Is youth culture healthy for society? -

[Lemmingwise]

Rock and Roll brought with it a whole culture industry aimed specifically at teens.

We consider it normal for teens in puberty to rebel against parents. Is it?

Conservatives in asian countries aren't like this. Teens and young adults are expected to remain respectful.

Yet asian countries too seem to have youth culture driving a wedge and more distance between parents and children, though generally parents are pretty strict and keep their children on a short leash, so to speak.

Are westerners better off or worse off for it?

 

[Steely Dan]

Considering that young adults have been rebelling against the older generation literally since the dawn of time. it could be possible that it's normal.

 

[break these cuffs]

I think far more dangerous is the perpetual youth culture we have now. It used to be that you got a job, went to college, had kids, enlisted in the military, etc and grew out of the things from your childhood. Now you have people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s obsessed with pop culture shit like pokemon which was made for primary school children. Significant portions of Western population are living in a state of perpetual adolescence. I loved the Redwall books when I was a kid. I can't imagine reading them now or obsessing over that world like people do Harry Potter. I stopped even thinking about them 20-30 years ago.

 

[Rafal Gan Ganowicz]

Dindu kulcha is among the worst cancers society has ever suffered.

 

[Coconut Gun]

Considering that young adults have been rebelling against the older generation literally since the dawn of time. it could be possible that it's normal.

The Times! The Morals!

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

No, it's not.

 

[special need's H20]

I think far more dangerous is the perpetual youth culture we have now. It used to be that you got a job, went to college, had kids, enlisted in the military, etc and grew out of the things from your childhood. Now you have people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s obsessed with pop culture shit like pokemon which was made for primary school children. Significant portions of Western population are living in a state of perpetual adolescence. I loved the Redwall books when I was a kid. I can't imagine reading them now or obsessing over that world like people do Harry Potter. I stopped even thinking about them 20-30 years ago.

Honestly I think that shit is fine just maybe keep your hobbies in your house like a normal person. Faggots with anime stickers on their cars and senpai shirts are a good example. None care about the gay shit you like.

 

[Orion Balls]

Honestly I think that shit is fine just maybe keep your hobbies in your house like a normal person. Faggots with anime stickers on their cars and senpai shirts are a good example. None care about the gay shit you like.
View attachment 1222810

So, I guess we won't be getting together at GenCon, then? Pity. The overnight Kobolds Ate My Baby game is epic. I could have died many times with you.

 

[DumbDude42]

overall it's a disaster for society, and contributes to the breakdown and dissolution of what little is left of the family unit in western countries

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

overall it's a disaster for society, and contributes to the breakdown and dissolution of what little is left of the family unit in western countries

Your name continues to be on-point.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

Honestly I think that shit is fine just maybe keep your hobbies in your house like a normal person. Faggots with anime stickers on their cars and senpai shirts are a good example. None care about the gay shit you like.
View attachment 1222810

Jesus Christ dude, you want to kill someone by second hand shame?

We consider it normal for teens in puberty to rebel against parents. Is it?

Conservatives in asian countries aren't like this. Teens and young adults are expected to remain respectful.

I'd rather have my not-yet-existing children try smoking and drinking at the age of 14 in a somewhat controlled environment than for them to become a hikki-whatever (shut-in) or a boso-whatever bike gang member.

Then again, NEETS are increasingly more common every year. The point I'm trying to make is those ultra-conservative societies have their own problems, often caused by suppressing natural urges and proccesses.
Like a child trying their first attempt at separating/distancing from their parents by rebelling against them.

 

[Syaoran Li]

overall it's a disaster for society, and contributes to the breakdown and dissolution of what little is left of the family unit in western countries

I don't know if anyone told you this, but A Clockwork Orange was not a documentary.

Youth culture has always existed in some form, it just became more well-documented in the post-WWII era.

In the 1920's, jazz music was demonized for corrupting the youth like Rock & Roll was in the 50's or heavy metal and hardcore punk were in the 80's.

In Victorian Britain, the youth culture of penny dreadful novels, cheap gin, and bawdy folk tunes were extensively demonized and blamed for juvenile delinquency.

The Puritans lynched people for celebrating Christmas because they thought it was degenerate and corrupting. Shakespeare's plays were banned by the Puritans during Cromwell's reign, and now Shakespeare is required reading in high school.

In Classical Greece, Socrates was arrested and put on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens with his philosophy.


Moral panics, outrage culture, and moral guardians have existed throughout history and so has youth culture. It's very much a cyclical thing.

 

[Recoil]

I think the problem is that too much of it has become a race to the bottom. The easiest way to make waves is via transgression and social media has cemented attention as a form of currency. This leads to a degeneracy competition masquerading as iconoclasm. The envelope keeps getting pushed a little more every time and all of a sudden you've got a ten year old doing a strip tease in a gay bar.

