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