Congratulations on Kat's second win! This makes 2 weeks in a row Put It In My Mouth has experienced 2x wins. And what incredible suggestions this week. I can't wait for the next Stiff Competition Edition.
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Some of us had jobs, hobbies, or passions at an early age that helped distinguish our character—but most of us just had friends.
And those friends meant everything.
I remember [not clearly] countless days in which my sole motivation for going to school was to see and talk to friends. You did not need to have a lot of friends, just the ones worth talking to, listening to, and sharing everything with. I was lucky enough to have those friends.
If you completed your grade school career before the mass diffusion of PDA's, pagers, mobile phones, laptops, and tablets then you remember how limited that vital communication with your peers could be.
Beyond the brief respite between classes, the sometimes desolate lunch period, or the oscillating car or bus ride—face time with friends was also limited [this is long before FaceTime®—that was shit only the Jetsons were doing].
So you pass notes! Tons and tons of fµ©$ing notes!
Sometimes whole notebooks full of notes. You develop up an uncanny ability to fold paper into tiny shapes that no human has ever thought of [without seeing one single origami video on YouTube®, because wtf is a YouTube?].
The notes would get intercepted by teachers or worse. . . the boy/girl you liked. . . even though there were specific instructions written on the front in seven different shades of pastel pen,
"For Robin's Eyes ONLY"!!!!!!!!!
What, are they stupid?
If you are like me—you consequently find yourself with boxes of these "mementos of teenage angst", as Kat fairly describes them. If you are like my little [awesome] sister then you consequently find yourself deciding it is time to get rid of these mementos, but not before skimming them all for reminders of how completely stupid teenagers are [as she fairly describes it].
As a result of this behavior it would be fair to say that myself and others romanticize this note-passing period in our timeline of communication, that we are nostalgic for this tactile form of expression.
. . .the idea that the thoughts that are in our head can literally be put into the hands of another person. . .
Well of course thats romantic, and us romantics still participate in this behavior. . . but come on. . . we finally get to be the Jetsons!*
I admit that adopting this sentiment about living in the digital age while holding on to my analog past happened forcibly and just a couple of years ago. I was making a film for class and my shot list designated that Madison was to despondently flip through a photo album. This made no sense to someone (a younger peer) and it was only then that I realized. . . nobody [young] keeps photo albums and they especially don't understand the (albeit emo) habit of digging them out and obsessively pouring over them.
So I rewrote the scene to have Madison clicking through her facebook photos and even as a romantic it was hard to capture her despondence without tangible evidence like a photo album.
See for yourself. [shameless effort to make you watch my shameful student film]
The teenage angst that Kat wrote of in her winning suggestion, well I am sure it still exists. But [as a romantic**] I wish to believe it has lessened. Teenage angst is often related to the frustration of not clearly recognizing your personal identity. Many of us suffer this for a long time and we are always susceptible to encountering such a feeling again.
In the digital age teenagers today can construct their identity in a collage of pictures, emoticons, and snarky status updates. They can express who they are by listing the bands, movies, books, and television programs they like. They can be cool by association by disclosing who they are with and where they are at. They can endow themselves with just about anything they want.
Teenagers can fully contrive an identity and more significantly
they can edit it when necessary.
Am I saying that social media is the answer to teenage angst?
No.
Certainly not [although there is nothing angsty about 5 dozen selfies].
But as powerful [and potentially harmful] that these digital tools are, perhaps they can wield some good. Suppose wrestling with your identity crisis by way of an accessible CMS could give these youths some amount of ease, if only temporary.
Teenagers today can hoard their angsty emotions in an online archive for anyone to see, or to pour over later if they so decide.
But if we are lucky most of them will opt into the "never have to relive this moment again" electronic communication facilitated by snapchat.
Because I'll be real, unless today's teenagers can pull off some classy John Hughes shit, I don't want to stumble upon their angsty mementos while searching for online porn. ***
In case you were wondering, my teenage angst looked a lot like this:
Well, perhaps I just imagined it that way.
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| talk hard |
Well, perhaps I just imagined it that way.
I believe it probably looked a lot more like this:
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| exactly like this Thank you to my beautiful friend Alissa for taking the time out of her busy back to school schedule to confirm Kat's suspicion that teenagers no longer pass notes. RIP Notes then-now |
* We only passed notes because we didn't have electronic devices.
** Let's be honest. I'm very much a cynic too.
*** I don't really feel that way. That's a little dramatic. Probably just some residual teen angst.
** Let's be honest. I'm very much a cynic too.
*** I don't really feel that way. That's a little dramatic. Probably just some residual teen angst.
