Young, Dumb and full of Cumplacency

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know there are some people under 20 on this board, hopefully they can help me out. I am concerned about the “kids these days” and the fact that I am not confused or scared by them.

I hope there are all kinds of destructive and/or constructive things kids are doing, taking, wearing or listening to that I have no understanding of. I hope they are going crazy with something that has no products nor any media coverage associated with it. The kind of thing I would find out about years after it has been completely abandoned by anyone under the age of 25, and still be completely appalled. I am worried that this is not the case.

“When I was a kid” (you can’t get old without saying it) we at least tried to freak out adults by our actions and appearance. We took drugs they never heard of, listened to music they hated, supported political movements they found abhorrent, etc.

For example, what happened to the teenage freakshow? I expect to see some kid walking down the street wearing and/or doing something that I have no context for and no understanding of, using slang that completely excludes me. Walking around cities, as small as Portland, OR to as large as London or New York, I have yet to see some kid and go “What the fuck is going on there?” Like 16 year olds dressed as nuns, for no reason other than they think its cool and adults don’t get it.

I am not trying to say personal appearance is important per se, but its one of the few things that I would have some hope of being exposed to in daily life (as opposed to orchestrated media blitzes of “what’s hot this year”)despite my age and uncoolness (extreme uncoolness, as this post makes quite clear)

Please tell me that with this new-fangled interweb yall no longer do your weirdness in public. And/or everything changes so fast that nothing ever trickles down to boring old people any more. Or maybe that is the whole point, the way the youth of today “rebel” is by not rebelling, they are just as complacent, lazy, materialistic, fearful and self satisfied as us old people. Obviously not all people over 20 are these things, I am being a little flip there.

Or maybe (just ma-a-aybe) we were just as bought and sold when I was a kid and I am romanticizing my past. :slight_smile:

I am fully aware that most youth, like all of us, are extremely conformist, within their group, the fact that they are apparently conforming to OUR group is what’s weird.

I am sure that either A) no one will bother to reply to such a ridiculous post or B) everyone replying will be 20, 30, and 40 somethings pointing out that I am an idiot, protesting that they are still wild, or saying that they are not complacent, etc.

On the off chance that someone who is actually currently a youth, or has been one in the past year or two, does reply, I understand you don’t want to expose your secret club to someone closer to your dad’s age than your age. (I think I just wrote the most grammatically awkward sentence of all time) Please look into your hearts and throw me a bone.

I am not looking to find out what’s “cool with the younger set” , but if you were doing something like giving yourself Drano burns in the shape of your favorite congressperson, but stopped because you saw a Mom at the 7/11 with a Drano burn in the shape of Brad Pitt (or some other washed up old whore) so now “everyone” is doing it, my faith would be restored.
I am 35 (i.e. dad old) and have two girls aged 1 and 4. I would hate to think that they will grow up doing nothing more to piss me off than max out their credit cards.

PS -I am middle class American (that sounds sexy doesn’t it?), and so I guess this is more about middle class American youths, not all youths across the globe. I am being a bit tongue in cheek, e.g.- obviously I will not be mad if all that happens during my girls teen years is maxxed out credit cards. Actually I don’t plan on giving them credit cards, but that’s kind of the whole point…

2

We’ve seen pictures of what “non-conformity” and “pissing off your parents” looks like, and frankly it’s not pretty. Just becuase your generation was stupid enough to think doing a bunch of drugs and dressing up like a nun was cool doesn’t make it so.

3

I’m 20, btw. 3 years removed from high school.

I think that kids are better at hiding things nowadays. They still listen to the music their parents hate, but it’s on their iPod. They still take the drugs, just hide them better. Replace the crazy clothes with expensive ones from Hollister and Abercrombie.

That’s all I can really say about your post, because it wasn’t 100% clear to me about what you are wanting to know.

4

I dunno really. I think the main problem with young people in the 80s was that it was the 80s. Take any other time period and the teenagers were relatively normal, yanno?

5

I think that you only really see crazy teens in certain areas of town now, as opposed to scattered everywhere. Its no longer as ‘cool’ to rebel by taking drugs/ wearing crazy clothes/ doing things their parents hate in public, as myskepticsight said above. Now you’l see kids walking around with holes in their ears big enough to stick fingers through wearing Abercrombie, or average looking teens sans crazy hair wearing clothes that would make Alice Cooper proud.

Although, kids these days ARE just as materialistic, lazy, and self satisfied as you old folk, although I do draw the line at fearfulness and complacency.

