I’m sure you’ve all seen the “First World Problems” meme floating around on the Internet. In case you aren’t familiar with this reference, it’s a picture of a girl crying and resting her head in her hand, always captioned with some ridiculous complaint.
“My muscles are really sore…from the massage I got yesterday.” “It’s dinner time…but I’m still full from lunch.” “Forgot I was watching a recording…sat
through commercials.”
If we want to be specific to SMU, “Can’t park on my own college campus…all living presidents will be here so security is tight.” Yes, I am still stuck on that.
There are thousands of these captioned photos, and I’ve definitely spent a large amount of time scrolling and laughing at what the over privileged community has come up with.
Unfortunately, I have heard far too many actual complaints that would go viral if in the form of a meme.
Did I really just hear you whine about having to walk to the opposite end of NorthPark because Dillards had the shoes you couldn’t find in Nordstrom? Poor thing. That must have been grueling.
I wish I could say that I’m above the embarrassing grumbles of my peers, but a meeting in my residence hall proved otherwise. We were all appalled by the lack of a garbage room in the building. The thought of carrying our trash 50 yards to the dumpster was unbearable.
It didn’t take long for me to look back on that and be disturbed by how spoiled I am.
The negativity is truly contagious. One person points out a flaw in the newest technology, and soon we’re all griping in unison about how inconvenient Apple has made it to charge the iPhone 5.
Have we gotten so out of touch with the rest of the world that our trivial problems
seem significant?
A massive wildfire is currently burning in California. There’s all sorts of chaos in the Middle East. And don’t make me break out the statistics on starving children.
I don’t mean to say that Americans do not have problems of their own. There are heart-wrenching human rights issues that need to be taken care of right here at home. We do, however, need to put things in perspective and realize how fortunate we are.
That means fewer complaints about the horrible cell phone signal in Meadows.
What makes this meme great is that we’re able to see that these problems are petty. They aren’t actually worth crying over. If I were to vocalize that I was upset because I had to walk downstairs to get a pizza that was delivered to my door, I would be embarrassed. You probably would be, too.
Thrall is a junior majoring in journalism and film.
