Oh my stars and garters! Buying CDs! Eating junk food! Hanging out with their friends! Can you not feel the flames of hell?
This sounds like Aleksander Solzhenitsyn on a bad day.
>Then go to your Pathfinder store and count the number of teeneagers
there.
>If there is none in your state, go to Borders and count the number of
>teenagers who stop in front of the social science or philosophy
section -
>or if none stops, count the number of teens in the whole bookstore.
Then
>report your observations back to us.
Hell, why don't I just count the number of adults in the philosophy section as well? Or maybe I should count the number of young people who buy from the philosophy section of my bookstore versus the number of old folks who purchase junky romance novels. (Both are considerable.)
>PS. Teenage identity is one of the most obnoxious creations of the
>advertisement/entertainment industry - almost as obnoxious as
christianity.
> It is a nauseating blend of silliness, skin-deep shallowness,
>hyper-conventionalism, conformism, consumerism, anti-intellectualism
and
>intolerance of any deviations form the norm.
Well, maybe, if you assume that teenage identity is completely defined by the advertisement/entertainment industry. Or if I assumed that the girl who sits behind me at a movie and giggles for no apparent reason is also the epitome of teenagers.
I agree that the heavy marketing of teen culture is an obnoxious thing. It's also depressing to see how well it can work. However, criticizing it can often lead you to a baseless contempt for teenagers. A good example of this is the Media Reseach Center's L. Brent Bozell. He hates the marketing of teen culture as well. However, he thinks the problem should be fixed by making adults the main demographic of advertisers. Adults are *smart*, you see. Teens are merely idiots (or "parasites" living off an adult's income.)
-- David