6

So many kids today are primed from a very young age by their go-get-em soccer moms, that they don’t have time to rebel. They’re too busy with soccer practice, violin lessons, volunteer work, church youth group, etc. Plus, there may be a bit of an Alex P. Keaton syndrome going on – when your parents are so concerned with being hip and cool and being your friend, how are you supposed to rebel? By being normal, pleasant, studious, business-oriented, etc.

As far as the fashion stuff goes, well, I think that may just be because our culture is so, so fractured nowadays, that it’s hard for any trend to get off the ground. There are precious few big unifiers among the teen set. No matter what your interest is, you can find a community of like-minded folks online. You don’t have to be into the particular band that’s playing on the radio, because you have essentially the whole history of music available for download on your ipod. You can watch whatever you want on TV, because there are 500 channels to choose from.

But don’t take my word for it; I’m a ripe old 25 year old.

7

I’ve got some real contributions (as a dad of 2 girls myself) but now just wanted to add: POINT BREAK reference! WTG!

8

Sounds like even the way we tried to piss off our parents is old fashioned. Thanks for the relevant responses and thanks for no one taking me too seriously or nitpicking my glaring illogical inconstistancies.

To myskepticsight, I was 100% clear on what i was looking for either :slight_smile:

9

It’s the Ei-ei-eighties… let’s do a lot of drugs and vote for Ron-ald Rea-gan…

10

I have noticed soemthing like this but it’s not really dumb or complacent, it’s just more. . . in negotiation? I’m in my first couple of years of teaching college and, for example, while talking about the media and advertising last year, all my students were completely aware that ads were simply trying to get them separated from their cash, and that anything cool about the ad was there to manipulate them, but they weren’t. . . how was it we felt in the 80s. . . outraged? Like, they appreciated the commercials based on various things like artistry of humor, and the simple fact that it WAS a commercial didn’t make them shut their ears and go ‘la la la’ in irritation like it did me and my friends in high school because The Man was trying to manipulate us. They know that The Man’s trying to manipulate them, but hey, that’s the way the economy works, after all. They’re more. . . not complacent, as they’ re bright and engaged, but. . . they’re not as antagonistic towards the system just because it’s there. They’re better in dealing with authority rather than just bucking against it, but they also look more for guidance-- “am I doing this right? What should I be thinking about this?” rather than “I’m going to do it this way, and if that’s not what the assignment asks for, that’s because the assignment’s a fascist.” It’s like they’re all hitting their late 20s at 18 or 20, reaching a place of pragmatism where we Gen-Xers were still full of piss and vinegar and fighting everything just to fight, because that’s what it meant to care.
2 cents-worth of thoughts.

11

Not Drano, but lighter burns were quite fashionable a few years back. If you get the right shaped lighter, I forget what it is called now, the metal forms the shape of a smiley. Flick it and wait for the metal to get real hot, and you can burn the shape of a smiley into your flesh. Faith restored?

12

When I was a youngster, we knew how to piss off our parents … we killed them and hid their bodies! And they were glad!
What?

13

Conformity is the new rebellion.

14

I am seventeen years old. I live in Shoreline, WA, which is close to Seattle. My high school is across the street from me. I can see it if I look out the window.

To tell the truth, I can’t really say anything for certain about how my generation is rebelling. I don’t know what it is like to grow up anywhere other than in suburban Washington State. I can tell you a few things, though. Be warned, however, that this is all based on my personal observations.

First of all, America’s youth doesn’t know what to do. From what I hear, if you grew up in the ‘60s, it was pretty clear what to do: put on some Donovan, roll a doobie, and wear flowers in your hair (especially "if you’re goin’ to San Francisco"). Being a hippie was obviously rebelllious. Now, though, it’s not clear what is rebellious. Is hip-hop rebellious? Is it rebellious to be emo (for those who don’t know, “emo” is a new fashion trend combining standard gothiness with mostly false homoeroticism)? Also, if both of my parents were rebellious (my father was an active communist, my mother was a hippie), how can I rebel against a generation that could get weed so much more easily than I can?

Being obscure, artistically, is still popular, but that’s been around for a long time. I don’t think it’s knew that young people walk around wearing ugly, obscure clothing, thinking that they’re more “original” than you.

I’m part of a generation that should be rebelling against parents like you. Instead, we’re playing computer games. We’re playing lots and lots of computer games. We’re customizing our narcissistic MySpaces. We’re listening to horrible bands that have names that make The Strawberry Alarm Clock sound tame ( “One Of The Worst Sundays In History” is a real band name).

