Teenage girls are always the subject du jour. Sometimes they are newsworthy because they are the spawn of a celebrity and are looking all grown up as they display their endless legs in designer wear. They are featured unimpressively passing exams that are getting easier and easier so those A*s count for nothing. Other times they are concentrating a huge amount of ingenuity into their fandom. We stand back as they negotiate the bizarre and new world of online social media that is apparently fast becoming a life or death situation and wonder if we shouldn't put in some more guidelines on sites.
Here's the thing. We're kind of always laughing at them. Sure sometimes teenagers do amusingly gormless things. So did we and everyone laughed at us too. I recall the day I got my (admittedly very mediocre) GCSE results the newspapers were crowing over how easy the coursework and exams were, and had they mentioned we looked stupid in our clompy trainers and low slung trousers? That's fine, when you're at your most narcissistic you probably need to learn to laugh at yourself. It helps you work out what is truly embarrassing (not much) plus it gives you a chance to practise your histrionics.
The current thing that makes us all despair for the teenagers is their avid desire to be famous. Specifically, famous for nothing, or rather, famous for being famous/rich/having a leaked sex tape with someone marginally more famous. Kicked off by Paris Hilton (who? Oh, cruel world) and continued by Kim Kardashian and other reality stars I am not au fait with because I don't have cable (does that phrase sound horribly '90s to you too?), many a teen now apparently dreams of the day they will be photographed drunkenly falling out of the passenger seat of a car outside a club.
Of course thanks to smart phones, social networking sites and the rise in acceptability of The Selfie (less than a decade ago I'm pretty sure that was a masturbatory reference) this can become reality TODAY! All it takes is a smart phone and a catchy hash-tag. As the young woman who is known as the 'Slane Girl' has learned.
I think we all know the brief story of the Slane Girl and let's remember she is not an explicit image, she's a person and quite probably a minor. The incident has thrown up several problems but one that I think is very important is our language when referring to incidents such as this involving a young person. This is not 'child pornography', whatever you think of it pornography features consenting adults. This is an explicit image of an under age person taken without consent.
The current thing that makes us all despair for the teenagers is their avid desire to be famous. Specifically, famous for nothing, or rather, famous for being famous/rich/having a leaked sex tape with someone marginally more famous. Kicked off by Paris Hilton (who? Oh, cruel world) and continued by Kim Kardashian and other reality stars I am not au fait with because I don't have cable (does that phrase sound horribly '90s to you too?), many a teen now apparently dreams of the day they will be photographed drunkenly falling out of the passenger seat of a car outside a club.
Of course thanks to smart phones, social networking sites and the rise in acceptability of The Selfie (less than a decade ago I'm pretty sure that was a masturbatory reference) this can become reality TODAY! All it takes is a smart phone and a catchy hash-tag. As the young woman who is known as the 'Slane Girl' has learned.
I think we all know the brief story of the Slane Girl and let's remember she is not an explicit image, she's a person and quite probably a minor. The incident has thrown up several problems but one that I think is very important is our language when referring to incidents such as this involving a young person. This is not 'child pornography', whatever you think of it pornography features consenting adults. This is an explicit image of an under age person taken without consent.
| It has been noted that the young man has not received any online vitriol. Or if he has not to the great scale #slanegirl has received. The abuse aimed at the girl has been mostly attributed to her peers but I wonder A) if it is and B) if they aren't taking their cue from us. | teen girls have always dabbled in morbid fascination |
The Channel 4 documentary, Crazy about One Direction on hardcore One Direction fans neglected to note that t'was ever thus. Filming teenage girls in their rooms covered in posters, one with the background of frantic scribbles of One Direction related graffitti to add a certain impression of madness as she announced One Directioners were capable of killing, a little balance might not have gone amiss. Or have we sincerely forgotten the telephone hotline for those struggling with Take That's demise?
The sight of teen girls waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of their idol/s isn't new. They aren't crazy. It's just that our thirst for gossip has resulted in them having more access to information. You only have to flick through a romantic story of any era to know teen girls have always dabbled in morbid fascination.
It might have been worth noting the similarities in the Take That teen girl fan's prospects to these current One Directioners. We have a Tory led government, high unemployment, rioting and an economy that would give the early 90s a run for its money, only it didn't have any. Can you blame either set of teenagers looking for an escape with a good looking boy who can dance and mime at the same time?
But we'd rather brand them either sexually precocious and shameless or deluded and silly. Then wonder why they turn on themselves.
Squeamish Kate
The sight of teen girls waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of their idol/s isn't new. They aren't crazy. It's just that our thirst for gossip has resulted in them having more access to information. You only have to flick through a romantic story of any era to know teen girls have always dabbled in morbid fascination.
It might have been worth noting the similarities in the Take That teen girl fan's prospects to these current One Directioners. We have a Tory led government, high unemployment, rioting and an economy that would give the early 90s a run for its money, only it didn't have any. Can you blame either set of teenagers looking for an escape with a good looking boy who can dance and mime at the same time?
But we'd rather brand them either sexually precocious and shameless or deluded and silly. Then wonder why they turn on themselves.
Squeamish Kate
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