Kids These Days
I don’t have the best impression of today’s youth. I’ve been to plenty of restaurants where I’ve seen groups of young adults sit at the same table and not interact with each other, their fingers working furiously as they pound out text messages. I can’t help but think, Why can’t you actually talk to the people you came here with? Even though I’m only in my mid-30s, I’m becoming that crotchety old man who grumbles about how kids these days lack respect and social etiquette. They’re definitely more tied to technology than any other generation. Sure, I spent many an evening listening to Duran Duran and Madonna records, and watching my share of MTV. When I mowed the lawn or was exercising, I’d listen to my Walkman or, later, my Discman. I suspected that today’s teens would be pretty much glued to their devices because that’s the difference – their music players and phones and internet access and video games are designed to be portable. They literally don’t ever have to be separated from technology.
I expected teens to dress much more scantily than in my day. You hear stories of girls with thongs sticking out of their low-rise jeans. I thought the girls would be playing at grown-up even more than any previous generation. I figured some of the guys would have pants that hung so ridiculously low you wonder how they can even walk, and that others would be noticeably fashion-conscious. It seems that more and more guys are paying attention to how they dress, that whole stylish metrosexual trend. You don’t just throw on a sweatshirt and call it an outfit nowadays.
The first thing I noticed was that teens seem to move in packs. And if not packs, then trios or pairs. This hasn’t changed from my day; going to the mall is a communal event. As for their appearance, it’s not as if all of these kids look alike – but within each group you can see similarities: two girls, both with their hair pulled back, both in boots, both in brightly colored belted coats, one purple, one yellow. Two guys in similar ski jackets. A cheerleading team wearing matching uniforms, including large white Minnie Mouse bows in their hair. Two Black girls with shiny bling hanging from their coats, which have faux-fur trim around the hoods. Three longhaired kids with punk rock accoutrements, including studded belts and wallet chains. A troupe of attractive girls in skintight jeans and short coats. Three girls, all wearing ’80s-style day-glo sunglasses with horizontal slits where the lenses should be. Two Black gay boys with manicured nails, plucked eyebrows and earrings, one of whom keeps playing with his tongue piercing. Many of the groups are wearing all black, but in a New York chic as opposed to gothic sort of way. Again, nothing groundbreaking here: Birds of a feather, as they say…
My observation began on the 147 express bus – it shoots from the neighborhood of Edgewater on Chicago’s North Side straight down Lake Shore Drive, dropping you off at the north end of the section of Michigan Avenue known as the “Magnificent Mile.” This stretch is home to Water Tower Place, a high-rise mall that houses teen hotspots such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and Forever 21, all on the same floor.
Why are teens here? Because since their creation, malls have been one of the few places where teenagers can roam freely. They can kill a day just wandering around. Not surprisingly, the stores that are popular with them have to do with clothes. In general, teens obsess about their appearance – in part because their bodies are undergoing rapid changes, and in part because clothes help to shape their identity. The ones that are shopping at these stores in Water Tower tend to be conformists in their way. A young adult shopping at Forever 21, though can better express his or her individuality, with a selection of bright colors, trendy designs and a variety of styles. But those shopping at A&F and Hollister just want to be part of the crowd; they yearn to be just like everyone else. The clothes they purchase at these stores, which are owned by the same parent company, are emblazoned with the corporate name, so no one could have any doubt where they were purchased.
My friend who works at a store in Water Tower Place says that many, if not most of these kids come from other parts of the Midwest, that it’s a tourist destination. It’s certainly a predominantly White crowd, though there are quite a few African-Americans, Latinos and Asians in the mix as well.
A few of the teens were with their parents, and one boy had his headphones on, listening to his iPod, not engaging his father in conversation. But this didn’t occur as often as I imagined, at least at first. The teens laughed as they walked along, some of the girls rough-housed each other, very few had earphones on or were using their cell phones. Those few who did have earbuds in, though, like the husky jock in a sweatshirt, would speak louder than they realize: “WHERE ARE WE GOING?”
The longer I sat in my perch, within view of the Holy Trinity of Teen Shopping, the more I saw young people with iPods on, even as they walked along with their friends. No matter how many times I see this, it still amazes me: You can’t fully engage with your friends if you’ve constantly got music playing. Maybe these kids have seen too many movies and TV shows and feel that their own lives should have soundtracks.
Speaking of music, these stores blast it. The songs are fun, catchy, popular: “I just want your kiss, boy.” It’s as if the corporate offices are trying to re-create a rock concert or a nightclub vibe. Not surprisingly, most of the conversations I overheard were about clothes – “You look supercute in that!” “You’ve worn that outfit once” – though some touched upon another Big Theme, love. “You’re going out with him?” one girl shouted.
