Kids are fine: Why you shouldn't be terrified of teenagers
Elina Chebboha
If you unite all my close friends on a single basis, it turns out that there are only two of them. The first - they live in the north of Moscow, and the second - each of them has a brother or sister. I differ from them only in that I have three of these siblings, and two of them are teenagers. American researcher Dana Boyd, a favorite guest of conferences and TED, is known for having devoted the last decade to analyzing the lives of teenagers in the US and their involvement in social media. Based on the latest research and hundreds of interviews, she wrote a book (a review of which will soon be released on Wonderzine), where she ends her opening remarks with a simple and succinct "kids are alright". There are no journalists of this level in Russia, and there are no more researchers, so you have to take the word: kids are alright and in Russia too.
What do we know about teenagers? Judging by the series "School" Valeria Gai Germanika, then there is no future in the country. Judging by the TV show "Voice", then all of them from the age of 12 meet with someone, are completely confident in themselves and are not deprived of talent. It would be more honest to say that we don’t know anything about them and aren’t interested in them at all - age 25-30 implies either having a child for a maximum of five years, or a rational dismissal, for teenagers ten to fifteen years younger than us, and the memories are still too fresh. What can I say, even if the expression LOL, the absolute scourge of all teenagers that in Russia, that abroad, turned 25 years old yesterday.
It is common practice to approach the conflict between fathers and teenagers with wringing their hands and based on the observations of Moscow and the surrounding area. Perhaps the children here are really growing a little faster than in other parts of the country. However, everything is fine with them. They love computer games and follow their reviews, but they don’t read about games, but watch reviews on YouTube. Teens read a lot, just not the same as we - the Strugatskys, Dmitry Glukhovsky and other fiction are in their area of interest, and anime lovers will be able to find a common language with them on the video series - many of them download weekly serials from the lists, because this is " a matter of life and death. " Simply put, the question of respect in the team or lack thereof. But the main thing is that adolescents are constantly writing something, and the expression "the shkolota flooded the Internet" is not without meaning - it is simply not the Internet in which we sit. They are massively present on fanfic forums and endlessly composing stories on the topic asked by moderators. About patriotism, love for animals, the end of the world, after which only Russia will survive, about the struggle between good and evil and archivals (yes, these are “Pindos”), about love and death. They are touching in their flights of fantasy, but in each of them you can see their parents. Here is a teenager who is sitting in traffic jams with his parents, and they constantly curse the bike paths, so the synopsis of his story is about the city in which everyone lived in the subway, since at the top everyone was flooded with “monsters on bikes”. Therefore, if you bring together teenagers from different cities, they will instantly find a common language - the Internet has razed all.
Do they know about sex? Yes. From where They are not deaf and not blind and knew about him at the age of 14 at a time when the Internet was not
Elena Mizulina, a fighter for the purity of the net for children, does not know them at all or communicates with some other children - with those who are endlessly looking for porn with copulating horses. In fact, it turns out that teen pornography is embarrassing and they will not look for it on purpose, and if they want to, Mizulina will not stop them. When a 14-year-old horse lover issued a stallion from the Brazzers to a query "young stallion", there was no curiosity, only fear. Do they know about sex? Yes. From where They are not deaf and blind and knew about him at the age of 14, even at a time when there was no Internet. They sing about it on the radio, they show it in video clips, but they don’t talk at recess, because when you're fourteen, there are more interesting things. If you look at the list of bestsellers for teenagers in the “Moscow” bookstore, then it will turn out that behind a slender row of school literature there are books about friendship, trying to improve relationships, about pain and suffering (Zhelezhniko by Zheleznikov in second place!), And becoming but there are no youth novels about love and unrestrained sex.
Adolescents are whimsical than we are treated with the Russian language, and it is very simple to understand that worrying about motherhood is the last thing. As they say in a stamped joke, "it is easy to distinguish a cultured person from an uncultured. If you put a cultured person on a hedgehog in an empty room, he will say:“ My God, what a nuisance! ‟”. So, if you confront a teenager with his fears, then the maximum that you will hear will be "BLYAHA'S FLY, LORD JESUS !!". This is a literal quotation from the life of one Tinejira who is terribly afraid of bumblebees. Needless to say, no one was going to calm him down, because everyone was so amused by such an expression of fear. Teens love to invent new words - all the jokes that they are interested in are usually associated with wordplay, they memorize books almost word for word and are ready to retell them in the smallest detail. It will not be a great generalization to say that despite the visual world, they are still united primarily by speech and those of its facets that we have ceased to notice. Ask them to describe someone - and you will see that first of all they will begin to talk about the relationship between the person and the word. “She is silent,” “he constantly chats,” “they tell me about their problems, and I am tired of it” - Russian language and socialization are the main definitions of modern teenagers.
Children are the same everywhere, and they all have both good and bad qualities. This kind of captaincy needs to be repeated daily, whenever you want to once again speak out about the situation of adolescents in modern Russia or screw up the impenetrable argument “but what about children”. The eternal crusade for the welfare of children should be left to them, and the maximum that can be afforded is “You need to obey adults, dress well, people are worried.” Kids are alright, and the words for them are still not discounted, so think first about whether you can call yourself a good person.