 

[Michael Dummett]

Considering that young adults have been rebelling against the older generation literally since the dawn of time. it could be possible that it's normal.

Honestly, I fell like the "teen rebellion" thing is a more recent phenomenon that's a direct result of modern Western society's focus on individualism. In past Western societies (like pre-Enlightenment past and maybe up until the mid-1900s for rural and otherwise poor communities) and more traditional societies, young adults were more focused on building up and helping their family and other more community minded ventures. Not that there weren't people with idiosyncrasies, but anybody that rocked the boat too much with a more self-centered viewpoint were basically outcasts. I mean, these are societies where marriage wasn't based on who you love for the most part but who could possibly grow your family and their worth the most (granted, the spouses grew/grow to love each other over time but the point still stands that teenage rebellion is a product of post-1700s thought and really didn't reach fruition until the post WW2 era).

 

[SnowBall]

I think far more dangerous is the perpetual youth culture we have now. It used to be that you got a job, went to college, had kids, enlisted in the military, etc and grew out of the things from your childhood. Now you have people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s obsessed with pop culture shit like pokemon which was made for primary school children. Significant portions of Western population are living in a state of perpetual adolescence. I loved the Redwall books when I was a kid. I can't imagine reading them now or obsessing over that world like people do Harry Potter. I stopped even thinking about them 20-30 years ago.

Not just Millennials, Boomers are also bad with it. I see people of all ages buying pop culture junk like Funko pops. I also noticed that older generations are joining in on the extended adolescence and being just as guilty as their kids.

Though to be fair I don’t like this mentality that once you reach a certain age you have to drop any interest and hobbies you enjoy that don’t meet the arbitrary “for adults” category. It is true that being obsessed with pop culture is worse these days but it's not just kids media everyone is mindlessly consuming either. As long as it doesn’t take over your life or use kids media as a guide book to life (Harry Potter fans come to mind) there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[Jesus Goldstein]

It was always thus.

“I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting”

 

[Marco Fucko]

Much like women, youth should be suppressed and processed into their future roles. So no.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

What divides the folk is not good for the community.

Youth culture is an aberration, a product of the educational system that splits youth from their parents, elders, masters and makes them subservient and resentful. If youth and elders spend time together you don't get separate cultures but one dynamic culture. This is the preferable state of affairs: gradual change but no conflict.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Judging from the responses, perhaps I asked the wrong question.

Of course there is a natural tension between "old adults" and "young adults".

From the responses and knowing the position of the various posters, it also seems to be a left / right issue, with the left believing it to be the natural and right state of being (and thus me being wrong for questioning something that "has always been"), whereas the right seems to call for the old adults to put up more of a fight instead of rolling over. Is that the divide on this issue?

Of course it makes sense if there is no pressure on young adults to conform, then the cultural distance is perpetual and that itself paved the way for perpetual youth / perpetual pop culture. Because when one generation is too busy to manage the fallout of their divorce and too timid for fear of "not being hip with it", the the next is paying no cost for continuing in their indulgances.

So here's my question to those who think this is the perpetual natural state of human society, if we've always had old stodgy men fussing over the indolate youth, did that perhaps serve a purpose that was good? Is it possible that they had the best interest of those youth and general public at heart? Or is it only possible that they were being selfish about kids in their yard?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Not just Millennials, Boomers are also bad with it. I see people of all ages buying pop culture junk like Funko pops. I also noticed that older generations are joining in on the extended adolescence and being just as guilty as their kids.

Though to be fair I don’t like this mentality that once you reach a certain age you have to drop any interest and hobbies you enjoy that don’t meet the arbitrary “for adults” category. It is true that being obsessed with pop culture is worse these days but it's not just kids media everyone is mindlessly consuming either. As long as it doesn’t take over your life or use kids media as a guide book to life (Harry Potter fans come to mind) there is nothing wrong with it.

As far as mindless consuming goes, the Boomer suffers from television. They spend an incredible amount of time watching it and don't seem to think of that as any sort of problem because of their age. But why does being a certain age make that okay? Their ancestors didn't have a passive entertainment like that at their age. They whittled and gardened and did shit like that. Why should it be any better for the 60-year-old to watch TV all day than for the 20-year-old to play video games all day? What is bad for one is bad for the other!

There's a basic division of all entertainment into Productive and Consumptive Entertainment. Consumptive Entertainment is easier and thus tends to predominate, because it is natural for people to take the path of least resistance in the satisfaction of their wants. But Productive Entertainment is more spiritually fulfilling.