Pelden put it:
“We use our portrayal of cool as an excuse from effort because it allows us to avoid the risk of failure. Perhaps if we feared failure less, we could embrace and celebrate trying more.”
Now more than ever, young adults should care radically about the planet, our society, and each other. Put effort into your friendships and relationships. Show others that you value them through your actions and words, even if it may initially feel strange.
2) Bring back small talk
The most delightful people I know to be around are people who aren’t afraid of a little small talk. As a generation, I feel we’ve lost the point of small talk with strangers. We treat it as if it’s supposed to lead somewhere, whether that be an exchange of a phone number or social media.
The point of small talk is simple: entertainment. Before the days of our dopamine-draining devices, small talk was essentially the only form of entertainment within a social setting. People literally had no choice but to go up and talk to each other.
According to articles in The New York Post and Fox, Gen Z is killing small talk in work and social settings. I disagree with this. One of the many beautiful aspects of our generation is that we aren’t afraid, to be honest and open with each other once we’ve gotten comfortable. All it takes is a little nudge to get past that social anxiety.
My first year in post-grad, I’ve been embracing small talk much more. If I didn’t, I would have no way of meeting people. It made me realize how delightful and informative the act of conversing with strangers is. It made me wish I had done more of it when I was in school.
Don’t put strangers on pedestals. We all live extremely similar lives, but it might take a little conversation to realize that fully. Being nonchalant is cool until you look around and realize you have no friends.
3) Express yourself in as many ways as possible
Learning how to express yourself authentically is one of life’s most valuable tools. Too often, insecurity leads young adults to try to mold their personalities into what they deem cool or popular. Being uniquely yourself in every aspect of your life is the only way to self-love and fulfillment.
When you express yourself honestly in small talk, you begin to attract like-minded people and opportunities that align you with your peculiarity. It provides you with more opportunities to meet people who share your values. If some people don’t agree with you, that’s okay. There’s no use in trying to impress people that don’t align with who you are.
Express yourself honestly because no matter how hard you try and change or suppress your natural character, it will still come out anyway. You can’t hide behind masks and facades forever. At some point, your true self will surface. It’s a tremendous relief to revert all that energy you spend trying to hide yourself into expressing yourself.
Creation is a beautiful form of self-expression. Write, draw, paint, knit, make music, build, cook, and customize just for the fun. Finding an outlet for creative expression is an essential part of self-discovery. It will also, generally speaking, make you a more interesting person.
How you greet the barista, the unique colors in your outfit, your workout routine, and even writing your signature on a check are all subtle forms of self-expression. Don’t overthink it. Reject nonchalance and express yourself!
4) Make your friendships a place of expressive freedom
This one might hurt, but it’s got to be said. Something needs to change if you feel like you have to limit yourself around your friends purposefully. It might be time to find new people to surround yourself with or adjust how you interact with these people.
The nonchalance epidemic hasn’t only affected the way we interact with strangers. It’s also affected how we interact with our friends. Too often, I have heard stories of people trying to fit into friend groups that limit their self-expression rather than enhance it.
Friendships should be a place of safety. A place where you can blurt out your honest, untamed, embarrassing thoughts without feeling like you’ve said the wrong thing. Your friends should be there to advise and laugh with you, not judge you. On the other hand, you should help create that environment for them too.
Social anxiety has a way of creeping into all aspects of our lives. Friendships should be a place free from that. Substack writer Trang-Linh said it best:
“nonchalance is in the way we calculate who texts first and how often, keeping mental tallies of effort … it’s in the reluctance to say, ‘I miss you,’ or ‘I love you,’ because we don’t want to come across as clingy or dependent.”
Vulnerability is the blood of a healthy friendship. It’s the quickest way to make real, valuable connections. Expressing yourself to your friends is life’s natural sifter for finding people who truly matter in your life. Those who chose to judge or reject you were probably not your people, to begin with, and that’s okay.
Nonchalance is dead!
Reject being nonchalant. Express your love to your friends, throw out random thoughts in class, dance in the club like no one’s watching, and be radically yourself. At the end of the day, nonchalance only limits you from living a more joyous life. The opposite of depression is expression.
There’s nobody more fun to be around than somebody who lives unapologetically as themselves. It encourages others to do the same. To live life like nobody is watching. Because spoiler alert: most people are too self-concerned to worry about your actions.
Signed, a previously nonchalant dreadhead.