There was plenty of jocularity as well. A girl was showing off her clothing selections and asked her friends’ opinions. “It looks slutty,” a guy with her said and everyone laughed and she hit him lightly on the arm. “I’m going to wear a tanktop under it!” she yelled. I wish I could have overheard more conversations. When we were teens, my friends and I were quite raunchy, and we certainly had potty-mouths. I doubt that has changed much – and if anything, it has only gotten worse. This group was literally the only co-ed group I witnessed; the others hung out with members of their own sex (which surprised me), and most of the shoppers were female.
Maybe it’s because of the music, or maybe that’s just how they communicate, but most of these youth talk very loudly. Certainly within every group there’s at least one who’s prominently vocal. Next to me on the bus, one girl talked loudly on the phone to her mother, while the other two girls sat in silence, taking turns flipping through a new printing of He’s Just Not That Into You, with the actors from the movie on the cover. Once the one teen hung up her cell phone, she started talking loudly with her friends. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was doing almost all of the talking, and her voice had that Valley Girl intonation: blah blah blah MOM blah blah Y’KNOW? blah blah THANK YOU!
Most of the mall and the stores were brightly, almost garishly, lit. The pictures in the window showed shots of beautiful models frolicking half-naked in the surf, handsome boys posing shirtless with pouty lips, smiling twins with lean, muscular physiques. Forever 21 was surprisingly bare, though – the walls were all white, so the entire focus was on the rainbow hues of the clothes within.
Abercrombie, on the other hand, was an anomaly – it was actually quite dark and had a vestibule you pass through before you can enter the store. It truly tries to create an air of exclusivity, of mystery, of coolness. Even the side windows that look out into the mall were shuttered. I can imagine some teen boys passing the store: Oooo! I’m just dying to see what type of plaid they’re offering this season! Hollister had a similar setup, though its exterior looks like some sort of cabana; there’s a tropical décor.
What depressed me most was how many of the groups didn’t interact much with each other. On the bus, one pair of girls, both of who were wearing Ugg-type boots, sat in silence most of the ride. In fact, one was sleeping, with her head against the window. The other girl kept checking her cell phone to see if anyone had texted her in the last minute or so. She typed off a quick message, her fingers flying, then clutched the phone in her hands for the rest of trip. As we got near Michigan Ave, the one girl woke up, leaned in and whispered something to her friend, and they both looked over at me. Real subtle, girls. But that’s the type of things my friends and I did constantly when we were that age.
As I said, I expected the girls especially to be dressed more revealingly – though there’s no real way to see if this is the case in the midst of a Midwestern winter. Most of the kids I saw dressed quite blandly; those making any sort of a fashion statement were few and far between. It made me wonder if there are fewer individualistic types nowadays. Have American teens become more conservative? Where was the dyed hair, the wild haircuts, the fashion choices that you’d cringe at in years to come? Isn’t that what youth is all about? Figuring out your individuality? I certainly thought I would notice more piercings, though I did see a few teens with studs in their cheeks or tongue or eyebrow. As far as most of the kids I observed being altogether unremarkable when it came to personal style, I can only blame the corporatization of America: The big chains have taken over most of the mom and pop enterprises, until we’ve been left with a limited amount of choices to express ourselves. You literally can’t help looking like everyone else. And for many, that’s actually comforting.
As Seen On TV
I’ve always been intrigued by the CW show Gossip Girl, but I’ve never seen an episode. It’s one of the most buzzed-about shows for teens currently on the air. In fact, before this season started, there was a marketing blitz, with billboards depicting the high school-age protagonists in sexual scenarios. Excerpts from negative reviews were emblazoned over the image: “EVERY PARENT’S NIGHTMARE.” Clever (and very postmodern) of them to spin these in a positive light to attract viewership. I went to Hulu, one of the latest video aggregator websites to watch television shows and movies. I filtered the Gossip Girls episodes by Most Popular All Time, and the titillatingly titled “Carrnal Knowledge” showed up first. The pre-show intro promised “the one and only glimpse into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s social elite.” Fasten your seatbelts: This promises to be a bumpy ride.
From the very first moments, you can tell that this is a teen dream – that is, a complete fantasy. One spoiled rich girl whines about detention on her miniscule mobile phone while her maid performs her community service cleaning duties in Central Park. The girl on the other end of the line has a long flowing mane, a killer fashion sense and pouty lips just like her BFF. That’s a major clue that this is aimed at the youth of the world – textspeak. The kids have incorporated such phrases as “XOXO” and “OMFG” into their speech. One of the girls who feels as if she’s an outsider at the snobby prep school notes that most of the kids at Constance have limos and drivers instead of having to take the subway, and they possess an “insufferable sense of self-importance.” One of the villainous girls, B., the Queen Bee, so to speak, gives a speech to her clique: “What we do here today echoes through eternity.” And this show only perpetuates that concept: I’m sure it makes teens feel that to be popular and successful, you must be gorgeous, rich, witty…and scheming. Wait a second! The girl I thought was one of the students turns out to actually be a teacher, even though she appears no older than the girls in her classes. If you want kids to relate to a show with adults, why not make the adults look just like the kids?
One of the boys awakes with groggy, hazy memories of the previous night: a masquerade at a gentleman’s club, being seduced by a woman in a skimpy dress – and a strange stamp on his wrist.
A new school policy has the students questing whether or not it’s a joke: You must check your cell phone at the door upon entering the building. The horror! “I feel nauseous,” a girl whines. “Pinch me. I’m in my own worst nightmare,” her friend says. She later goes into shock from not checking the Gossip Girl website in the last hour and a half, a blog run by a mysterious personage who knows the dirt on everyone. A typical line of dialogue: “Is a scandal still a scandal if you can’t text about it?” These concepts are very of the moment.
What’s a teen drama without a dose of bitchiness? To get back at the new teacher, who enacted the cell phone policy, the girls use the internet to dig up something shady about her past. She’s squeaky clean, though, prompting B. to scoff, “Your methods of inquiry must be as tired as your hair.” Their headquarters are, in a tried but true high school drama cliché, the girls’ bathroom. B. makes up a rumor that the teacher is having an affair with a student, but B. gets caught and winds up expelled. “I might have posted something to Gossip Girl,” she pouts to Daddy Waldorf. “But all the girls do it. It’s how we communicate.” Wronged teacher says the website’s “sole purpose is to allow people to post terrible things about each other.”
The cinematography is cutting-edge, with fast-motion cuts interspliced, and the musical soundtrack features many up-and-coming indie rock artists. (The soundtracks are available for purchase on CD and iTunes.) The ads were certainly geared for a young audience. They were for Fired Up!, a new cheerleading comedy, and Above the Influence, an anti-drug campaign with kids saying things as if they’re so proud of them: “I stole from my little sister.” “I got all Ds.” “I made my mom cry.” It ends with the tagline, “What has weed done for you?” The third sponsor is one I found to be frightening and tells a lot about GG’s audience: The drug company Merck was offering information about genital warts. The kids on the show are sexually active; it’s assumed that the kids watching it very well might be, too.
The cell phone policy reveals how tied to their portable devices teens truly are. In one scene, a girl takes a compromising photo with her cell phone. B., the scheming brat, gets the teacher fired, and in turns gets reinstated at Constance, ensuring she now won’t have ruined her chance to attend Yale. Much like The Chocolate War, the good guys don’t win. The writers halfheartedly attempt to tag a moral on at the end, with Daddy telling B., “Sweetheart, what matters most to me is not what college you go to, it’s what type of person you grow up to be.” But who are they kidding? That’s not what the show’s about – it’s about rumors and technology and the pampered lives (and amazing fashions) of the elite. They’re selling a Dynasty-esque dream, and while it’s campy fun, it’s also horrifying to think that young adults would emulate these characters. (By the way, at the end of the episode, the teacher who thinks she is fired ends up sleeping with the student, after all.) The ad campaign was spot on: This is a parent’s worst nightmare.
As for the teens I observed, I’m sure plenty of them would find this show fascinating, though I imagine them to be more of the High School Musical variety. One major appeal is that Gossip Girl is naughty. Just because I noted that many of the youngsters in Water Tower seemed to be on the conservative side, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have escapist fantasies. Girls growing up in a small town in the Midwest could very well love these depictions of ultra-wealthy, ultra-beautiful, ultra-stylish Upper East Siders. It certainly wouldn’t appeal to all of them, and it’s geared more for a female audience, with most of the action revolving around B. and her clique. I’d guess that the kids shopping at Forever 21 would be more apt to watch the show: The fashions and music in the store could have appeared on any episode. Those girls in the candy-colored belted coats almost certainly got their style inspirations from the characters on Gossip Girl.
I don’t think that books or TV shows are going anywhere soon. That being said, though, I think it’d be a wise move to embrace a newer technology. Teens carry their technology with them at all times, so I would create something they can share on the bus as easily as that book. With attention spans seeming to be ever-shortening, I’d create webisodes – maybe 10-, 15-minute episodes that can play on the web and can be easily sent via email. Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, recently created webisodes of a short series titled Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The weeks it came out, it topped video download sales on iTunes. I honestly believe that in less time than we might imagine, kids will be sharing video clips on their phones and other handheld devices as they ride the bus and walk the mall. Perhaps I’m jumping the gun. The teens I observed weren’t quite at this point. But I think about how even a year ago, no one I knew accessed the internet on their phones – and now it has become commonplace. If any segment of society is on the ball with the latest technological trends, it’s young adults.
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