Well, folks, here I am. I’d like to open up this thread to any one with any inquisitions about why american teenagers, or teenagers in general, act like they do. Not only that, but also what morals, values, beleifs, etc. they hold closest to their hearts, and I’ll attempt to debate them if neccesary.
For example, I’ll answer questions on my views and views some of my non-doper friends on: the death penalty, abortion, mary jane, alkee-hall, religion, evolution, the government, foreign affairs…basically anything. I’ll do my best to answer it and in some cases debate it.
I’m a teenager too. I too refuse to allow you to represent us.
And plus, one person can’t answer questions for a whole group of people. Teenagers are perhaps the most diverse group out there. So please, don’t turn us into another stereotype, or make it worse than it already is.
Curious, I clicked the link, expecting to see yet another documented case of racial bigotry on the boards, a statement from someone who disliked Asians. All I can say is, be careful on the SATs. Unless they’ve changed a lot, when you work the reading comprehension questions, you actually have to grasp the context of the little passages in order to answer the questions correctly.
Referring to the link above, consider the following questions:
What was the topic of the post?
[ul]
[li]A. the Cold War[/li][li]B. race relations[/li][li]C. Chinese culture[/li][li]D. existential angst[/li][/ul]
Whom does the author believe to be “backwards”?
[ul]
[li]A. communists[/li][li]B. yellow people with slanty eyes[/li][li]C. George Bush[/li][li]D. existentialists[/li][/ul]
When the author spoke of “backwards primatives” in China with launch access to nuclear weapons, whom did he likely mean?
[ul]
[li]A. the communist rulers[/li][li]B. the students in Tiannamen Square[/li][li]C. workers at fireworks factories[/li][li]D. Albert Camus[/li][/ul]
What was the author’s theme?
[ul]
[li]A. There will likely be another cold war.[/li][li]B. Chinese people, as a race, are inferior.[/li][li]C. Communism champions the rights of individuals.[/li][li]D. Existence is futile.[/li][/ul]
thank you lib, I appreciate the backup. I’m not trying to be funny with this thread. I wrote it because I feel that american teenagers are misunderstood with all the recent school violence and what not. Yue, I didn’t say that I was trying to represent you or all teenagers. I represent myself and my friends. Read the post before you go on the warpath next time.
This wasn’t racist, Yue. If you’d bother to understand I basically called them smart. I complimented the Chinese government on their knowledge and patience. and no, I wasn’t referring to the chinese people in general when i mentioned primitives.
Look, fine, if you’re going to clarify the China thing, that’s super, you’re not racist. Of course, if you had used a more descriptive phrase (like Chinese communists, or the Chinese government) instead of one that has several different meanings, it might have been apparent from the start. [This the part where someone makes a snide comment about it being apparant to any thinking person]
But I still don’t want you representing me. I don’t want anyone representing me, for that matter. You admit that you can’t speak for anyone more than you and your friends. So what good is this thread? There isn’t any one way American teens think. It’s not even possible to make any generalizations past the point that all teens are under twenty years of age. [This is the point where someone digs up a bizarre reference to say that this is actually wrong and some people remain teenagers well into their thirties.]
But I’m not going to convince you not to do this. People are almost never convinced of anything in Great Debates. All we can do is share our thoughts. And my thought it, basically, this is an unnecessary and pointless thread. Apparently some people disagree. So I’ll go.
Okay, Shag, I’ll try to help you out here and get your thread going. We’ll assume that you speak only for yourself in your capacity as an American Teen. But fair warning! This is Great Debates, and your responses stand to be challenged.
Let me start with questions about your world-view(s):
[li]What do you believe is the philosophical implication (if any) of your own mortality?[/li][li]What do you think of Jesus’ moral imperative, “Be Perfect”?[/li][li]Under what conditions does your personal experience outweigh other epistemological considerations?[/li][li]Does it annoy, confuse, frustrate, or otherwise trouble you that your consciousness is a closed frame of reference?[/li]Do you believe in God? If not, why not? If so, why, and what do you mean by “God”?
Why don’t you give it a rest. The debate here is not “does shagadelicmysteryman represent every teen on this board”. I think he is just offering his oppinion as a 17 year old.
I have some questions:
First of all, adults always seem to think that the next generation of teenagers is always somehow worst than the last. They always say “I never did that at that age!”. Apparently drugs, sex, peer pressure, drinking, fighting, etc. has always only been around for one generation.
