posted
I notice a lot of younger people who post on Hatrack seem to be down on their generation, and I think that this is a shame and quite possibly no more warranted than it ever has been.
But, hey. What do I know? You younger Hatrack denizens, what do you think? Do you find the dominant media image of teens/young adults to be positive or negative? Do you think it's deserved?
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posted
Have they now? I think that that's debatable and may be avoiding the question, Scott R. I think one of the articles I linked to indicates that that's not so today.
I think it's also debatable that there have been times in this country's history when media, the general broad culture, has been more positive towards children than others, and vice versa. Sometimes for good reasons. Sometimes not. I am asking whether perhaps we live in an age where the dominant media (edit: the general culture?) is more negative towards young people than it needs to be.
posted
When you say kids how old do you mean? 14 and 15?
I'm 20, but I'd say there is a rather negative tilt towards younger people. Everyone tells them they are lazy and uninformed, but no one seems particularly interested in informing them. They get yelled at for not voting, but none of the candidates speak to their issues.
I know it's a two way street, uninformed kids should get off their butts and inform themselves, and not wait for something to come to them. But I think getting younger people involved needs to be more of a partnership than simply scolding them and then throwing your hands up in the air in frustration and giving up.
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My generation was called the slackers, for pete's sake. If we didn't get into trouble, it's because we were too flippin' lazy.
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posted
I don't exactly know what is meant by "culture war against kids", but I do remember being a kid in the 80's. The media loved to portray adults as creepy, bossy, warped idiots. I remember Nickelodeon coming out and how it made kids out to be the heros and adults out to be goofy nutcases.
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posted
Perhaps what is happening is that parents, concerned for their children because of all the negative influences out there, are becoming more informed and communicating better with their kids. Among the other indicators of healthy youth in the Alternet article was that the kids liked their parents.
posted
"The media loved to portray adults as creepy, bossy, warped idiots."
Well, media aimed at the under-30 demographic did, certainly. The news media in the '80s, on the other hand, was full of stories about how us wacky kids were 'jacking cars and snorting coke and beating up grandmas with their own walkers.
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posted
I think adults in general treat kids like sub-human nuisances not worthy of their attention (or worthy of their ongoing rebukes). I experienced that my whole life.
Then suddenly, at about age 18 or 19, people started treating me as though I were human.
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posted
As a former member of "the media," I'm pretty sure I've previously observed that the REAL agenda of the media is to get everyone it can to watch as much of it as possible. If this means playing both sides against the middle by scaring the old people and/or mocking them to the young people -- or, with subtlety, doing both at the same time, in a sort of pandering Trifecta -- so be it.
That's why I find the idea behind a "liberal" media so funny; the media is only as liberal as it takes to sell you sausages.
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Perhaps, in a majority conservative state, a liberal media gets more viewers than a conservative one would?
You've got the profit motive, Tom, true. But there is also the personal bias motive, whether concious or not. In deciding between two equal scandals with limited time to report, one that impugns someone you generally agree with and one that trashes someone you generally disagree with, which one would you choose?
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quote: I just wonder if that could be construed as a "culture war against adults".
If there is, it doesn't seem to be taking. As was already mentioned, most children 'these days' look up to their parents and other adults of worth.
I wonder if most adults have positive or negative views of younger people these days? Whether they think they are better or worse than generations that have gone before them?
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posted
Kids! What's the matter with kids today? Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?
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I think that their is no culture "war" either way. I feel that every time you have seperate groups they have prejudices against that group. Older people say that the younger are lazy, reckless, uninformed, etc. Younger people say the older are boring, stuck in their ways, unchanging, controlling, etc. The same can be seen between men and women, sports groups, states (ex. Wisconsinites make fun of the Minnesotans and the Minnesotans make fun of the Wisconsinites) I don't think any of this is really a problem unless it gets out of hand which it hasn't up to this point.
