W

hen 
“The 
Kissing 
Booth 3” came out 
last year, it became 
the perfect finale to a horribly-
reviewed trilogy, with clips such 
as this one going viral for how 
painful they were to watch. This 
kind of dramatized interpretation 
of how Generation Z speaks to 
each other persistently appears 
in media centered around today’s 
teenagers as older writers try 

to grasp how we communicate. 
As modern TV shows continue 
to portray the generation as 
one-dimensional, 
self-obsessed 
teenagers absorbed by social 
media, they make it increasingly 
difficult for Gen Z to connect 
with the characters we are 
supposed to relate to. 
What it means to be a 
teenager continues to evolve, 
and film writers are working 
to incorporate the new norms 
of being a teenager into their 
media. However, they are not 
succeeding. Take the new remake 

of “He’s All That,” for example. 
Instead of a trained actress, this 
film stars TikTok star Addison 
Rae, and embodies every modern 
teenager cliché possible. The 
characters are mean, addicted 
to social media and primarily 
focused on popularity and fame.
Productions 
such 
as 
“Riverdale” and “The Kissing 
Booth” have gained popularity 
with our generation, but instead 
of being recognized for what 
they got right, they’ve gained 
attention for how much they get 
wrong. Standout issues range 

from the actors that are 5 to 15 
years older than their characters 
to the agitating dialogue that 
makes you wonder, who thinks 
we actually speak like that? 
The issue is that these shows 
encompass all of the stereotypes 
of today’s teenagers that older 
generations perceive, and little 
to none of the depth that actually 
is present in Gen Z, such as their 
adamant 
political 
activism, 
advocacy for social causes or 
transparency 
surrounding 
issues such as mental health or 
diversity. 
In 
contrast, 
one 
movie 
that 
portrays 
an 
accurate 
representation 
of 
teenagers 
is 
“The 
Perks 
of 
Being 
a 
Wallflower.” Unique for its raw 
(and sometimes uncomfortable) 
discussions on mental health, 
this 2012 film encapsulates the 
more realistic parts of being 
a teenager, such as struggling 
with mental health, drug abuse, 
sexuality, academic hardships, 
anxiety, sexual abuse and suicide. 
Although they are intimate and 
challenging topics, these are 
some of the issues that consume 
our generation’s daily lives, drive 
our conflicts and heavily impact 
our relationships. This honesty 
is what has led to this film’s 
lasting impact and the precedent 
it has set for other meaningfully 
relatable films in the future.
Gen 
Z 
experiences 
heavy 
battles with mental health. This 
generation is the most anxiety-
prone yet, with 90% reporting 
having experienced psychological 
or physical symptoms due to 
stress in the past year, and 70% 
saying anxiety and depression are 
significant issues among peers. 
Although our heavy use of social 
media is criticized and ridiculed 
by older generations, our instinct 
to turn to social media platforms 
like TikTok for advice isn’t due to 
some deep-rooted narcissism or 
desire to “go viral.” Instead, people 
struggling with mental health 
turn to social media to share 
experiences, 
seek 
information 
about getting help and find and 
give support.
So where does this lack of 
understanding of how Gen Z 
interacts with society come from? 
Well, for starters, the majority of 
film writers in the U.S. are over 
40 years old, and are additionally 
primarily 
white, 
straight 
and 
male. The homogenous nature of 
the writers leads to the repetitive 
misinterpretation of minorities. 
Gen Z is more racially and ethnically 
diverse than other generations. 
We have the largest LGBTQ+ 
population, with approximately 
21% of Gen Z over 18 identifying as 
a part of this community. Yet, in a 
survey conducted by VICE media, 
50% of Gen Z respondents said 
they felt that the current level of 
diversity in media does not reflect 
modern audiences. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
10 — Wednesday, December 7, 2022