So my question is: Has being a teenager changed that much in the past 10 years (I mean its not like U2, Aerosmith and Madonna are still touring )? When I was a teenager (late 80’s to early 90s), we had the following issues/concerns:
Where to score concert tickets (Debbie Gibson instead of Britney Spears, Circa “Master of Puppets” Mettalica instead of new Mettalica, etc)
Where to score a six pack of Bud
Getting into a decent college
Not looking like a dork
Figuring out which drugs, if any, I want to try
Getting laid
How much homework sucks
How uncool my parents are
How “what’s his name” at school is a dickhead
How lame this (suburban) town is
Affording a car that’s not a Pinto, Pacer, Escort, or Gremlin
Last night’s episode of Frontline (shown on my local PBS affiliate, KQED) featured the teen-age students of a high school in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1996, a syphillus epidemic was discovered at this school, and in the process of tracking down the carriers of the disease, it was further discovered that there were large numbers of these teen-aged students having extremely promiscuous sex with one another. Group orgies were not uncommon, and the participants were usually drunk. At least one of the female students interviewed said that she had frequent sex but that the experience was not enjoyable for her. It was not made clear whether these young ladies had orgasms or not.
So, is it that easy for teen-agers to get laid? If so, how come I missed out on it when I was a teen-ager? And do sexually active teen-age females climax, or not?
I hope the OP won’t mind me answering some questions, even though I graduated last year.
tracer:
It seems to be that easy for some of them. Here’s my theory: in a closed group, students who are considered more “attractive” (either physically, or because of status like popularity or sports stardom) will have more opportunities with the opposite sex, and will be more likely to take advantage of the ones they themselves find “attractive”, essentially ignoring the rest.
This goes along with what I saw in high school - there was a certain group of students who would be dating (or just sleeping with) someone else every week, but always within the same group. It’s a lot like Hollywood.
Not that no one else got laid, of course. But not nearly as much.
No, it is not easier to get laid now, I watched that last night, and it was shocking to hear what they were doing. Not wrong (but they should have used protectiob), but still suprising. The closest thing that I ever had at high-school, actually middle school, was “Party Blowers”. Girls with lines waiting for oral sex. They would be covered with cum at the end of the night, and without the respect or popularity that girls hoped they would gain.
Ang I think that Cherry Creek High School has a hell of a lot more drinking, slightly more pot, than most schools.
From my AP Statistics course, a student survey revealed the following proportion drink:
All i have to say is that being a teenager has not changed much. Except these things are different from our parents:
Which cd will i buy next or where will i download it?
How much is the cd player going to be for my car (if i have one)?
Where is that site on the internet?
Who will i call on my cell phone today?
Who just paged me?
… and so on and so on.
You get the point. The only difference in generations is the technology. Every teenage generation will rebel against whatever values its parents are pushing. That’s they it is and always will be.
Man these peoples high schools and middle schools sound more like sequels to Caligula then the school i went to. How come I never got invited to these orgies? I never knew middle school could be so decadent. When i was in middle school back in the early 90’s i just watched MT3k with my friends and sweated a lot. Probibly for the better though. Suffering at puberty builds character. People that had too exciting an adolescence usually turn into boring adults. I ran into a lot of people that were “cool” at a party a couple days ago, and most of them were just pathetic townies living at their parents houses and getting fat or pregnant. i wouldn’t trade any of those years, no matter how lame and pathetic they seemed at the time. Oh yes and to answer tracers question. no and then yes and then more yes.
Maybe you weren’t in the small minority that was considered “popular”.
(Seriously, though, I do remember seeing – or thinking I saw – a lot of “action” going on at Santa Monica High, where I went to high school, but only involving a select few people. Particularly a select few guys. I have a theory that about 10% of the guys out there attract the romantic attentions of about 90% of the gals. I just don’t happen to be in that 10% of the guys, unfortunately.)
Yeah, I only meant that teenagers (as well as us twenty-somethings) constantly think about getting laid. I certainly didn’t actually get laid that much when I was a teenager.
I don’t remember too many “party blowers” in middle school, but we did have a few in high school and college. Ah…good times. I haven’t met too many adult women though with reputations for blowing the entire accounting debt. Maybe I’ve just been working at the wrong companies.
)? When I was a teenager (late 80’s to early 90s), we had the following issues/concerns: