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adult life, becoming an adult, being smart, cool, drinking, E-cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, facebook, getting drunk, growing up, instagram, no makeup selfies, reddit, selfies, snapchat, teen generation, teen perspective, teen views, teens, tenagers, uncool, vaping, vine, what's cool nowadays
So I’ve read a couple articles the last couple days about teens’ various responses to Reddit’s question “what’s cool nowadays?” and I was surprised by some (okay a lot) of the answers.
Some of the answers I can still relate to, such as “roaming your local area/city centre with your friends without a real agenda.” I still like doing that with my boyfriend ‘cause it’s fun and we’re both pretty indecisive (we actually call ourselves the “most indecisive couple”), so it’s easier to just roam around and enjoy each other’s company. I relate to “Vine and Instagram,” both of which I LOVE – and many adults love them too. I also relate to “being smart,” as that has always been important to me, more so than being popular ever was. Finally, I relate to the “no makeup selfies” since I’m not a big makeup person and the “having a car” since, well, I need that and it’d be weird to me not to have a car in my 20s. Okay so having a car isn’t based on coolness in the 20s, but on necessity. So maybe that one doesn’t count.
However…many of their answers either blew me away, made me cringe, made my jaw drop, or straight up made me mad/feel sick…or all of the above. Okay so the first one that really weirded me out was “Snapchat,” which was described as “the silly toy for teens to send naked pictures to each other.” Let that sink in for a moment. Now I’ve never used Snapchat, and I had barely even heard of it ‘til now, but first of all, how is Snapchat still legally in service if that’s true? For teens to be doing that is completely illegal. I’m hoping it’s not true.
The next one made no sense to me: “hating things that are cool.” If they hate things that are cool, and that’s considered to be cool…how is that logical? Teen’s logic, I guess. Another thing that teens find cool now is “hating on Facebook.” Well, when I was a teenager, Facebook was all the rage and it was still new. I guess that fits in with the previous “hating things that are cool.” Does that mean Facebook is still cool? ‘Cause I’m still obsessed with it.
This next one was rather upsetting: “getting drunk to the point of getting sick.” One question: why? Why would teens believe that it’s cool to get so drunk that you get sick? Getting sick from alcohol is cool? Getting alcohol poisoning is cool? I’d hate to be cool then. The other one that made me cringe was the “E-cigarettes”/”vaping.” So for teens who don’t want to actually smoke a real cigarette but maybe want to look cool by pretending to smoke? Good lord, more teen logic at its finest.
I’m so glad I’m not a teen. And while I don’t agree with half of that “What’s cool nowadays?” list, I’m kind of sad that I’m no longer cool – not that I ever was, really. But I’m not “with it” anymore. I’m not in tune with the current youth generation. I’m already entering that non-cool, adult stage of life…and I’m only in my 20s. I know, I know, every teenage generation will have its own ideas of what’s cool and what’s not, so it’s nothing to really be sad about – and they’ll be in my position in a few years anyway.
But hey, maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m not a kid anymore and am not interested in kiddy/teen things as much as I was when I actually was a teenager. The only interest I have is purely nostalgic now, and that’s okay. Once I marry and have children of my own, they’ll turn into teens one day and have a completely new set of cool and uncool trends – most of which I will probably never understand. And that’s just fine with me.
That’s what makes every generation different and interesting, right? If everything stayed the same with each generation, I think it’d get boring really fast. Some tradition is good, but people need to change and grow so that things can improve and new ideas can form.