Swoosh, Spsss, Crash. My fingers stick to the side of the building as I look over the criminals I webbed up dangling from the streetlight wires, like butterflies about to emerge from their cocoons. I aim at the tallest building and leap off the wall my legs cling to. Being Spiderman is difficult work, but the amount of joy I get from saving people and the freedom I experience while swinging through New York City is pure euphoria.
As I reach the apex of my swing, I thrust my legs towards the clouds and land back on my couch.
“What are you doing?” My mom asks. “Stop now or your stomach is going to tangle and you won’t be able to eat.”
I sit there, silent, still taking in the amazing adventure I just went on. The extraordinary experience that just occurred. Returning to reality seems disappointing, but I know I can become Spiderman again the next time I get bored.
I miss those days. Being able to transform into a superhero with ease, and the amount of happiness that comes from just that. It’s something that is much easier as a child.
It’s boredom that creates character. It’s boredom that allows you to create that joy and personality.
I was recently reminded of these glory days during my work with a teacher. We were preparing for a fun presentation for Children’s Day and she presented me with an anecdote. It was about how this kid that was in her class confidently walked in with two iPads, sitting comfortably and high on his shoulders like a rich man carrying stacks of money.
She told me, “How can these kids know how to log into YouTube, but not know their 123’s.” She continued to tell me about how disrespectful her set of children was, and how they all were carbon copies of one another, saying the same silly sayings, only they weren’t things 7 to 8-year-olds should know, but the slang of high schoolers.
“We were not like that at all when I was that age. What was I doing at that age?” And the thought of transforming into Spiderman emerged in front of my eyes and somber feelings swam through my body.
The internet is an amazing place. The amount of information, knowledge, and joy you can receive from the World Wide Web is one of the greatest advancements of human age. However, the ease of access to the amount of brain rotting, personality killing, and NPC creating content is unfathomable. The prominence of this world of trends and viral things that everyone is forced to see is not only accessible but already a critical part of the lives of billions of people now, children massively included.
The personalities of children are monotonous, toned to what is popular on TikTok, and usually these characters are not unique, not kind, and often rude, due to them being open to the same things that make older kids popular. When they get bored, they are instantly able to hop onto the easiest form of entertainment that are built for short attention spans, which is default in children nowadays, and attention-catching, trapping them for hours. It’s how children nowadays differ from the past, and we cannot fault them for this either. It is just how the world has developed.
Being Spiderman was one of the happiest memories I have as a child. Boredom was the best blessing and it allowed me to delve into my own mind and find who I was. This Children’s Day, I want to appreciate kids today working through this world that has developed. But I do hope that one day they can have the glorious experience of staring up at the ceiling and counting the popcorn, transforming into a superhero.
Article by: Leon Zhang