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dh, it has been a few years since I was a teen, but I am thinking about my teenage brother-in-law. Sometimes I worry about him and the lack of direction in his life. He is nearly 19, works at McDonalds, and has no current plans to go to college. What he chooses to do now is crucial to his own happiness for the rest of his life. He has had brothers who were relatively successful in this regard and one in particular who has continued to be a "bum" and suffer for it. He could go either way, and the ball is in his court. I can understand the adults in his life being "hard on him" until he starts making more excellent decisions.
I wonder if one of the reasons that adults are hard on teens is that teens have the intelligence, awareness, and ability of many an adult, but they are still dependant on adults to get by in this complex world. It is a difficult position to be in. Basically, they want the advantages of being protected by parents from the harness of a complex world without having to abide by their rules.
From the perspective of an adult, the teens can have the "rights" of independance when they assume the responsibilities of independance. But because of the difference in perspective between adult and teen on this matter, there is a constant struggle between them that is frustrating for both. When the teens are entering into their twenties, they are often begining to take on the responsibilities of independance and therefore earn the respect that comes with them.
May not describe your situation, dh, but it seems to be the case a lot of the time.
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posted
Tom, to a large extent, I very much agree with you.
As to what Amka had to say, I do think that for whatever reason those who create what we see on TV tend to be liberal themselves and that it does create a liberal slant because of it. But I don't think there is a "conspiracy". Merely people who think a certain way putting forth ideas about the world from their perspective.
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posted
Actually, I was referring to much smaller things than all that. I'm talking at the way people look at you and talk to you in the street, how you get answered by the staff when you walk into a store or any other place of business, whether or not they smile at you or hold the door open for you. And when I just think of all the "You young people are all alike" and "this is how young people are today" speeches I had to sit through...
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Hmmm, I dunno why people would be disrespectful in those ways. Sorry that has been your experience. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: I think that their is no culture "war" either way. I feel that every time you have seperate groups they have prejudices against that group.
Cool. So, maybe we'll stop hearing about how things used to be so much better in the past, that is, people were more moral, etc.
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posted
Penguin, let me get this straight: those degenerates in Minnesota made fun of us Wisconsinites? Idiots.
Anyways, I'd say it's because nobody likes to have a real problem with a difficult solution. That's why they grab these ones. And hey, who watches a news channel that just talks about how much better kids are getting? It's not bloody entertainment . ..
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posted
The problem, Storm, is media portrayal in general.
In my own experience, media has become more violent and sexualized. Hence, the adults worrying about the children.
I worry more about the cultural influences my kids come across than those I came across. But I also know, from my own experience, that the best remedy is to talk to them about media, advertising, what is good for them, etc. I'm worried for them, still, but I'm also confident that they have a good head on their shoulders. As I see it, my job is to give them the tools to rationally evaluate what they see, in context of what we believe is right and wrong.
But you are right. The proportion of kids who are 'good' in real life is much higher than the proportion of kids who are 'good' in media. But the same thing can be said of adults as well. And, in fact, the proportion of adults acting badly on TV and movies is much higher than the proportion of kids acting badly.
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posted
Well, keep in mind, Amka, that I didn't make this thread because I saw young peoples in media being bad-mouthed a lot, or more than they used to be, but because of what I had observed people saying on this forum, either directly or indirectly.
When I said 'media' in my first post, I was at the same time offering up an explanation for the theoretical negative image and at the same time engaging in some sloppy logic on my part since I was thinking along the lines that media reflects society at large. Kind of silly, too, since I've made the point on this forum before that the media is not representative of the nation.
One of the things that I hope came out of this threads is that fears of media sabotage and the power of media in general may be, edit: to some degree, unfounded. Ideally, I would love to see a nation where people learned to seriously question any media by checking other sources, understanding it's fiction, etc, before assigning any value to it. I don't believe there is anything intrinsically powerfully hypnotic about media such that it can't be overcome by a healthy society, and I think this article bears that veiw out.
