How Should We Look at Contemporary Culture of Our Youth?
January 1, 2011 9:11 P.M.
The older generation of any culture, tends to view youth, and its characteristics with contempt, and often disgust. It is not generally the youth that look at themselves and wonder whether or not people judge them based on their appearance, how they speak, or even what types of media they use the express themselves. The youth act the way they do out of the urge to be popular within a specific niche of people like themselves. However, there are so many different types of people that it may be ineffective to group certain “classes” of youth to organize trends and figure out exactly how contemporary culture really works. This simply would never work, based primarily on the fact that contemporary culture changes so rapidly that it would be impossible to graph out and truly understand youth.
If one thinks back to when they were young, all the way up until high school, and even in the first years of college, they might realize that their wardrobe, hair-style, and music choice, constantly consistently changed on a regular basis. Even the television shows one watched, how much time they spent with families and even their political views shifted nearly all the time.
With that in mind, if a great number of you were to be given a survey on certain questions such as “what would you consider yourself: left-wing, moderate, or right-wing”, most would not even know how to answer this question because their views on certain topics would constantly shift. This, of course, is only one example of a question that could appear on an essay of trying to find out the trends of the youth.
Yet, it remains a mystery as to why anyone would need to understand the ways of the youth, unless it would be to market certain products in the media. However, just as the older generation too, has their own views, and music, food tastes, so do the youth. The youth though, do not question this older generation simply on the fact that it really does not matter to them.
To take one specific example of contemporary culture, and to compare it to today’s standards, one can look at The Beatles and the music they produced. When they first began making music in England, hardly anyone knew they would become as big as they would. Then slowly, they took over the music charts of England before coming over to America where young women and many men became fans of their music. Many people of the older generation though, thought their lyrics too brash and risqué. This did not fit in with music that had come out only ten years earlier with the Beach Boys and their “happy, go lucky” music style. In the end though, the music remained, and still today, The Beatles still gain fans from all over the world.
In order to take this example, and compare it to today’s contemporary society, the Rap, Hip-Hop, and R&B industry has nearly dominated many of the music chats The Beatles did fifty-years-ago. Yet again, this older generation looks at the lyrics of these songs as even worse than when the Beatles did, and this is true. Many of the songs speak of love-making, refer extensively to sexual-innuendo, and the music videos have women nearly naked in every scene. This does not happen with all of this type of music, but many youth view this music as “cool”, “hip”, and “part of the in-crowd”.
This one example of how contemporary culture shapes youth shows that no trends need to be made in order to really understand how they work. The equation and the answer to the problem are simple. As mentioned, youth simply want to be part of the “in-crowd”. That is the way it has been, and that is the way it will always be. Extensive studies will do no good to plot the trends of youth. In addition, there is no reason to call the youth a “culture”, because, by doing that, you are only isolating the people of the future. By making them outcasts, they will continue the older generation, or the people studying the youth, will only dig themselves a bigger hole as the younger generation further distances themselves from what some might call “normalcy.”
The youth then, must be left to do whatever it is they please (barring it being illegal) so that they will eventually grow out of a phase, and grow up and eventually become normal adults. By studying their trends, this only causes frustration in the youth’s eyes, and that is simply where contemporary culture comes from. It is a plea to the older generation that they must break-away and let the youth experiment. Again, there is simply no need to uncover or un-mask the trends of the youth.
It is not some secret, magical, mystery. It is the younger generation viewing the older generation as boring, and out-of-date. Nothing can be examined from this, as it has happened throughout history, time and time again. It must become something that it accepted, and not examined. This will only cause a waste of time. The older generation then, and the youth will only become bitter rivals in an all-out debate. There is no preventing, nor any use in denying the youth, their views. The youth will continue to rule their kingdom, just like the older generation will do the same with theirs. That way, there can be no debate about it, and the world can continue to exist just as it always has.
A Straight Up G-RE Issue Question- Pick a Side
December 29, 2010 11:06 P.M.
"It is more important to allocate money for immediate, existing social problems than
to spend it on long-term research that might help future generations."
People tend to think themselves and what is called the “now”. They often do not think about or realize that social problems run rampant through every nook and cranny of this earth. In India, people die from hunger every day. In China, over-population has gotten to the point where families are only allowed to raise one child. In Africa, children are dying of AIDS. America lacks good nutrition, combats over-population, and struggles to remain to strive to remain the superpower we once were.
Times, of course, are changing, and the world has changed too. If one looks back in the annals of history, they will see, for example, that problems such as war seem more rampant than poverty. However, every day problems appear out of thin air, and people don’t know what to do about them. Politics then comes into play, and the issue of where to spend money, takes center-stage.
On one side, there are those who would like to spend the money now and to help fix the problems society currently faces. On the other, people thinking about investing that money to help the future. It is a bitter debate, with powerful arguments on both sides, and choosing a side is a hard task.
Of the two, the most compelling argument resides with those who want to spend that money now. The old adage of “we must make our futures brighter for our children” echoes in the minds of those who want to solve today’s problems but that saying is out of date, and its context should be taken differently.
The problems of the future can no longer be thought about today. Something needs to be done about the problems the world faces currently. If those problems are not fixed, they will only continue to get worse as they already have. Within the last sixty years, poverty has not subsided and has actually gotten worse. The AIDS epidemic, too, has only seen its numbers rise in the last ten years. Even the number of children being put up for adoption, with the number of teen mothers, is also on the rise.
Education, therefore, is one of biggest things that money needs to be spent on. Around the world, people continue to make mistakes, without the proper knowledge. If, for example, the money is spent on education now, this will actually help future generations.
Helping to “cure” the social issues of today will not only increase the potential of how future generations will act, but also how they teach the next generation. Right now, looking to the future seems an impossible task because no one knows what will happen 20, 30, or even 40 years from now. With a solid foundation put into place now, there will be plenty to build on for the future.
Of the issues mentioned above, teen pregnancy tends to run rampant through high schools and sometimes college dorms. There is no proof that this occurrence comes from a lack of sex education, but the question remains: are schools doing a good enough job teaching sex education? Music Television, or MTV, recently started a show entitled “Teen Mom,” in which 16-year-old mothers become pregnant with their teenage boyfriends. It documents the struggles they go through, and how hard it is to be a teenage Mom.
Certain questions, of course, will pop into the minds of three different types of people watching the show: the teenage girls watching, the twenty-some year olds, and the parents who see their children watching. Millions of people watch this show because of its entertainment value, but what the teenagers who watch, do not see, or realize is that those girls who had the children went through a lot, and that even though the documentaries make you feel good at the end, they completely diverge from the bigger social issue.
This show clearly displays why social issues need to be dealt with now. It is simply unjust to have so many young people having children. This will only raise the number of single parents, raise the poverty level, and lower the number of children entering high school and college, because their parents did not do it. If the money could be spent now on better sex education, and how difficult it is to actually have a baby, maybe more people would listen and teen pregnancy would go down. This, of course, is only one example, but clearly, issues that run rampant in America and the world today, need to be fixed today in order to better our futures.
A better way to think about this issue would be this: by solving the problems of today, it will end up helping those of tomorrow. One can go right back to that saying that one should make the future better and brighter for their children. Though true, the only way to do that will be to think about the problems of today so the future will look even brighter tomorrow.
Are Facebook Statuses Over-used?
December 28, 2010 9:00 P.M. Central Time
I have done it. Common now, I know you have too. You must have. Think about it. I bet you just did it about an hour ago, and maybe even an hour before that. Everyone is doing it right? So why not you too?
A epidemic has taken over this ever-changing world, and it has to do with posting every second of our lives on either facebook, and more recently (and frequently) on twitter.
I just joined Twitter yesterday, and am already following people. I figured it would not be that bad, but I am following some celebrities, and I gotta tell ya, they make it seem like their lives are incredibly boring. However, let me get back to this facebook thing, because it IS relevant with twitter.
I don't know. Maybe about two years ago, Facebook began allowing users to post their statuses. Don't get me wrong, posting your status is fine, but when you are posting just about every single hour, or even within every fifteen minutes, it gets annoying right? Does the entire world need to know what you are doing twenty-four/seven.
Maybe.
A couple of my friends have done this. They CONSTANTLY post their statuses, but the question is WHY? Have our lives become so mundane, that we actually feel better posting what we feel, are doing, or are about to do in a few hours or even minutes?
Twitter, as I mentioned, is fine for this. That is exactly why that site was created. But facebook? I thought that was more of a place to see what friends were up to in the realm of pictures, and constant contact by writing on walls. Could it be, that we, as a society, are just becoming boring? I mean, heck, you can't go anywhere nowadays without seeing someone pull out their phones to text, tweet, or (if you can believe this one) make a call.
In fact, one person I know has an application on an iphone called 'foursquare' where they can update where they are. A couple of months ago, they began to even update when they were in their own house! I actually thought it funny, but then became so annoyed that I decided to take them off of my facebook because they were showing up almost every minute!
Just today, I started www.blogtalkradio.com/whatisonyourmind and www.blogtalkradio.com/sayitoutloud and had to get the word out to people who would actually listen. Hence, I used my facebook status so people could chime in. That was okay right? Or did I overdo it?
Another friend I had used to update her status all the time when she first started dating someone. Finally, we got into an argument, and she took me off facebook (what a crime, I know). Finally we had a talk about it, and decided to be civil with each other, and begin our friendship again. I re-added her, and everything is fine now (you know who you are, and I hope you like this shout-out).
Can you believe it though? I actually got so mad at someone's statuses that it ended a friendship?
The point of facebook surely is to be able to post anything you want about anything that is going on in your life. Right? When does the abuse start though? Should facebook put a limit on how many status posts a day you can do?
I surely hope not. We live in a democracy, not a dictatorship (to over-the-line)? Just be careful, because someone out there is probably watching what you're writing, and probably thinking to themselves, "what do I care if you're having a bad day, your favorite song came on the radio, or that you're having Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner?"
What do you think, what are you experiences with facebook statuses?
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