This article is the first part in a 5-part series. You can also view part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

I feel the need to add my opinion in this. There are a lot of discussions on hate groups toward elderly online in the blogosphere lately. Nicole of Freydblog investigated and found no less than 50 hate groups in Facebook alone. Ronni carried on the discussion over at Time Goes By.

Everyone are appalled by the reality, severity, and seemingly social acceptance of hatred (not just resentment) against seniors. The question is -- why? I think the best way to answer this is to ask these young people. And yours truly just happen to be one of “them”. Some of you probably know this already from reading my profile. But yes, I am “just” 25 years old. You might ask, The Elders Tribune is run by a 20-something year old?

GENERATION GAP

For a second there, did you feel awkward, surprise, or curious? If you said yes, then that, I think, is another proof of the issue. Age, it seems, do differentiate people socially. It's a fact that generations think and act differently. I think that's normal. We are shaped by our experience and environment. People growing up in the same time periods are exposed to more or less the same elements. By this crude reasoning, the phenomenon of generation gap is established because age group does matter.

To exaperate the problem for the seniors, our current mass media culture are represented by very few older population. In the rare occurrances, old people are often misrepresented with bad publicity. For instance, an angry and senile old man that eats children and terrorize the neighbourhood. Sounds familiar? Older people are too frequently portrayed as walking corpses and/or as comic relief.

For that, I blame the media. The fact is, the media are businesses. Advertisers and corporations provide their bread and butter. Aside from drugs and life insurance, few companies include older population as their target audiences. If you read the newspaper, turn on the TV, or even browse the web, everything are about the 50 or below age groups. (The baby boomers are gaining popularity too lately because companies realize that they have a lot of money.) Everything the younger generation see or hear do not include old people, or even worse, in a detestable manner. Aside from few family contacts, you are an unknown to us.

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN

A well known fact is that people are generally fearful of the unknown or unfamiliar. I think you see where I am going. Generation gap leads to unknown; unknown stems fear ... Fear?! What do people do when they are afraid? I think you know this already: the fight or flight responses. A primeval instinct that is engrained in all of us.

These hate messages are the result of people that have taken the fight response. (What about the “flight” crowd? Not that they would literally run away from the computer, mostly they'll just ignore you. So you wouldn't hear from them.)

HOW FEAR LEADS TO HATE

That is a very logical reasoning, but your question is probably still, why hate specifically?

In my opinion, I think this is a greater societal issue in my generation right now.

I feel that people of my generation are more influenced by the media more than ever. To a point some people seem like drones. All parts of our life are consumed (or should I say, commanded?) by the media in one form or another. Advertisers and corporations pamper us so well that they offer us something we want before we even knew we wanted it. Anyway, I digressed. My point is, the media (not just TV) is the center of this generation.

Which leads to another of my grieves. I feel that hate seems to be openly encouraged in the media in recent years. The US government certainly isn't helping either with their constant message of kill all terrorists on the face of the planet. However, even before that, there are the likes of Marilyn Manson, who seems to do nothing but promote extremist thinking. And he is “cool” because he does that. Extremes, it seems, is one of the key movement in my generation.

WE ARE ALL EXTREMISTS

People in my generation are quite extreme indeed. It is “our” culture. From extreme sports to extreme behaviors, extreme is now the new normal. For example, I know of many young people that uses profanity frequently as part of their language. Their use of the four letter F-word is so ubiquitious that it can be considered as a verb, a noun, interjection, and just to fill any space between their breaths. Yet, in no way do I try to justify hate messages toward the elderly population. I don't think they're “just saying” either. With the internet being so un-biased and willing to broadcast all sorts of messages, it is no wonder that extreme ideas can bypass media ratings and reach you and me.

THE UNFILTERED INTERNET

The cover of anonymity on the internet may also contribute to this. People don't feel they have to be responsible for their acts online. If you perform a simple search for what people hate. You'll probably find hate groups to just about anything. Sad, but true.

DO OLDER PEOPLE HATE YOUNG PEOPLE TOO?

Before I conclude, let's consider the reverse argument, do older people hate young people too? Perhaps not as strong as hate (because your generation are not extremists), but this discussion on hate groups show another side of fear -- flight. Many comments in the discussion at Times Goes By suggest people would soon deactivate their Facebook account and never go back. Rather than doing that, I definitely agree with Ronni that “nothing like this ever changes unless you make a lot of noise.” The key here is to take action to solve the problem and not succumb to fear and take flight. Remember my “unknown leads to fear” argument? As simple as it might seem, the real solution is to address the problem. Do speak up and give people not in your social circle a chance to understand you as unique individuals and not be labelled as a forgotten group.

INCREASE PUBLIC AWARENESS

The increasing use of blogs by elders are great. Yet, I think this doesn't really help much in terms of public awareness. Unless you are as popular as Time Goes By, most blogs are only read by a few family and friends. Although your ideas and thoughts are technically in public domain for others to see, how many people can you really reach with millions of other blogs on the internet?

That is one of the reasons why I have started The Elders Tribune. My dream is to build this up as an online publication run by the older population. If one voice can't be heard, then a collective effort by many people might just be loud enough. Thus, I dare to be politically incorrect here. Old people, speak up! Tell the world about your stories, or just let this young person know of your opinion on this article by leaving a comment below!

Note: I wrote and published this in the wee-hour of the night because I felt the need to reply to this as soon as I can. It is unedited and delivered to you direct from my thoughts. I will definitely expand on this in future posts, but my brain is shutting down soon so I will publish it as is.

Update: I decided to turn this into an investigative assignment. See the follow-up posts below.