Not to say, of course, that your fears are unfounded. It is exactly because of your fears, because there is basis to your fears, that you are raising media savvy kids who won't be 'corrupted' and are strong within themselves.
quote: Some pundits—marketers, especially—dub these kids "Generation Y," as though these kids were a mere Generation X2
Since first hearing this name I have always disliked it: What we don't get our own name? With all these changes, these new ideas, this cultural mixture that now exists?
I think it's definately true that we are very different from our forefathers. We are less militant, less idealistic.
I think the major thing that has shifted is the way we are all together, especially where I am. Borders are being eroded; Race, sexuality, culture and most interestingly religion, are all being blurred together. I'm talking from the POV of my school, The University of Toronto, and what I see here.
We are aware of race. The hallways of my residence are filled with the smell of chinese microwave dinners. But beyond people existing in their own little cultural space, race ends and fades.
Sexuality is a much larger issue, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who was uncomfortable let alone repulsed. These people are our friends, our aquaintences and their questions about "do you think he/she likes me" are treated with the same amused speculation that a straight person's would be. It's a fact of our life here.
Culture goes without saying. Culture is there, same a race, but it's not a line or a box it's a place each person builds to find their own "home" in the world. Culture lines are not restricted to origin and family. My culture is radically different from the White Anglo-Saxons across the hall or the White English Bloke who you'd think I'd be like.
Finally is religion.
It's not gone. It's not broken and tossed into the back of someone sinful living closet that they've just exited. It's bent and changed.
My roomate is Catholic, left wing, and attends church most Sundays, which is pretty rare. She combines her own personal faith with the ever-strengthening realities of the world she inhabits. To her, the Bible is not literal. And yet we survive, combining spirituality from several religions with science that we have no choice but to believe.
She is not alone in her choice. A candle flickering in a window is a universal symbol of hope and belief. A branch or leaf is a symbol of life. A huge bonfire awakens in everyone the same original wild feeling.
Our temples are built on churches built on old pagan wells.
For me, living at the brink of noplace and nowhere in the surreal environment of a University Campus in one of the most diverse cities in the world, my Generation are neither rule breakers nor rule followers, they're rule makers.
New world, new rules; take from the old, bend and create the new. New and old cultures mixed; new religions that fuse pagan, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist you name it and personal ideals; new sexualities that are founded on the age old ideas of togetherness and unity...
Don't despair, we're just bending things a bit.
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posted
Is that bad? Am I merely repeating what someone has said before?
Edit: A quick googling has given me the hint of the fact that is what you intend to say; that Generation X said the same thing.
Well, I answer that with maybe they did. Maybe everyone does, gets up there on the soabbox and starts preaching and laying down rules and saying "we're going to do things better."
However, I've never known anyone to do that. I've never met anyone who's said to me "I'm fed up with Christianity I'm going back to Paganism" instead it just happens. Nobody talks or raves about this stuff it just is. No one sits around and says "isn't it wonderful" and "can't we all get along" they don't! There is very little idealism at all. No new world order. We're not writing the book of rules we're just trying to find our own place to be.
And in that way, we make our rules and ideas. Personal rules. Personal ideas and agreements with ourselves.
I'm telling you though, the environment within which I live is highly surreal.
El-Azariyeh, nee Bethanya Liverpool wasn't too impressed, so now they're all out listening for new Seattles (tm) anywhere, taking polls in Spin to see where everyone's the most depressed so they can build an album there.
Ohboyohboy re-renaissancing reminiscing re'nimateds poking open open chords to find the underculture. Ha.
Scattershot, we're scatterpunks; it's Scattergories anyways: he be she be we be BBs. (Bang! the plastic rifles say.) Truckstop coffee, black berets, angst and heavy backbeats -- history just can't be bunk; we're playing all the repeats.
