Teen Culture Is the Culture of Oppression and It Is the Best
LatestHello. This is a Think Piece (™ ) on the phenomenology of teens.
Teen culture is the only culture that matters because it is the culture of meaningless oppression. Teens cannot go to bathroom without a hall pass. Their bodies and bladders are controlled by adults.
Teens live under the tyranny of early-ass first period classes, parents, homework, and not knowing if they will ever need geometry in the “real world.” The anger and bewilderment that comes from from this tyranny is the most pure of all human feelings.
Teens love to dry hump and choke themselves. Teens can get high off any household object.
Teens are the only true nihilists left.
Teens can use guns and have sex but their brains aren’t even fully formed. This is an amazing fact.
Teens only learned how to use their crotches like three weeks ago. That makes them dangerous and sexy.
Teens only think about fingerbanging. They re-claim public spaces, like rollercoasters, food courts, and parking lots, so they can fingerbang each other. Whenever a teen enters a new space they think: “Could I fingerbang someone here?”
Fingerbanging is the most intimate act of love between teens.
Teens don’t listen to podcasts or watch Breaking Bad because they are too busy planning their fingerbang flash mob.
Teen pregnancy pacts, teen ISIS, teen truthers are proof of teens radical nihilistic impulses.
The brands try to talk like the teens. The brands fail.
Teens only care about the immediate culture. They are not stuck in dead-time nostalgia. They have never heard of Missy Elliot. They do not care. That is OK. Teens plow their carts over the bones of the dead.
Teens who smoke are cool. There is simply no denying this fact.
Private schools teens are not cool because they are not oppressed. If you went to a school with couches, or free-time, or where you were allowed to call your teacher by their first name, you are not a real teen. You are not cool.
The only time private school teens are cool is when they are insanely rich and are militant about self-destruction.
Exception is made for teens who go to religious schools: you teens are fucked up because of Jesus and that is cool.
One time I was invited by a teen into her bedroom. She lived in Tennessee. The teen told me that her best friend wanted to be a stripper. I asked her if it was hard being popular at her school. She tossed her hair and said, “You can’t even.” This response was cryptic but rang with primitive truth that I can only understand in my sleep. Later, the Teen asked me if I would like to “meet up with some guys from Memphis and smoke weed by the creek.”
Teens do not know that nobody will ask them for their SAT score after they graduate but they SUSPECT.
Teen sex is the most pure because 1) it is filled with terror 2) teens aren’t kinky because they aren’t old enough to be neurotic 3) everyone already has HPV. Teen crotches are weaponized.
Teen headlines are the best headlines:
Teens live in existentialist turmoil because they can’t readily get abortions, rent cars, or be allowed to go to bathroom without raising their hands.
Teen life is an emotional kitsch porno-melodrama. The stakes are always high for a teen.
Teens create secret languages so they plan their fingerbang dates. That is cool.
I’m afraid of having children because I am afraid of the power my teen will have over me.
TEENS DON’T GIVE A MAD FUCK ABOUT JONATHAN FRANZEN!!!!!!!!!
Before you were a foodie, a Democrat, a sellout—you were a teen.
Images via Getty.