On Friday, March 13, I was in Miami hours away from boarding a seven-night cruise. I was beyond ecstatic that it wasn’t canceled and considered myself lucky. If you recall, Georgia State issued a statement on March 12 that in-person classes would be suspended beginning March 16.
I flew home that same night. My cruise ship departed from its port without me. I had no spring break. It was the best decision I made, and one that thousands of others should have as well.
No one wants to lose their spring break, especially in college when it’s considered the most promising week of parties for the year. Unfortunately, a pandemic could not shake the enticement of a Four Loko on the beach with a group of strangers. Party pages didn’t slow down either.
Instagram user @gstateparties posted on March 20: “Last turn up b4 lockdown! DM for address!” Along with the caption is an advertisement that asks if the viewer can keep a secret. If the rejection of limiting get-togethers had truly been kept a secret, it might just have been alright.
But they didn’t.
Quirky pictures in useless face masks and silly captions from Florida flooded users’ feeds while COVID-19 only got worse. Spring-breakers not only went on vacation but took special care to photograph and share it all as a big middle finger to the gravity of the situation.
The desperation to squeeze in one last good week in chaos or amazing flights to Miami wasn’t worth it. Students returned to school to pack their dorms and, for many, head to the hospitals. A lesson learned? Maybe. A necessary one? No.
Teenagers and young adults can feel immortal in the face of something as serious as a pandemic. They’ve slaved over hours of minimum wage jobs and balanced it with schooling.
Their planet is dying and their politicians don’t care. Basically, the world is dying, so who cares? We’re young, having fun and definitely dumb. Catching the virus would be a passing flu for most healthy young adults anyway.
But, you do care, right? Students cared, fought, signed petitions to get Georgia State to close. In an appeal to safety, students demanded closure but neglected to keep that energy when it came to their break.
The selfishness of falsely caring about your own health to turn around and jeopardize others by traveling after federal recommendations not to is perhaps the deepest irony of this generation. We live for the experience, even if it endangers us, but fall in the face of caution when it pertains to someone else.