-------
It's been almost a decade since that made any sense in context, so I'll explain. At the time I wrote it, the poem was a complaint about how the media attempts to provide a "context" for any given generation by shoehorning them into a storyline -- and a marketing theme. I was not the first person of my generation to make that observation; nor was mine the first generation to observe it. *grin* Of course, it felt original at the time, even if the key to the observation is that things which feel original at the time rarely are.
posted
I thought Tom was trying to say that you were a kindred soul to those writers, but he may very well have been implying that, Teshi, now that I think about it, crotchety soul that he is. So, let me clarify my *nod*, by saying that I think your post is great and underlines a very healthy positive feeling about your generation that, while possibly shared by others in general in the past about their generation, doesn't take away from its truth right now.
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quote:And in that way, we make our rules and ideas. Personal rules. Personal ideas and agreements with ourselves.
As children we are the recipients of society. As adults we create society.
That realization for me came on my mission. I LOVED ward activities as a kid - ready food, forced socialization, but still kept myself apart. It was on my mission that I realized that the things I loved did not just happen. Civilization is made every day.
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posted
On that note, I'd like to point out that I was a lazy, ungrateful, snotty (happy, self-satisfied) kid, but am a responsible, engaged, polite adult. It matters now - it seriously didn't before. Good behavior in children is most often designed to make adults' lives easier.
[ February 25, 2005, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
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Tom, I kind of mean that, but not really. I don't particular feel "shoe-horned" and I don't think many people around me do. I don't feel the media has made a story for me to fit- I feel like nobody really conciously knows where we as a group are going.
One comment I think is generally mis-stated is the fact that we have been called "more conservative" but I don't think that's the case in the way it's sometimes interpreted.
It's true that people are less willing to throw caution to the wind. People want to create a family atmosphere. People want to uphold a set of more stringent spiritual morals than they did before.
Sometimes people seem to think that this is a backlash against the "immoral" Generation X. In many ways perhaps it is, but it's not a condemnation it's merely a "that didn't work so well" idea. People fundamentally like security and Generation X did not lean in that direction. However, we are not returning to old ideas (sometimes called "conservative") or wide-eyed innocence, we're just treading a less-wild path towards... wherever it is we're going.
The adult media talks a lot about the degeneration of morals (Janet Jackson's breast/same-sex morals) but to tell the truth, I think young people are more concerned about wars, poverty and the environment.
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posted
I started writing this post an hour ago, then came home. It may not be up-to date on the twists and turns it has taken.
As a 'kid' in society today, I feel as if we are quite discriminated against.
There are many examples of this in everyday life. Keep in mind that I am not a tall, burly, scary teenage boy. I am 5'8, approx. 95 llbs, young teenage girl. I went to visit my grandmother at the nursing home where she is in intensive care. I was kicked out, saying that they don't allow young people to be alone in the home. I asked if I could visit my grandmother with a nurse supervising, but they replied with 'no. Come back with your mom or dad.' I left, and came back in an hour. Another nurse was on duty, and she let me in to see Gram. No supervision.
As well, at a convenience shop near my school, they only let 2 teens in at once. No limit on adults, or anyone else. Only teens. They always serve adults before teens. We get ignored in lines, and get dirty looks form people on the sidewalk.
Back to the point, the dominant media image is what’s doing it to us. You never hear about young people doing good things, it’s all ‘this teen does drugs’ ‘this teen shot up his school’ ‘ this teen drove his boat too fast.’
I do agree that there are some bad apples out there that these stereotypes do apply to, but not all teenagers are bad. In fact, most are good.
I don’t know about a comparison to other generations, as I did not grow up in them, but I do feel that in society as a whole, we always have and always will discriminate based on the fact that they ‘do not have experience.’ We have experienced a lot, and sometimes even bring fresh thoughts to the problem. Terry Fox was in his early twenties when he started his run: Teens can make a difference. At least that’s what I’m told in school, and then not allowed to do anything that could make a difference, or am looked down upon by my teachers. One of my friends got suspended for trying to make a difference.
Teens need to have room to make mistakes, and learn from them. We are not given these chances, however, and I feel that that is really the problem with the way teens are viewed today.