We’re also doing a lot of the stuff that you guys used to do. I don’t care what statistics say, drugs, smoking, and alcohol are still huge. I know people who drink and get stoned all the time. People also still believe that it doesn’t harm them, that marijuana isn’t bad far them. In the substances sector, not much has changed (or ever will).

I also believe, and this is definitely only my opinion, that there is more seperation between the sexes than there was before. I think that there is a reaction among men to what some of us might perceive as the over-feminization of society. I don’t mean to exaggerate what it’s like to be growing up male in the year 2006: I’m doing fine, and most of my male friends are too. It’s just hard to see statistics that show that 58% percent of college students are women. It’s hard when you open a door for a girl and she refuses to walk through. It makes it hard to know what it means to be a man. I believe that this could lead to a damaging resentment of all that the women’s rights movement has accomplished.

After all this ranting, I can’t say for sure exactly what the rest of my generation is doing, and whether they’re rebelling or not. Me? I am not going to the high school campus anymore. I am a full time Running Start student and attend Shoreline Community College. I am very reserved, defenitely not a social person, have not had a girlfriend since I was dumped on Valentines Day of 2005. I am not interested in rebelling. I just want to go to college, learn, get a Master’s or Ph.D, and do work that is meaningful to me, whether it is in English or in Fishery Studies.

Joey

15

Joey-- that’s a very good response. Thanks for putting so much thought into this for us. I think that you have a good point-- how are young people supposed to be rebelling if their totally square professors are wearing Bauhaus t-shirts to lecture in and their parents keep giggling about their high school mushroom trips? I think by NOT participating in what everyone expects young people to be doing since the 60s a lot of today’s kids are sort of taking the piss out of their elders, passively, and it’s really consternating older people, that younger people aren’t desperate to emulate what they thought being young was about.
Example: As a 30-something, it’s personally disturbing to make beer-drinking references to wake undergrads up in lecture and having much of the class say “Huh? I don’t drink. . .” What do you MEAN, you don’t drink!? You’re in college! (I have seen a bit of a change in substance abuse at the college level. . . or maybe the nondrinkers are more vocal about it now? Used to be that admitting (word choice!) that you don’t drink was like announcing that you were a virgin).

16

We were doing that back in the eighties. I think it was the Cricket kind. yikes

17

Well, speaking as a 22 year old who has had a computer and access to the internet for most of my teenage/young adult life, I’d say there is a HUGE amount of stuff that my parents don’t know and don’t comprehend when it comes to the internet. Although I’m more a part of the computer geek culture I still find that friends who are not at all tech savvy are able to make use of the online world in order to plot and discuss things without ever having a parent find out. I once tried explaining some of the online culture to my dad but he just sort of shrugged and now doesn’t even bother trying to understand it.

Video games for a while also seemed like a good way to rebel (seeing as my teachers and lots of parents considered it poison). One of my highschool math teachers hated how everyone kept going on about the games and she was convinced that it was rotting our brains and lowering our grades… that is until she found out that I played games and I was her top student.

The drinking/drugs side of things have decreased but only because kids today have alot more variety in entertainment than their parents had. The fun for modern kids seems smaller only because their entertainment is beyond the scope of what an adult thinks is fun. That’s why I always get a laugh when an adult rants about how kids these days don’t know what fun is.

18

OK, so thats a little more thoughtful information and discourse than I really had in mind.

I was thinking a maybe a “shut up old man!” or something.

Seriously though, I want to especially thank capybara, FrantzJ/Joey, and Goodling for exposing the gaps and mistaken assumptions in my thinking. You made very clear points that helped me expand and adjust my point of view. That happens to be one of my favorite things, the whole “understanding more” deal, good stuff.

My wife will be sending along large cashiers checks as tokens of gratitude for not having to listen me rant about stuff like how dumb it is that kids still listen to gangster rap.

Last but not least, everyone over 25 who wants to take FrantzJ/Joey out in the parking lot and beat the crap out of him for having his shit together when he is only 17, form a line over by my male pattern baldness and back hair.

Actually, I felt that way until the “PhD in Fishery Studies” part. After cleaning all the poo out of my pants, I realized that he is either high as hell ,or out of his young mind. Having a PhD in Fishery Studies is like being an 8th degree black belt in “tooth brush”. (I am sure it could realistically be a fascinating field of study, but it does sound funny)

19

I didn’t even know about the field until I looked at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks website (university I may apply to).

Joseph Frantz, Ph.D of Fisheries and Ocean Services

I like it. :slight_smile: