In Philadelphia we call them yutes

[rynling]

At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I don’t actually feel alienated from “youth culture.”

98% of the time I see something that’s popular with people under the age of 24, my reaction ranges between “that sounds fun” to “good for them.”

1% of the time I get upset that a distressing number of American kids don’t really drink or do drugs or go to parties because they’re under constant surveillance by their parents, who pressure them to go to college, where most of them will be miserable for 4+ years only so that they’ll be buried under crushing debt, and meanwhile everyone else has to grow up with American cultural imperialism because of social media and YouTube.

The other 1% is whatever the fuck is going on with the Chinese internet, which frankly is none of my business. I am respectfully not looking.

Anyway, the context of this post is that the Philadelphia schools were on spring break this past week, and there was apparently a trend of kids riding around on public transportation for the purpose of forming flash mobs to create graffiti art. That sounds fun. Good for them.

Comments

[lassarina]

I wasn't much of a partier in my youth owing to being a nerd with few friends, and even in college I didn't drink that much, but it wasn't because of the surveillance thing, it just wasn't interesting to me. But I am so horrified by the surveillance thing - I remember a few years ago when Verizon was happily advertising the thing you could attach to your kid's car so you knew where they were and how fast they were driving, and I was so incensed and horrified. Like. Let kids be kids. (Granted, I was alarmingly circumspect as a teenager because I feared the wrath of my mother--she's a very intimidating individual--but she's actually said she wished I rebelled more in high school/college. I'm a late bloomer, I guess.)

That sounds fun, good for them.