I
was sitting at my kitchen
counter with my mom
when I got the notification
that my “Year in Review” on Snap-
chat had been uploaded for 2020.
With not much else to do on that
December morning, I opened the
application, excited to relive both
favorite and forgotten memories
that made up an unparalleled year.
The review began with a video
of my uncle on New Year’s Day
wearing 2020 glasses from the
night before and dancing with
strangers on a pool deck — all for
the entertainment and embar-
rassment of my cousins and me. I
showed my mom and we laughed.
“Oh, simpler times. Little did
we know what was coming,” she
chuckled. “Show me more.”
After I exhausted the curated
slideshow of moments, I scrolled
through other pictures and videos
from deep within the Snapchat
memory vault. And so we sat tap-
ping through the entirety of 2020:
Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash in
January, videos of my classroom in
February on what were then just
average high school days. Con-
tinuing to tap through, we reached
March 12, which showed a video
of my friend screaming at the caf-
eteria table.
“This is literally not a big deal,”
he yelled. “All the scientists are
saying they don’t know why every-
one’s freaking out. Everyone needs
to calm down!”
At the counter, my mom and I
laughed and shook our heads at
the irony and naivete in his con-
fident, assertive voice. Little did
my friend know what was coming
either. A video from the next day
records the dean’s voice coming
over the high school’s loudspeaker
announcing we would not be re-
turning to school until a week af-
ter spring break.
Ah, the beginning of the end.
We kept watching — it was like a
movie.
But as my mom and I observed
my life unfold in pictures and vid-
eos, I began to think about the
medium through which we tell
stories and recall memories. I re-
alized that my understanding of
my family members’ lives before I
came into them are based primar-
ily on their words, rather than re-
corded images.
This is especially true for my
grandfather. For as long as I can
remember, I’ve listened to him
outline scenes from his life with
humor, wit and great detail. His
most colorful stories take place
during the Great Depression. He
tells of his days as a peanut sales-
man when he and his dad stood on
the corner trading nuts for nickels.
Other favorites include the year he
refused to go to school because he
was scared of the garbage man —
after watching his father beat the
guy up in his driveway for catcall-
ing his mother, he hid under the
couch every time the truck ar-
rived. There was the time he made
his “ma” pick him up from Camp
Freedom after they forced him to
catch bologna sandwiches flung
from a truck. He also frequent-
ly details his performances as a
Vaudeville dancer and how he tap-
danced on stage with his graceful
mother and father in glory. He
tells the story of when he was held
up at gunpoint while working the
cash register at his dad’s currency
exchange, and of the first time
he saw my grandma in Eli’s Deli,
though she was uninterested in his
introduction at the time.
From his words, my mind con-
cocts its own videos. Characters
since passed away come to life in
my head through his anecdotes.
My grandfather’s stories make me
laugh without fail, usually because
of the plot or his word choice. But
what stands out to me the most is
the ambiguity surrounding the line
between what actually happened
during those harrowing times and
what he relays, because the truth
of it all is so unknown. Only my
grandfather was at the scene of
the hysterical, terrifying or beau-
tiful stories he tells — there’s no
other documentation of the man’s
colorful life. I just have to take his
word for it.
Meanwhile, my mom and I are
able to visually witness a moment
from almost every day of my past
year. We reach the end of win-
ter: a video of my family crowded
around puzzles in the dining room,
a picture of me on the couch, my
prom dress stretched over my
sweatpants and my hair in a tan-
gled bun. We watch spring turn to
summer: a video of me pressing a
button, committing to the Univer-
sity of Michigan. There’s us walk-
ing my dog and us in the backseat
of our car on rides to nowhere. We
see us at a Black Lives Matter pro-
test, chanting with thousands of
strangers. There’s my dad sweat-
ing in my residence hall room suf-
focated by layers of masks as he
attempts to loft my bed during my
move into college.
There are more stories to tell
my children or grandchildren one
day about the year 2020 than in
the entirety of an ordinary decade.
Maybe my grandfather would say
the same about his experiences
during the Depression. But unlike
my grandfather’s past, my experi-
ences will never boil down to my
word alone. Many of my genera-
tion’s experiences are document-
ed, and I think that’s fascinating.
