Kids These Days.

Before I begin, it needs to be clarified that I, in almost all cases, would out of instinct locate the mass consensus of the collective wisdom of my age group, I'd feel naturally inclined to pinpoint it down to the finest specification, and then without a moment's hesitation throw myself as far away on the spectrum of opinion as is logically reasonable. It should go without saying that some of the views of my peers are entirely malicious, fallacious, contemptible and generally about as attractive as a rough shag with Nicky Minaj on a bed of nails. Established as it will become that this post will be predominantly be centred around defending the charming bunch with whom I share a general age, such a fact should never be confused with me actually liking them. Glad we could get that clear.

I've encountered many opinions on our grand* nation's youth, they can be incomprehensibly positive and infuriatingly negative, which is almost an exact parallel to the speaker being incomprehensibly not-a-teenager or infuriatingly a teenager. Life's harsh and there's no escape, world, I will categorise you and treat you in pretty much the same derogatory manner, for at best trivially different reasons. With it, deal. Anyhow, I'd like to list a few, ahem, arguments I've encountered on my roams, and some vague queries I have with them. Let's hit it:

"I honestly believe kids are born without manners these days"- uhhm, yes. Yes they are?...

That's kind of how birth/childhood works, to the extent of my understanding. Seriously though, it's an almost entirely self-defeating argument, as it leads directly to the main argument for our cheery hormonal ASBO friends, without even pretending to support the people using it. I hate to make overall judgements thus, but I feel I can't avoid it. Well then, Jacob's overall judgement 1: if a) you don't understand how birth works, which when though about is really unlikely to help with your child-managing skills anyhow, and b) have the genuinely fascinating ability to create debating strategies not only passively useless but actively usurping and feasibly reducing your chances of i) winning the argument, ii) being respect by other humans, then you're probably a moron.

"Kids these days [if you'll excuse the cliché] don't know boundaries. They're wild and dangerous and a menace."- well, sometimes we come across things in life that aren't true. Not that there are two conflicting opinions or interpretations and there is no strict right or wrong answer. Not that two extremes of thinking exist and the truth must lie somewhere in between. It's possible for people just to say something, and it's incorrect. Oasis are damn fine fellows. Easy, see?

Very well, to ensure that people don't think I'm such a crap-spouter, I may have to make a rare leap into seriousness, and consult those terrifying objects, the facts. In the past ten years smoking has gone in adolescents, drug use is down, alcohol is down, ASBOs are down. And would you but know? If you go ten years back further, ten years ago had lower alcohol, drug and tobacco use than twenty years ago. The same for thirty. It all seems to be piling up, doesn't it? It's almost as if- god forbid- the most antisocial group were those most enthusiastic with their accusations, the golden oldies. They don't have something to hide, do they? If so, the choice of gossip as something intimately linked with the faults of their own generations, does seem a little, well, moronic. Again. With a fair dose of hypocrisy thrown in or good measure.

So. Two broad categories into which most complaints at teen culture fall, if you can call it culture. Do we have a culture? We have kind of music, I hate to call it a music taste. We uhhm, wear clothes. I'd call it more of a 'niche' than a culture. Culture sounds far too healthy. Which gets to my main point, that when it comes down to the facts and the logic, teenagers are actually pretty damn decent, but yet still those nine times out of ten I'd choose to move away from the lump reasoning of a large number of lumps, because, well, they're dislikeable. Apart from you people, of course. You're loooovely. Honest.

*Ah yes. The patriotism thing. For newcomers, see Hey, Don't Take the Piss Out of MY Royal Family.