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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 8, 1999)
! ^ Teeming teens Somewhat misguided generation just needs a helpful hand So I’m sitting in a movie obviously made for teens. Pre-pubescent couples all around me. Groping and occasionally stopping to repeat a line - since we didn’t hear it die first time. And must the miniature Gidgets do that incessant whisper-giggle? It’s pathetic. It’s nasty. And it’s obnoxious. And it’s what the current exploitation of teens yields. Don’t ask me how. It just does. Sure, you think you’re a Gen-Xer. You think you’ve earned the tide of slacker. You think you’ve warranted the accusation of slob. Of‘Tarty of Five” group member. But jf you were bom between 1979-1984, you’re officially consid ered to be a teen. Andthis teen generation has exploded overnight into a population of more than 70 million. Quit whining, you’re proving my point. They are often referred to as Millennium Generation, Generation Y, Echo Boomers, or just plain, “Hey, you stupid kid!” This year, according to Business Week, it is estimated that teens will have spent more than $141 billion. Thus, it is easy to see why so much focus lies on them. Well, that and the fact that their out of-control bodies are, suddenly and without warning, enlarging and sprout ing hair from every angle. Hee, heef And they’re self-conscious about it! Hee, hee! But the sad (whimper, whimper) reality is that teen image in entertain ment is what the culture thinks of teens, and it has very little to-do with what teens think of themselves. Look at the television. In the pathetically glamorized lives _ ef those on “90210,” the melodramatic error of our decade, the teens encounter more crises on a daily basis than the United Nations does in its yearly peace talks. Whereas the 1980s created the Brat Pack, today (thanks to our good friends in the entertainment industry) we’re stuck with an entire brat population. And over it all looms the omnipresent sex obsession. Watching teen favorite “Dawson’s Creek,” you get the impression that every American over the age of 11 has a steady, meaningful relationship. And that sordid, love-triangle sex kicks in by age 15. If we are to believe what we see, teens are manipulative, often stupid wimps. _No wonder. According to Newsweek, 51 percent of teens regular ly use alcohol. Hit me, baby, one more time. In the past, a teen’s toughest deci sion was a spastic, “Do you dunk Jimmy’ll talk to me after the big game if I wear my blue sweater, Sally Sue?” Oh, those problems are still there. But now they’re piled on top of everything else - courtesy of our good friends in the entertainment industry, new technologies and marketing ploys, combined with changes in family structure. How about the music industry? Eminem? “Hi, kids! Do you like violence? Wanna see me stick nine-inch nails through each one of my eyelids? Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did?” Only if you go there first, buddy. My mom isn’t suing me for libel. Anyway, I suppose we should be happy. -There is one thing, according to Business Week, that marketers can agree on- that teens are not easily seduced by advertising. Old styles of campaigning, such as slogan-pushing and imaging, which worked for Gen-Xers, are not going to go over with teens today. So, how do you get to today’s teens? Cliques. That’s right Use the trickle-down format to target each and every group of teens. Steal whatever the freaks are wear ing today and manufacture the heck out of it By the time it has become main stream, you’ve got a back stock. Pathetic, yes. Why else are teens being exploit ed? Changing family structures. According to Newsweek, more than half of today’s children have lived through their parents’ divorce. And for 63 percent of children, both of their parents work outside the home. This means that parents are no longer around to protect their children against evil advertisers, thus allowing their children to be exploited. Marilyn Manson has admonished, “Raise your kids better, or I’ll raise them for you.” Come on, people! We don’t need a miniature androgynous army running around! It’s hard enough to get a date as it is. Luckily, unless all the adults die from an overdose of mini-backpacks, they’ll still outnumber and outvote teens. But that’s not the answer. As a whole society, our thinking needs to be expanded. It’s not that much to ask. Really. You don’t need to hug every teen that walks along. You’ll probably get arrested. Just a smile will do quite nice In fact, the more body ornaments, the bigger your smile should get In fact I tt If we are to believe what we see, teens are manipulative, often stupid wimps. think implanted horns even warrant a “Hello, there!” Teen exploitation need not become the norm. We can stop it right now. Before those miniature, greased-up, dressed down, groping, giggling Gidgets ^come up with even cruel er intentions! Jessica Eckstein is a junior communication studies major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist Stop the shouting Faith is fine, but believers should respect others ’beliefs as well I believed in God, once. I actually thought I was the Messiah, come to lead the world^s faithful against the armies of the devil at Armageddon. I had visions and everything. I was a bit young, to be sure, but the precise date of the end of the world seemed flexible enough. I fig ured I had time. I would walk to school and chat with God. I would play little games with him, actually. For a pudgy sev enth-grader with thick glasses and a 1980s hairdo, it was cute. As I grew older, I came to realize that my interactions with God didn’t feel “real.” It felt, in the language of my youth, that I was playing a video game. Super Mario scores 100 points for saying his rosary.... In any case, I didn’t feel like \ there was a voice from an entity that existed independently from me that _was speaking to me. It felt like I was talking to a sock puppet on my hand. So I couldn’t say with any confi dence that the god I believed in actu ally existed outside of my imagina tion. I outgrew my childish notion of a god and moved to a sense of spiritu ality that was more inclusive. I gave up Biblical doctrine and followed a deeply ingrained moral compass (no doubt, from my Christian upbring ing). Since then I’ve called myself either an atheist or an agnostic. My current understanding of reality bor rows much from Zen Buddhism. I see a problem, though, in the segment of modem society that is seeking to satisfy its spiritual void by bringing religion back into the public realm. They want to bring prayer back into schools, they want to let govern ment judges post the Ten Commandments, they want to put the “Christ” back in Christmas. This places such a simplistic mold on our society. It seems strange that anyone wants to paint the holi days a single color, or even cares that it’s colored at all. I mean, it’s fine to believe what you believe. But you must realize that there isn’t any way you’re going to convince everyone else that your beliefs are supremely correct. So why do some Christians insist on trying to convince the rest of us that they’re right? It’s not like they don’t hear us when we complain that a cross on a 66 Really, the wisest words on the matter have been said, and they are: “Shut up! ” hillside in Idaho is a little bother some when we see it not as a reli gious symbol but as a symbol of pain and centuries of oppression. It’s not like they don’t hear us when we say that we feel purposely excluded when they say a prayer over the loudspeaker before a high school football game. What it is like is mean-spirited ness, which is uncalled for and unfounded. So I tend to lash out. I tend to attack Christians for being irrational, for believing blindly in mythology, for causing all the evils in modern-day society, blah, blah, blah_ But I’ve come to realize, given everything that I’ve experienced and every position that I’Ve reasoned myself out of, that shouting at the top of one’s lungs is really not conducive to discussion. Really, the wisest words on the matter have been said, and they are: “Shut upf” So I will remove my voice from the fracas and let the rest of you run out your energy. Jacob Glazeski is a senior music and math major and a guest columnist for the Daily Nebraskan.