“H

e 
hasn’t 
slept 
in 
probably uh seven 
days” was the only 
phrase of hip-hop artist Baby 
Keem’s song “naked freestyle” my 
speaker system was able to output 
before my parents turned it off. 
Admittedly, I should have known 
the next words, namely “these 
hoes,” would have gone over badly 
with them, considering their general 
distaste for vulgarity. 
Interestingly 
enough, 
as 
pervasive as expletives are within 
modern music, and within life 
in general, the distaste that my 
parents hold does not exist within 
a vacuum. Swear words are held as 
a persistent taboo throughout daily 
life, and social customs throughout 
the world look down upon swearing. 
Unknown to many people, though, 
is that there are clear psychological, 
physiological 
and 
sociological 
benefits to using curse words 
properly. Furthermore, these effects 
are representative of the greater 
power of breaking “taboo.”
Putting the taboo aside, multiple 
studies have shown that the surface-
level benefits of curse words are 
many. One 2015 study showed that 
the better use of curse words was 
related to the education level and 
vocabulary of the speaker. The idea 
that people who swear do so because 
they lack the ability to find the right, 
non-taboo word to use was proven 
a myth, and, generally, people who 
swear more actually tend to be more 
fluent in their language than people 
who do not.
Aside 
from 
the 
connection 
between curse words and language 
fluency, 
there 
exists 
a 
clear 
connection between cursing and 
pain tolerance. In terms of physical 
pain, it is found that swearing can 
help alleviate and distract people 
from pain. The cognitive process of 
swearing allows people to perceive 
harmful stimuli as being less painful 
because of the attention the process 
requires. 
A 
sports 
psychology 
study also found that swearing can 
increase performance in strength-
related and physical tasks. 
While the psychological and 
physiological benefits to swearing 
are numerous, a certain amount 
of attention should be paid with 
respect to the negative consequences 
it can have. Gone unchecked, 
simple cursing can undergo an ugly 
transition into what University of 
Michigan sociology professor Fatma 
Göçek called in a Michigan Daily 
interview “verbal violence.”
According to Göçek, “verbal 
violence” 
can 
undermine 
the 
inherent 
respect 
and 
empathy 
during social interaction needed in 
order to sustain a healthy society. 
Violence begets more violence, 
which is a vicious negative feedback 
loop that can be detrimental to 
society. 
This is where a discernment 
needs to be made in order to 
emphasize the positive effects of 
swear words. Not all taboo words 
are non-harmful. For example, slurs 
and stereotypical terms have been 
used throughout much of human 
history in order to hurt and oppress 

marginalized groups. 
There is a clear difference 
between copulatory and excretory 
swearing and divisive, harmful 
speech. The use of the former can 
come with many positive effects, 
while the latter has the capacity 
to cause great harm. There is also 
a difference between swearing 
at someone and swearing with 
someone.
Furthermore, 
it 
is 
the 
responsibility of the speaker to 
determine what swear words to use 
and when to use them. Using swear 
words at the right time and not with 
a wanton mouth can actually prove 
you to be more aware and educated 
to the person you are speaking to. 
When 
one 
can 
distinguish 
between the proper use of swear 
words and the improper use of 
swear words, it can help you connect 
with people at levels that would have 
otherwise been impossible to reach. 
When someone breaks a social norm 
in front of another person, they 
break down an invisible barrier. 
Shattering the linguistic norm of 
politeness has been shown to prove 
honesty and authenticity to the 
person one is speaking with.
When a societal norm is broken 
down, especially in scenarios where 
conformity is omnipresent, it gives a 
covert prestige to the speaker — that 
is, a connection between speaker 
and audience due to the words they 
choose to use. When asked how 
she would feel if a job interviewer 
cursed in front of her, LSA freshman 
Elizabeth Harrington details how 
she would feel more comfortable, 
saying she “would relax and feel like 
the workplace had a more casual 
environment.”
The thing is, using swear words 
shows an inherent honesty. One 
2017 study found a clear positive 
correlation between honesty and 
the use of expletives. A certain 
authenticity is needed in order 
to break down societal norms, 
and when that authenticity is 
shared with people, it can make 
them feel more human. When a 
professor curses in their lecture, 
it, in the words of LSA Freshman 
Meredith Knight, “humanizes the 
information” and shows that “the 
professor respects us as humans 
before students.”
At the end of the day, we are 
all real people. We are not the 
societal standards that we feel 
pressured by and we are also not 
the demonization we might receive 
for breaking those standards. While 
societal expectations might exist for 
a good reason, the importance of 
people supersedes the importance 
of the expectations.
Even though the taboo of swear 
words is not a global issue or a cause 
that requires global campaigning 
against, the issue is representative 
of the general human state. If we can 
break down the societal standards 
that bind us, even in little ways 
such as “expanding” our public 
vocabulary, we can move one step 
closer to a world that’s a little more 
honest and a little more authentic. 
The true power of swear words 
comes from their ability to bring us, 
even if a little bit, closer as people. 
That’s the fucking point.
Zhane Yamin is an Opinion 
Columnist and can be reached at 
zhane@umich.edu.

What’s the f***ing 
point: “Bad” words 
aren’t that bad

ZHANE YAMIN
Opinion Columnist

We can’t afford to lose animal experimentation

CLAUDIA FLYNN
Opinion Columnist

Why does TV get Gen Z so wrong?

D

eep 
beneath 
the 
Chemistry Building, East 
Hall, 
Undergraduate 
Science 
Building, 
College 
of 
Pharmacy, and School of Public 
Health — staple buildings and 
second homes to STEM students 
— lies a relatively unknown 
operation. Walking down a few 
flights below ground level, your 
nose will pinch, skin will bead 
from the humidity and pupils will 
dilate to adjust to the low lighting. 
As decayed as these conditions 
may sound, these basements are 
rigorously monitored to uphold 
an atmosphere for the beings that 
know this place to be their primary 
and forever home: rodents. Here, 
hundreds to thousands of rats 
and mice are kept in cages that 
line special containment rooms 
— either awaiting, in the middle 
of, or having gone through 
experimentation. 
The University of Michigan 
has a vast Animal Care and 
Use Program that sets and 
disseminates ethical standards 
for the use of animals for both 
education and research purposes. 
In addition to ACUP’s 41-page 
website that details (ad nauseam) 
the roles and responsibilities 
necessary 
to 
ensure 
animal 
welfare, 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan also has a publicly 
available 
and 
transparent 

database of all the laws, policies 
and guidelines researchers are 
required to follow.
In 
combing 
through 
the 
resources and precautions put 
in place for everything from 
fish eggs to primate hair, a 
common theme emerges: our 
institution ensures the highest 
standard of care and attention 
to animals. As documented in 
the official position statement 
of the University of Michigan, 
the universal “Three Rs” of 
biomedical research — Reduce, 
Replace and Refine — are at the 
heart of the whole endeavor. 
Spelled out in context, the three 
Rs stipulate that whenever a 
non-animal 
replacement 
isn’t 
available, the least amount of 
animals necessary should be used, 
and they should receive the best 
animal welfare. 
Yet animal experimentation 
strikes 
a 
nerve 
with 
many 
people on campus — such as 
the U-M Animal Ethics Society 
and Michigan Animal Respect 
Society — and no meticulous list 
of regulations will change that. 
Irrespective of the exhaustive 
measures that research-intensive 
universities like the University 
of Michigan undertake to ensure 
best animal use practice, many 
consider 
the 
non-consensual, 
abrasive and unknown outcomes 
of experimentation on sentient 
beings to be grounds for the 
complete separation of animals 
from research. Period. 

An attainable and realistic 
middle ground between animal 
rights 
activists 
and 
animal 
researchers simply cannot exist. 
The discrepancy lies in the value 
system each party subscribes to. 
The core belief that a mouse’s life 
is as important and precious as a 
human’s cannot be altered with 
data showing, for example, that 
countless life-saving drugs have 
been developed rapidly because 
of rodent experimentation, and 
that thousands of students learn 
best from tangible manipulation 
of animal models. 
Little progress has been made 
to reach peace with animal 
experimentation 
abolitionists 
because scientists often view 
activists’ fundamental beliefs as 
malleable ideas — as if crunching 
the 
numbers 
about 
in-vivo 
productivity can shift entire 
ideologies rooted in deep cultural, 
religious and ancestral ways of life. 
Nonetheless, the closest anyone 
has been to harmony lies in novel 
alternatives to animal testing. The 
National Institute of Health, the 
blueprint for biomedical research 
practices in America, syndicates 
various 
research 
endeavors 
to develop, scale and test new 
methods 
of 
replicating 
live, 
multi-organ environments. The 
most promising models involve 
artificial intelligence prediction 
of chemical toxicology, embryonic 
stem cell culture and the use of 
invertebrate creatures.
While 
these 
cost-effective 

alternatives would relieve the 
burden 
of 
skilled 
manpower 
required 
to 
conduct 
animal 
experiments, 
research 
labs 
have little incentive to fully 
switch to animal-free models. 
The observability with which 
gene therapy technologies, drug 
administration and physiological 
change occur in live animals 
— which go on to yield results 
that appeal to medical journals, 
funding committees and Big 
Pharma on the cusp of a new 
drug rollout — supersedes the 
alternatives that would really only 
work for projects vaguely related 
to the main research question. 
With the threat of pandemics 
persistent, human drug resistance 
and 
other 
health 
challenges 
that demand quick output of 
biomedical solutions now more 
than ever, pushback from animal 
rights activists and their demand 
for complete conversion to animal 
alternatives is something the 
world cannot afford at this time. 
The NIH notes, for example, that 
in addition to the use of animal 
models that greatly aided their 
own COVID-19 vaccine efforts, 
Moderna’s 
lightning-speed 
rollout of their mRNA vaccine was 
the result of preclinical data in 
thousands of genetically-altered 
mice. And as of summer 2022, 
more than 223 million doses of the 
Moderna COVID-19 vaccine have 
been administered in the U.S. 

NAMRATHA NELAPUDI
Opinion Columnist

Opinion

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

You’ve got this.

Everything fine?

Take a deep breath. There’s a lot going on in your life 
right now. Connect with tools and resources at 
U-M that can help you manage stress — from 
wellness classes and apps to useful information and 
counseling options.

Helping Leaders Feel Their Best:
wellbeing.umich.edu

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

