For those of you who have a phobia for long essays, please suspend your phobia and read this. This thread's premise borders on a very topical and often overlooked issue.

What is age discrimination? Age discrimination is essentially the stereotyping and prejudice against a person or group of people, on the grounds of their age. Culprits of age discrimination are people who formulate and cling to often harmful stereotypes about people of a certain age, or discriminate against people on the basis of their age. Age stereotyping and discrimination isn't just prevalent on Nigerian social media, it has also metamorphosed into a culture, and a distorted lens through which people perceive others.
Although there are many variants of age discrimination, I am going to focus on the one that is most prevalent on Nigerian social media, which is the bias against people of a younger age group by people of an older age group, due to preconceptions and flawed notions they harbour.

Social media is essentially a simulation of real life opinions and attitudes of people, so it's not far-fetched to say that if a lot of people are subscribing to this sad, pathetic culture, which is predicated on a skewed idea, it's going to also influence how they go about their daily activities in real life, and their dealings with people at home, work and school, so this knowledge really accentuates the importance of acknowledging and addressing this issue, before it escalates further.

Of course claims like the one I am making should be backed up by reasonable evidence if it is to be taken seriously, and I am going to start by providing one strong evidence everyone can verify, since it took place on this very social media platform. And I'll like to add that this experience is actually what elicited the desire to create this thread.

Two days ago, a group of Nairalanders decided to host a party at a beach in Lagos, and before the commencement of this event, the organizers tried their best to publicize this event through various mediums, so that majority of Nairalanders would become aware of the event and attend or support, according to their capacity.
After the party had taken place, a thread was created to showcase all that went down during the event through pictures and videos. As on most platforms, culprits of age discrimination used this to express their ageistic views. The thread was littered with comments referring to those who attended as kids, just because majority of them fell within a particular age group. There were comments sprouting out from all angles denigrating the participants of this event, on the basis of their age.

Now, I'll like everyone to join me in evaluating the behavior of the ageist detractors as was described in the above paragraph, which I believe, would throw a light on the inanity inherent in the views of these people.
First of all, for someone to be criticized, they have to have committed an offense. What offense did these people who decided to spend the second day of the year, mingling and having fun with people they most certainly never met, that would warrant such level of criticism and defamatory remarks fired at them, just on the grounds of their perceived age? Nothing. What does their age have to do with anything? Were these detractors implying that Nigerians who aren't up to 30 years shouldn't go to beaches and have fun? Why should the harmless action of anyone be excoriated because they fall within a certain age category? It doesn't make any sense. If these detractors wanted the party to be comprised of people of their preferred age, why didn't they attend and invite their old friends to attend? It's quite surprising that people who claim to be old and wise and mature, don't have the intellectual resources to see the foolishness in the intrinsically flawed views they hold.

Sadly, the instance I presented above is just one of many. The walls of Nigerian social media is stained with this graffiti of age discrimination. I have witnessed instances of people receiving an inordinate amount of flak for asking questions innocently born of curiosity, reason being that they were too young to ask these questions. Really? Is anyone too young to ask questions? Isn't curiosity an antecedent of creativity, invention and intellectual enlightenment? Isn't asking questions the cradle of knowledge, seeing that one cannot know except he seeks knowledge, and asking questions is the best medium to seek knowledge?
You know, it's quite funny that a nation like ours that is struggling to catch up with the shadows of the western world in the fields of science, technology and humanities, are still the ones stifling curiosity in the minds of the so called young ones.

I have witnessed cases of presumably mature people shouting down at people they perceived younger than them, just because they felt they weren't old enough to have conversations with them. These kind of culprits tend to conflate physical maturity with intellectual maturity. They feel that since they are older than a person by more than 5 years, such person isn't qualified to talk to them. This is ignorance of the highest form. The content of a person's intellect or scope of knowledge, should only be evaluated by the contents of their speech, not by the size of their age.

It's quite painful that it seems to be only in Nigeria that I witness instances like this. I have had the opportunity to access foreign online forums and I see people start their comments by telling how old they are and they still get the same kind of responses they would have gotten if they were double that age. I have seen 40 year olds have conversations with 18 year olds and the age difference didn't bear into how they received each others views.

Most Nigerians tend to see age as an achievement, and their perception of other people tends to be predicated on this mindset. But is age really an achievement? Of course not. It's just a set of figures used to understand the physiological and anatomical growth and changes in the human body, using geography and cosmological underpinnings to arrive at these figures.
What's actually an achievement is financial independence, the attainment of useful academic credentials, the achievement of happiness and satisfaction, fulfillment in certain areas of life, the ability to touch lives of different people, and capacity to make new friends and establish healthy relationships.
Ironically, those "kids" who attended the beach party achieved something. They connected with people they never met before. They made new friends. They established healthy relationships and healed broken ones, and they were happy. If you haven't achieved in your 30something or 40something years on earth what those "kids" achieved in a day, then your case is indeed a pitiable one.

