On Sept. 7, 2013, hundreds of Stony Brook University students rushed onto the Staller Steps, completely ignoring school protocol that made it mandatory to “swipe in” before attending the first concert of the school year.

It was complete chaos. People pushed and shoved to get all the way to the front. Even if you had no intentions of rushing in, the stampede of students in front of and behind you made it impossible to do anything other than follow the crowd. When staff members kindly asked that the students move to the back of the steps to make it safe for the performance to commence, the crowd vehemently booed and jeered. There were periodic shouts of phrases like “you suck!”  and, not surprisingly, the more people who shouted, the less the mob cooperated.

It seems like today’s generation wants to prove its superiority and that in some way, shape or form, it is better than the rest. I feel as though kids today, just as kids have throughout history, want to rebel. But then I think about what we have to rebel against. In reality we have nothing to fight. The world is at our fingertips and we have all that our predecessors had and more.

So what are we doing? We are making fools out of ourselves. We are letting the many control the few. The events of the Mac Miller and Cataracs concert at Stony Brook are just the latest examples of this behavior.

The people most eager to attend the concert were, in my experience, primarily freshmen. This was the first big event of their college career, something that could not be missed at any cost. Some, regardless of their opinion of Mac Miller or The Cataracs, felt like they had no choice but to attend the concert because everybody else was going.

Freshman Neil Gambhir admitted he only attended the concert because he felt he would miss out if he did not. Gambhir realized later, however, that there was no real appeal to the music whatsoever.

“Mac Miller possibly spoiled my entire perception of rap music that day. The bass was overwhelmingly loud, the lyrics were unsophisticated and frankly quite disturbing. I should have thought twice before I attended that show because essentially it was a waste of time.”

Gambhir, like many of his generation, followed his peers to the “edge of the world” but in the end realized it is better to make his own decisions.

“Suck my (expletive) before I smack you with it.” Do these words not inspire you? Do they not make you feel happy, content and warm on the inside? Do they not foster feelings of bliss and love? Do you not realize that I am being my overtly sarcastic self? Well you better have.

What irked me the most was not the melody-deprived music, nor was it the dreadful thumping of the bass that drowned out even the slightest hint of anything remotely close to music; what really got me going was the light the entire event cast on the current generation of Americans.

Aside from the lack of cooperation from the young crowd, the tasteless music and the peer pressure that almost everyone faced prior to attending the concert, whether or not they wanted to, the prevalence of marijuana was most disturbing. The smell of weed permeated the air, and whether you were smoking or not, you were by default put into a state of inebriation. How can something internationally regarded as against the law be so freely consumed, distributed and carried? Is it that there is power in large groups? Are we starting a revolution? Or is it that smoking marijuana at concerts is technically not punishable by law? Whatever it is, the behavior is making our generation look sleazy and trashy.

If the masses control the few, it will only lead to chaos. To me, the concert was testament to the latest generation’s futility. We are becoming less and less individualistic when it comes to decisions. More so now than ever, we base our actions and attitudes based on what others are doing. We need to go forward in our thinking. Not backwards. We are the newest and most improved humans. It is about time we act like it.