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posted
I think the media just tends to be controlled by the age that thinks they are so much wiser than the teens. And there's a group above the adults- the middle agers, clucking their tongues at them. Everyone "knows" that the people younger than them don't understand the way things are. Everyone also "knows" that the people older than them are beaten down sell-outs phonies.
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posted
If anything, I think teenagers today are better than the ones ten and twenty years ago. In our defense, we faced more new dangers, and the current parents today are better informed than at least my parents were.
There was a big generation gap between the GI generation and the baby boomers, and the baby boomers and the Gen XYZ, but not so much of a gap between the children of baby boomers and their kids. I do worry that Gen XYZ is a little bit impotent. My read on the situation is that the baby boomers still wield so much influence, that people in their forties and thirties and twenties have yet to strike out on their own with any sort of serious distinction. (No, information technology doesn't count.) In the baby boomers defense, they did a lot of things right, from civil rights to good books, to really good music in the late sixties and seventies. And the Gen XYZ's contribution seems to begin and end with a few tech innovations, which are really instumental in nature and essentially amoral. It's a little bit pathetic.
I'm hoping that we are the late blooming generation, either that, or we could mark the decline of western civ. *shrugs*
quote: Sometimes people seem to think that this is a backlash against the "immoral" Generation X.
Ah, but, see, what you're missing is that those of us in Generation X were actually regarded at the time by many people as a backlash against our "immoral" parents. I know too many members of Generation Y to make the same overgeneralization.
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posted
I think we're arguing past each other, TD .
Personally, I don't even like to draw generational lines as YOU are this and YOU are not. There are plenty of people who are older than me that I feel are "ahead"/"behind" (depends how you look at it) their generation, and there are plenty of people in my generation who I want to ask "why are you even thinking that?".
posted
I think what frustrates me the most is a pervading idea that, "you're very mature, for your age." The implication being that, although you're doing everything right, you're never going to be good enough. Because you're never going to have the life experience that someone older than you does. You can't catch up, you can't magically age two or three years to their one, and so they will always be just a little smarter or a little more right than you are.
It's the only "discrimination" against teenagers that I see, it's not unique to my generation and I doubt it will ever change. In some ways it shouldn't. In some ways teens do need to sit down and listen to those who seriously do know better. Sometimes the correct answer is, "I just know, life's taught me." Most of the time, though, it's not. Most of the time you need to be allowed to be taught by time yourself. Many teenagers grow into immature adults because they're never given the chance to fail. In other instances, the lessons your elders learned no longer apply. In still other instances the teen's thinking may be immature, but the only way they can grow out of that immaturity is if the flaws in their thinking are explained to them.
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quote: I think what frustrates me the most is a pervading idea that, "you're very mature, for your age."
This will never go away. You will ALWAYS be younger than someone who assumes he knows more than you do because he's had a few more years under his belt. Heck, I work in an industry where age and experience are almost meaningless by most standards, and I still occasionally have to sit through lectures by men with grey hair who think that their years spent sorting punch cards and wearing ugly ties prepared them to tell me what opinion I should have of VoiP tech.
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posted
Better? Worse? I dunno, I think there are "good" kids and "bad" kids (on a continuum). It doesn't matter what generation you are from, just the kids you know and your own behavior status when you were a kid. I remember reading a quote forcasting that young people would bring the end of the world in 9th grade history. I think it was from Aristotle. Youth annoys age. Three thousand years from now, it still will.
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but I am thinking about my teenage brother-in-law. Sometimes I worry about him and the lack of direction in his life. He is nearly 19, works at McDonalds, and has no current plans to go to college. What he chooses to do now is crucial to his own happiness for the rest of his life. He has had brothers who were relatively successful in this regard and one in particular who has continued to be a "bum" and suffer for it. He could go either way, and the ball is in his court. I can understand the adults in his life being "hard on him" until he starts making more excellent decisions.![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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