Thank the gods of dank memes that there was no permanent record for when I was this age. Kids should be able to do things, make mistakes and grow out of them. The one big issue that I have with connecting everything to the internet is that mistakes and failures become permanent. I'm curious to see how young people handle that new part of reality.Thanks for reminding me that there is a huge cross-section of people out there who are vapid, useless and dumb. We should all be so reminded, periodically.
Maybe by the time they're adults, saying stupid shit on the internet will be the new "kids being kids." Instead of accidentally setting fire to your dad's shed, you started a Facebook flame war. The one big issue that I have with connecting everything to the internet is that mistakes and failures become permanent. I'm curious to see how young people handle that new part of reality.
It'll be interesting in thirty years when presidential candidates have their internet history dug up while the older generation (my generation) acts like getting caught writing angsty poems or vapid Tumblr posts is a travesty but their peers think it's no big deal because all of theirs are out there, too. I think any of the most embarrassing stuff I did on the Internet as a teen was on Geocities, so thankfully it's gone.
I guess. I didn't really see this article written that way though, especially with this kind of conclusion: Having spent several years among teens who have freely laid bare their inside jokes, their Facebook messages, and their deepest thoughts, I think there are three phases of understanding the teens. At first you loathe the teens, because you know nothing about them and think they’re idiots, beneath you. Then you love the teens because you figure out they are smarter than you, and you make peace with the death of your cultural relevance, because you know you’ll be in good hands. Finally, you recognize the shape of the adults they’ll become, corrupted by money and vanity and hubris just like everyone else. And you’ll see yourself in them because they’re relatable: That moment you realize the teens are just like you.... The conversation turned to teens; the consensus was that modern kids are dumb and boring. “Girls these days don’t keep diaries,” one woman said. “I think that means they don’t have inner lives.” That we would soon depart for a thirtieth birthday party was no coincidence—you don’t have to fear the teens if you can live in denial about your own looming obsolescence.
Phase two also happens to be the phase were you realize you are now on the outside looking in. Or in other words "getting old". I find myself in this phase were I now realize that teens aren't getting dumber, I'm just older and now replacing the last generation who thought teens were getting dumber. The things they like are also as silly and forgeign to me as the things my generation liked were to adults at the time. It's almost like people try to deny their adolescence by saying kids today are worse when really we all "sucked" in our own way.
Compare. The Internet is the Internet.Pizza’s strategy was brilliant: When a random Tumblr would write about “pizza”—either the food or herself—she’d reblog the post to her huge audience. Once, when a user wrote “so is tumblr user pizza god or beyonce,” she dug up the post and reblogged it with the comment “I’d like to confirm that i am both.” Users marveled at how quickly she responded, how you could “summon Pizza.” It made her seem all-knowing, but not superior.