We're the First Generation Who Can't Forget Our Childhoods

My older cousins talk about their teenage years like they were a safe draft — mistakes that didn't save to the cloud. They cringe at specific memories, but those memories exist only in the heads of the people who were there. By the time their social circles expanded and shifted, most of the embarrassing stuff had just quietly dissolved. My generation doesn't have that. We have receipts.

The photos from my seventh birthday party are still on my mom's Facebook. My first attempt at making YouTube videos (which I deleted but that someone screenshotted) circulated in my school group chat for months. The texts I sent when I was 12 exist on someone's phone and could reappear at any time. I know adults who say this should make young people more careful about what they post. I'd argue it mostly just makes us more aware that 'careful' wasn't really an option.

There's something unexpectedly interesting about having this much archive, though. I can actually track how my taste changed — what music I was into at different ages, how I talked, what mattered to me. Most people my parents' age have fragmentary memories of who they were at 13. I have documentation. It's uncomfortable and useful at the same time.

What I'd push back on is the idea that we're less private than older generations because we've been raised online. I think we're more precise about *what* to make public and what to protect. The stuff that's actually private stays in DMs or doesn't get recorded. What you see of our lives online is often a pretty deliberate curation — which is its own skill set and its own pressure. We know the difference between the archive and the actual self. I'm not sure every adult does.