To be CLEAR, I am not mad at these kids, but there is clearly a whole-ass society failing them.

You can learn to play an instrument any time! I picked up 3 more this year at 40yo (harmonica, voice, and castenets). I picked up two others at the beginning of lockdown (djembe and tin whistle). Music should be, first and foremost, FUN. And we are SUPPOSED to be having fun in this life, otherwise why bother? Pay bills then die?

There is NO obligation to play an instrument WELL in order to like it. You will not expire at 20. Nor at 30. Not even 40 or 50! Most of our brains like to keep learning things and having new experiences our ENTIRE lives, so you should keep doing that. You CAN join a band, create music, learn instruments, blah blah blah well into your old age.

I guess so far this seems like a regular Old Person complaint about change, but I just want to clarify that hey, if this is the way language is going online (and let me be clear, it is a linguistic divergence and not laziness or lack of education like some people imply), browser companies really need to step up their support so that people can actually see them across platforms, and don’t give me that tiny black and white bullshit, I mean actual colour. 

It’s 2018, stop living in denial about how communication in text-form works online. Emojis and picture-based communication is here to stay now bloody well facilitate it. I’m tired of piecing messages together just because I happen to be static enough to use a desktop for a lot of my online interaction.

But instead have more free ranging options, like hey if you're good at art, or think its your strongpoint, go ahead do a fucking masterpiece on your topic. You like Music? Compose/mix up something in relation to or stemming from your topic, you like public speaking? feel free to do a presentation. You like sports? Make your team setup or who'd do what accordingly like a game or how it'd go down differently. You like Theatre? write a short play or scene, even monologue. Fitting your strongsuits to do a project you can actually  not be ashamed of for being a speaker with a 5yrold's ability. But maybe one point of confidence for the semester.