My Super Sweet Sixteen
“But mom, this dress is only seven thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars! It’s Louis Vutton, you know that’s a great deal.” In the long run, Sophie ended up with the wallet-denting designer outfit and didn’t even have to lift a finger. Instead of purchasing the Louis Vutton gown, her family decided upon the nine thousand dollar Chanel outfit!
After cussing out the body guards for letting the “social rejects” in, her celebration had merely begun! She had pulled up to the most popular night club in the city (her family managed to rent for the night) in a Cinderella carriage for an unforgettable entrance. According to her, people would be talking about this party for the rest of their lives. Her get-together, complete with bouncers, go-go dancers, announcers, magicians, hip-hop dancers, and caterers running frantically in and out of the crowd, pleasing her every need seemed extraordinarily unrealistic. Remarkably, the only time we heard from Sophie was during her ridiculous tantrums, complete with excessive whining about everything that went amiss. Neither recognition nor thanks had been directed to her parents the entire night! In fact, her whole demeanor conveyed entitlement.
“My Super Sweet Sixteen” is a new hit series highlighting various teenagers on their super sweet sixteenth birthdays. Unbelievably, these families were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars toward these astonishing celebrations. It was quite amusing, yet somewhat disturbing watching today’s youth lavishing in their conspicuous consumption. After some serious consideration, I realized that this alluring lifestyle, though appealing, was shallow, degrading, and a disgrace to society as a whole. Upon further self-reflection, I had to admit that I myself have been enticed by these materialistic desires. Yet, these extravagances were far more detrimental than desirable.
I experienced an epiphany, at that very moment. Where was our appreciation? Where was our gratitude? Our graciousness had disappeared, replaced instead by indulgence, greed, and selfishness. The lack of appreciation and thankfulness is appalling! Nowadays, it seems that society hands everything to our youth without question.
In “Tweens: Ten Going on Sixteen,” Kay S. Hymowitz points out the fact that in modern society kids mature too early, creating a negative trend called tween phenomenon; it occurs when kids become teenagers at a young age and skip the preadolescence period. According to Hymowitz, the evidence presents a troubling picture, tweens are too concerned with the way they look, are involved in criminal activities, are having sex, and are doing drugs and alcohol. The author concludes that the causes of the negative trends are complex, and I believe that she states a reasonable case that should be considered by parents, educators, and psychologists. Without a doubt, the three most negative behavioral trends of many tweens are their need for attention,
Kate's family had rented out a ballroom in a neighborhood country club, and we intended to dance the night away. As I approached the scene, disco lights streamed through the large windows and ran all over the lawn. Music enveloped the parking lot as my adrenaline began to elevate. I sauntered in, waving to my friend...
Schor, Juliet. Consuming Desires: Consumption, Culture, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Ed. Roger Rosenblatt. Washington D.C: Island Press, 1999.
Currie, Elliot. 2005. The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Almost every generation criticizes the current adolescent generation due to the difference of historical perspectives. In response to this, I went out into the world and decided to interview someone of these older generations, Diane Partee Miller. Mrs. Miller is the age of seventy-five and is my maternal grandmother. She grew up in the small town of Evansport, which is located in the Northern part of Ohio. Mrs. Miller was an adolescent and primarily grew up in throughout the prime years of the 1950s. Differences between these generations is evident in classes taken in high school, social acceptance of dress, romantic relationships, and technology.
Here, they rid themselves of average, familial and school-age problems and bask in the glory of teenagerdom, drinking from their Holy Grail of liberty. Here, listening to “the music that made everything so good” (2), they finally taste the maturity they yearn for.
It was the first day of school. I was eager to see most of my friends who I went to middle school with. There was one big thing that struck me; I noticed my friends changed. They started dressed differently, acted differently, changed their hair style, and even started wearing makeup. Since the transition fresh out of middle school and into high school, my friends wanted to look older. The biggest factor that bothered me was how they would conform to look like the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. I felt that my good friends wanted to conform and be something they weren’t. In my personal view, Americans in general want to feel mature sophisticated but also want to have fun. Individuality is essential because it allows people to express who they are as an individual. When people express themselves differently and in their own way, they elucidate uniqueness and universal truth. Values in American culture can contradict with family, fashion, and the workplace.