Moments that might become
stories, along with moments that
might have otherwise faded from
my mind, remain pristine and
permanent on my phone: videos
of me sitting in my residence hall
room with fear in my eyes as John
King outlines the beginning of the
election returns, of my friends
and I screaming in our pajamas
as we read the email announcing
that freshman housing contracts
would be canceled for winter se-
mester, of the moment Biden won
the presidency. I have smaller
moments too: the (masked) faces,
Zingerman’s sandwiches, break-
out rooms and Zoom shenanigans.
It’s all there, in living color.
Not only is Generation Z’s ev-
eryday life documented, it’s shared
and
it’s
communal.
Through
memes on Instagram, Twitter and
many TikToks, Gen-Z has the abil-
ity to bask in shared experiences.
We have the benefit of processing
and coping together — often with
humor — in the moment. Wheth-
er videos record a person’s funny
conversation with their therapist,
tragic relationship stories or the
miseries of quarantine, I watch
and know that millions of people
are watching (and often laughing)
with me. In that, there is vulner-
ability, connectedness and under-
standing.
I wonder what this means for
our generation. Something about
it makes me hopeful. I believe, un-
like previous generations, we have
a heightened understanding of
what makes us human, what pains
us, what gives us joy and how
we’re more similar than differ-
ent. Hopefully, we’ll grow up with
these shared sentiments in mind
and become leaders who make de-
cisions based on them, not blind to
them.
Yes, perhaps, with our experi-
ences documented we will lose
the magic of storytelling. When
I’m able to pull up a video for my
kids of my friends’ cars parked in a
circle while we yelled at each oth-
er across an empty parking lot af-
ter being locked in our homes for
three months, the aforementioned
line between what actually hap-
pened and the way they perceive
it will be less blurred. The possi-
bility of the extinction of imagina-
tion, embellishment and freedom
to concoct pictures in the mind is
upsetting. This begs the question:
Would my grandfather recall his
childhood stories the same way if
he had documentation of them?
Something tells me the answer
is no. Memories change with age,
and there is something to be said
for revisionist history. From living
through 2020, I understand how
surviving the Depression would’ve
been traumatic and painstak-
ing, yet my grandfather’s stories
sometimes seem romantic. I fear
his Camp Freedom story wouldn’t
follow quite the same plotlines or
have the same colorful commen-
tary if he had a Snapchat memory
of it. But I also think about what
I’d give to see footage of a 15-year-
old version of my 90-year-old
grandfather tap dancing on a stage
or standing on the street corner
selling peanuts with his dad whom
I’ve never met.
For the sake of knowledge, un-
derstanding and truth, I think our
generation and those to follow
possess something powerful. As
we’ve seen through recent times,
blurry lines, as magical as they may
be, can also be dangerous, and fact
is important. Perhaps storytelling
according to memory will be sac-
rificed for tangible documentation
of others’ different realities. May-
be that’s a positive sacrifice to be
made. People may no longer be as
ignorant about the lives and histo-
ry that came before them, or about
the lives, feelings and sentiments
of people surrounding them at
the moment. People may not have
the ability to dismiss others’ reali-
ties, either. After all, a viral video
documenting the truth of George
Flloyd’s death sparked the BLM
protests this year.
For better or for worse, as I
scrolled through my 2020 on
Snapchat, I was acutely aware that
the way we relay experiences has
changed forever. For 2020’s sake,
I’m glad. I don’t think I’d have
the energy to rehash the year in
words alone. I’ll need the help of
all Snapchat memories, TikToks,
videos and memes I can get.
I closed out of the applica-
tion and took a picture of my
mom at the kitchen counter. My
half-finished smoothie, her dai-
ly crossword puzzle and a Time
magazine with President Joe
Biden and Vice President Ka-
mala Harris as its “Person of the
Year” on the cover cluttered the
table. Behind her on the televi-
sion, NBC covered the distribu-
tion of the first vaccines. Now
that’s a good one, I thought. I
saved it for the memories.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
14 — Wednesday, January 27, 2021
statement
For the
memories
ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE
BY LILLY DICKMAN, STATEMENT COLUMNIST