For a generation that has been given every reason to be rightfully angry, we seem to be angry about all the wrong things. Instead of directing our rage towards systems that are failing us: political distractions, environmental collapse and systemic inequality, we unleash ourselves in the comfortable anonymity of comment sections. From the warmth of our beds, we feast our souls on pointless arguments and performative outrage.

We’ve seen it all before, people fighting online with those who disagree with them, even when they know it won’t change a thing. People fighting with those who agree with them, just not quite enough. These are arguments without consequence, stored forever in the digital void.

If everything else crumbles and the only remnants of our civilization are forum threads and Instagram reels, I despair for whoever finds them amongst the rubble. Hopefully they’ll use their shovels to bury it back up. In an age where we can share so much of ourselves, we instead choose to hoard what matters and scatter our shallowest thoughts.

You love matcha. You hate matcha. You love the Dubai chocolate flavour matcha that matches your green Labubu.

These are the hills we’re dying on. Phones have become word factories, smoking up our environment with too many words and too much noise. The smog has covered our eyes from anything important whilst we squabble amongst ourselves.

If the climate crisis doesn’t kill us first, maybe that will: the noise, the distraction, us choking on our own words. And yes, maybe it’s hypocritical for me to be ranting like this, an observant pessimist using an article to share my concerns rather than a comment section. Maybe it makes no difference that you’re reading this in print instead of online.

But I hope it at least makes you consider how apathy is quickly becoming the chains against action. Because we can make change, even if it's just small acts: go to a protest, read a manifesto, email your MP, register to vote. Even if it's just choosing the lesser of two evils, you owe it to yourself to know which is which.

Some of the earliest words that left Donald Trump’s mouth in his second go at playing president were: “Drill, baby, drill!", a perfect slogan for a man determined to ignore the climate crisis. In a YouGov survey commissioned by Greenpeace, 600 school students under the age of 12 were asked if they were concerned about climate change. 72% said yes—a staggering number for a group whose biggest worry should be growing up, not whether there will be a livable world to grow into. This contrast between the worry of children and the unresponsiveness of those in power is disturbing.

Worse still is how we treat those who do care. Greta Thunberg, a teenager demanding real change, was mocked and bullied by adults. Meanwhile, Trump was re-elected with a full gilded fanfare amid criminal cases.

How many concerns do you carry about politics? Have you stopped watching the news? Has social media poisoned your trust in institutions?

Nobody warns us that burying our heads in the sand isn’t always out of ignorance, it’s for comfort. We’d rather not watch the world collapse around us. But we have to look into the heart of the explosion.

We have to know the world we’re inheriting. And it's messy. There are so many inequalities, so many injustices, so much suffering.

But we have a chance, now more than any time in history, to create real change. Our ability to communicate, and to share is such a unique human adaptation. We can help each other with so much more ease than ever before.

It’s not easy though. The people we have put into power are supposed to reflect our will, but they won’t unless we push. We have more access to knowledge, more tools for change, and more reasons to act than any generation before us.

And yet, here we are getting angry at matcha, at each other, at nothing. Maybe it’s time to get angry at the right things.