To the culprits of age discrimination, I'll like to say this to you. Look around you. Those who are making huge leaps in our world today are the people you would classify as kids. Some of them have achieved triple what you achieved, despite being half your age. While you are here discriminating against people on the basis of their age, these same age grades are the ones who are taking over your precious fields. They are the Mark Zukerbergs who started facebook at the age of 19. They are the Seuns who created Nairaland at the age of 22. They are the One Directions, the Justin Biebers, the Teknos, the Wizkids, the Emmanuellas, the very young and talented designers who design the clothes you wish to wear, they are the university undergrads who are making strides in different academic fields.
In your spare time, do a google search on the ages of those who invented the social media platforms that you want to claim "exclusive age rights" to, and how old they were when they designed them. While you are here discriminating against people based on the disparity between your age and theirs, which you perceive as an accomplishment, they are busy accomplishing and adding more value than you on an objective level.

It's obviously our culture of age stereotyping that led us to this present political quagmire that we have ourselves steeped in as a country. We obviously have younger minds with fresh ideas and the enthusiasm needed to lead us back to the economical utopia we once had, but we choose to elect the "old and wise" Buharis of our day.

If we take away the prejudicial cotton buds from our noses, we would perceive the malodorous stench of age discrimination and stereotyping permeating rapidly through the corridors of social media, and if nothing is done, this stench would pollute everything that represents modernity, freedom of speech and expression, and everything that promotes peaceful and beneficial co-existence between people of different age grades.

You guys have way too much time on your hands..

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Estharfabian:


It's a beautiful speech. initially I wanted Skimming... buh I stopped and read Thoroughly.



So, yeah. age discrimination is a 'REAL' thing.
these Old, baldies think the world revolves around them. they think age is Yardstick for wisdom, when in fact they're no better than 16-Yr olds. forgetting the One Important thing.. ''In 10Years time. They'll probably be bald, Lose a few teeth, Plagued with Irrevocable Joint and waist pain.. greyhairs and whatnot. Pfft!

Yes, age discrimination and stereotyping is a real thing and it's one of those societal vices no one wants to acknowledge or challenge. Stereotypes are ideas and ideas are manifested through action.
I think the war of ideas that is currently raging in western society, needs to diffuse into our nigerian society, and people really need to be disincentivized from clinging on to intrinsically harmful and divisive ideas such as this. This is the only way we can move forward.

Estharfabian:


It's a beautiful speech. initially I wanted Skimming... buh I stopped and read Thoroughly.



So, yeah. age discrimination is a 'REAL' thing.
these Old, baldies think the world revolves around them. they think age is Yardstick for wisdom, when in fact they're no better than 16-Yr olds. forgetting the One Important thing.. ''In 10Years time. They'll probably be bald, Lose a few teeth, Plagued with Irrevocable Joint and waist pain.. greyhairs and whatnot. Pfft!

Lol.. You guys should organized a million man march against this ni

Mods please help me move this thread to the family section.

Lalasticlala
Dominique

IamLEGEND1:
Absolutely spot-on.
if pesin just assume say e better pass me because him senior me,I go just bone am.
No time to dey relate with blindsided mofos.

Thanks. I completely concur.

Estharfabian:


It's a beautiful speech. initially I wanted Skimming... buh I stopped and read Thoroughly.



So, yeah. age discrimination is a 'REAL' thing.
these Old, baldies think the world revolves around them. they think age is Yardstick for wisdom, when in fact they're no better than 16-Yr olds. forgetting the One Important thing.. ''In 10Years time. They'll probably be bald, Lose a few teeth, Plagued with Irrevocable Joint and waist pain.. greyhairs and whatnot. Pfft!

a will come wen u will also experience all these things u mentioned. so chill

Estharfabian:


It's a beautiful speech. initially I wanted Skimming... buh I stopped and read Thoroughly.



So, yeah. age discrimination is a 'REAL' thing.
these Old, baldies think the world revolves around them. they think age is Yardstick for wisdom, when in fact they're no better than 16-Yr olds. forgetting the One Important thing.. ''In 10Years time. They'll probably be bald, Lose a few teeth, Plagued with Irrevocable Joint and waist pain.. greyhairs and whatnot. Pfft!

Wonderful piece. Thoughtful and apt.

Genro-centrism has been a relic that has remained with our sociocultural reality and it has been a bane on the nations intellectual and political revolution.

All your observations are spot on.

Why is this not on front page?

**
seun, fynestboi, lalasticlala.

Notice how people refused to comment on a thread like this?. If it's a senseless thread made by one of the romanceland 'celebrities', we might have gotten 20+ pages.

I agree with this.

I also know that almost everyone is ageist in some way, just like almost all of us are racist in some way.

Also, one thing is that age is usually equated with experience. And this is an important factor.

So while some younger ones might be 'judged/segregated/discriminated' against, sometimes, it's not just based on the age, but on their lack of experience.

Cheers.