I have always wanted to express some opinions on this kind of matter, regarding young people who are even younger than me.
My own level is limited, and I don't want to present myself as different from others, nor do I want to adopt that state of being the only one awake while everyone else is drunk; I just want to share my views.
Compared to my impression of myself during my "young and naive" years, this generation of young people doesn't seem to be worse off. Reflecting on my own time, I remember the confusion of youth, as the mobile internet rapidly developed from its infancy. Young people in middle school were "immersed" in a plethora of generally poor-quality articles from QQ Space and various online literature websites. With eye-catching titles, there were all kinds of life experience posts, life truth posts, and relationship concept posts. At that time, I loved reading them and truly felt that I had gained insight into life, thinking I was incredibly mature. Consequently, I even began to discuss principles with my parents and would share my "insights" in some places.
Compared to the familiar community of QQ Space back then, today's young people's online social circles have expanded much wider and broader, as interests gather in communities on content-sharing platforms like Bilibili. Compared to the article-centric content of the past, today's disseminated content is richer, more diverse, and, to some extent, of higher quality. I enjoy watching game streamer highlight videos and some current affairs commentary programs on Bilibili, which serve as my greatest leisure after work and study. Everyone likes to see content and bullet comments that resonate with their opinions, which often enhances the viewing experience of video programs. However, when a minority holds differing opinions, everything can turn "terrible." Everyone speaks from a position of superiority, and naturally, these conversations escalate from discussing viewpoints to other areas.
The encouraging thing is that most of this generation of young people love their country, respect morals, and uphold the law; their values are quite positive. In some uplifting programs, amidst the uniform bullet comments, everyone finds a sense of pride in their homeland and national identity. However, there are also some aspects that make me uncomfortable. For example,
No regrets in this life for entering Huaxia
I have seen this bullet comment many times, but I feel uncomfortable each time. To put it bluntly, I think those who repeat this comment are likely minors or still immature. Logically speaking, everyone is born into this world without the opportunity to choose the era they are born into, let alone their parents or country; how can there be any "regret"? I respect my ancestors and love my country, but I feel this statement does not express my feelings and instead makes me feel awkward.
What prompted me to create this document and write these thoughts was an article I stumbled upon on Bilibili about the "pandownload" incident.
I have always felt that the intention to enjoy services for free is understandable, but the self-righteous and taken-for-granted criticism of the normal business practices of service providers is somewhat hard to accept. Even harder to accept is the uniform "same voice" in the comments under this article.
Everyone is discussing whether the reasons for convicting the "pandownload" software are sufficient and how moral Baidu is, yet they all seem to forget that in this incident, Baidu is actually the victim. In this matter, I can understand the operational cost pressures behind Baidu's cloud storage service and the company's expectations for profitability from this product. Running a product incurs costs, and products need to be profitable, but it seems that more people are unwilling to try to understand this.
I am someone who dislikes advertisements, perhaps more than most people do. But I would never blame any company or developer for putting in the effort to develop a product and earning compensation for it; that is only natural. Similarly, when using Baidu Cloud, if the speed affects my usage and puts me in a bad mood, I would rather pay to buy my time if it truly impacts my work and study, rather than lay blame indiscriminately.
This is indeed a moral issue, but it is not a moral issue of the company; rather, it is a moral issue of those who take it for granted that companies should provide free and high-quality services. This is my perspective on this matter.
The terrifying same voice. These young people can have their own viewpoints and, of course, can freely express their opinions. However, if some of their not-so-correct viewpoints are continuously deepened with the support of more voices, that is not acceptable. In addition, some "opinion leaders" who either simply want to express their "just" views or want to profit from selling viewpoints are also using not-so-correct opinions to assimilate the viewpoints of young people, which is even more concerning.
Using myself as a reference, I know that it is not easy for young people to "understand" during their adolescence; they still need the voices of truly knowledgeable individuals to guide them. Therefore, this society is unprecedentedly filled with the voices of "experts," and at the same time, this society is unprecedentedly in need of the voices of experts.