Yvette Walker: I've decided I just can't join the 'We do not care club'

Yvette Walker, The Kansas City Star on May 28, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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I’m a woman of a certain age, and recently an influencer on Instagram asked me to join a new club: The We Do Not Care Club.

Actually, the influencer, known as Melani Sanders or “justbeingmelani,” said I could join if I wanted to. She really doesn’t care if I do.

Sanders is guileless and deadpan in her videos, “We are putting the world on notice. We just do not care.”

This club — it’s also on TikTok — is open to any woman who is experiencing a time in a woman’s life where unwanted physical and mental ailments like hot flashes, mental fog and insomnia can plague even the best of us.

She and her club members don’t care about being patient, folding laundry, thinking about others’ feelings, hanging out with friends or whether their towels match.

I get it. I understand why you wouldn’t want to care about anything when you’re tired, hot all the time and can’t think straight. But while it’s tempting, I’m not joining the We Do Not Care Club.

It’s too important a time not to care.

I need to care about so many things, some more important than others: My doctor has told me to cut fat out of my diet and exercise more. My news apps remind me that I need to keep up on what’s happening in my nation’s capital as well as in my neighborhood. With prices so high, I just can’t shop randomly any longer. My wallet cares.

After this month, it looks like my Missouri lawmakers have joined the We Do Not Care Club, too. They’re mostly men, so they aren’t eligible, but after passing several bills to overturn what November voters wanted, they don’t really seem to care much about the outcome of that election.

Perhaps more importantly, culture and ideology around me seem to change daily and there is so much anger everywhere. That’s another reason I love the new column, Double Take with Melinda Henneberger and David Mastio, because we all must learn how to disagree respectfully. I have to care.

Local organizations may provide an answer. The Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council is promoting a virtual workshop by United Religions Initiative called “Navigating Difficult Conversations.” Three hours is a commitment, but it might be worth it. These days, difficult conversations are all around us.

As I slip back into doomscrolling on my socials, I listened to Sanders’ lists of why not to care — they range from clever to hilarious:

“We do not care if you’re waiting on a parking spot. You can sit there with your blinker on. We gotta fix our AC and get our thoughts together before we leave that spot.”

“We do not care if we hurt the younger generation’s feelings. We said what we said.”

And another: “We do not care about people-pleasing. Either you like me or you don’t like me.”

One more: “We do not care about arguing with anybody because nine times out of 10, we forget what we’re talking about mid-sentence of the argument.”

The We Do Not Care Club membership seems to grow more and more everyday with posts getting hundreds of thousands of likes and shares. Sanders is African American, but she never made the club exclusive to her race, unlike the previous online trend of Black women who said they would no longer “save the country” after Donald Trump was elected.

This isn’t about race. It’s about aches, pains, insomnia and overall fatigue. All kinds of women are picking up this flag and flying it.

Club members of all ethnicities just feel seen. In the comments, red_painter1 wrote: “This is the best club ever. You guys make me feel so … normal.” Jilliiembeanz wrote, “Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker that said ‘I’m low on estrogen and own a gun’ and I thought of our club.”

One commenter asked when is the convention? Imagine what that would be like.

I’m fortunate not to have all of the physical symptoms that many of the club members seem to have, but I completely understand where they are coming from.

Still, I must decline. In 2025, I have to care, even if sometimes I don’t want to.

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Yvette Walker is The Kansas City Star’s opinion editor and leads its editorial board.

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