‘Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold Do Not Speak for My Generation’

I am angry with the media for devoting so much time and coverage to Columbine. But what I am even more angry about is the way Columbine has sparked the media’s attention in teens and teen issues.

One year later, the press is still analyzing every insignificant detail about Columbine--the dangers of cliques, and the effects of playing violent video games, listening to punk music or watching annihilating movies. It’s as if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold represent my generation. The media think that if something was wrong with them, then something is wrong with the rest of us.

Most of us don’t think that what Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did was right. And we do not, as so many magazines and newspapers reported, have secret lives.

The media do not truthfully portray teens and teen issues. The truth is that my friends and I are more worried about getting into a decent college and finding an after-school job to pay for the prom than getting revenge from a classmate who teased us.

I am frustrated that the media have overlooked issues that really matter to us: The fact that college tuition rises every year and that none of the presidential candidates’ education plans include secondary education; the fact that a record number of teens devote hours to volunteerism; and the fact that juggling school, work and a myriad of extracurricular activities has become the norm for a lot of us. But I guess the media are interested only in what sells.

In the grand scheme of things, Columbine doesn’t matter. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold do not speak for my generation. They don’t represent me or the other 811 students who at my school make up the class of 2000.

It’s time for the media to stop snooping into our lives, looking for something wrong. Because nothing is.