Schor talks about how the street culture has affected marketing to young adults. Rap and hip-hop have become quite popular even in suburban homes. The top charts on any popular radio station have at least four or five rap songs in them. This popularisation of street culture has influenced marketers to subtly include violence, drugs, crime and sex into ads meant for teens, making it just subtle enough not to get called out for it. Edginess in advertising gave it that cool feel that kids were attracted to, the “gangsta” life. Cool being associated with these kind of negative things can influence kids to take part in such activities, wanting to live the cool way. Advertisers also exploit the underlying desire for kids to be more independant, showing rebellion against their parents, who are depicted as lame. When kids see this kind of behaviour on TV, they think that is how it should work for them too. One example Schor gives is a Sprite ad “The parents are in the front seat singing “Polly wolly doodle all the day,”... He is in the back banging his head on the car window in frustration… stuck this these two losers.” (223). The kid is the only one who gets that his parents are lame and he is the only one who is even close to cool in the car. The worst part about the new cool is that it’s not only
It is evident that today’s advertisements for teen clothing are neither healthy, nor ethical, to use as a way to attract teen consumers; however, companies are getting away with this behavior, because their effective and inappropriate advertisements are merely innuendos. The modern label placed on teens is said to be the primary contender for the cause of eating disorders, suicide, bullying, and depression. Fortunately, groups of teens are getting together to put an end to these unethical advertisements and the messages the ads give off to teens; because of their efforts, the amount of effect that advertisements have on teens now, may dramatically plummet sometime in the near future. In my opinion, it is crucial that us teens make a profound alteration to the way teen merchandise is advertised, which in turn will end the knavish behavior of ...
Sophie lost her husband and child in a car accident and soon after turned to drugs, sex, and booze to forget the ones she loved. When Isabel is confronted with Sophie at the bar she is disgusted of her friend and wants nothing to do with her. When Sophie left Isabel said, “We’d known one another always. But a normal person recovers from a thing like that. If she went to pieces it’s because there was a rotten streak in her. She was naturally unbalanced; even her love for [her husband] was exaggerated. If she’d had character she’d have been able to make something of life (196).” Isabel is expressing since Sophie is acting different than her normal self she is not normal and never really was. Instead of being a friend to Sophie she would rather have nothing to do with her because she feels there is not anything one can do. Isabel does not care about the well beings of her friends’ even if she has known them all her life. She is only worried about herself and her own
Social inequality has been prevalent in modern-day America, where you could get picked on for just wearing the wrong brand or hairstyle. This occurs the most upon people who are struggling to adjust to adulthood; teenagers. Social inequality has and still is affecting teenagers across the world, and writers are writing about this problem in order to raise awareness and to change the view of the public. These authors write about example in which the inequality is demonstrated, hoping to present a different perspective and to motivate the reader against social inequality. However, not enough awareness has been raised to help prevent it. This is working, but not quickly, but it shows that things like books and music can help to raise awareness,
In other industrialized nations, teenage turmoil was a fraction of that seen in the U.S. The author proposed that turmoil was the result of infantilizing- a phenomenon largely attributed to American culture. When treated like adults, teens are capable of rising to the...
In the Frontline documentary, “Merchants of Cool” the top marketing experts discuss the teen demographic and new ways to target this seemingly difficult demographic. They are finding that teenagers contain a small amount of brand loyalty, and will consistently change brands to go with the flow of “cool.” Teens are more suspicious and resenting towards the normal marketing concepts, such as commercials, billboards, and radio advertisements, and are slowly catching onto the concept of buzz marketing.
Teenagers today are spending more and more money on the extravagance of prom. The article by Jeffery Shaffer claims that high school proms have become an “exercise in the celebration of extravagance and indulgence.” In this article negative ideas and, inappropriate messages are conveyed to teens. Many of the ideas proposed in this article are eccentric, turning school tradition into competition of unlimited spending.
Teenagers often find themselves going through the motions of doing what they are told when they are told to do it. In conforming to societies norms teenagers begin to feel as if they blend in and nothing is really special about them. John Updike was able to write a coming of age story in which his main character Sammy gets shoved into adulthood rather quickly over spontaneous decision. Through Sammy’s thoughts, intense observations, and his actions we are able to see his deep depravity and his longing to stand out from the crowd.