The State of Teenagers

The many stereotypes that are commonly tied to teens are: Drug Users, spoiled, rebellious, idiotic, wild, and sex crazed. These stereotypes are reinforced through media conditioning which causes some teens to embrace them. For example, MTV’s hit show “My super Sweet Sixteen” includes snotty rich kids who throw extravagant parties and treat everyone around them like dirt. It is commonly said that MTV is the number one outlet for teen news and most of the viewers are teens. Rather than using their influence to do something positive, various media source just reinforce the stereotypes.

Along with MTV, movies help to create the stereotypes. Specifically, Juice, Fresh, and Thirteen have created many stereotypes tied to race and age. Unfortunately, teen stereotype vary according to race. White teens are portrayed in negative ways such as: drug users, spoiled rich kids, rebellious, idiotic and sex crazed. In most white teen movies, the main character is a virgin and the plot is about him/her trying to lose their virginity. Hispanic teens are portrayed in movies as sex crazed, gang bangers, bullies and murderers. In movies, they are usually portrayed similar to black teens. They are put in similar situations as the black teens as well as the environments that surround them. Asian teens are portrayed in movies as quiet natured, geeks, martial artists, and virgins. In some movies, they are anti-social, losers who do not get with boys/girls; they are commonly bullied.

Shows and movies have been strong influences for a long period of time but the new modern approach is the internet. Consider Myspace.com and Facebook.com, the two sites are major teen networking spaces that allow teens to show off their photos, speak about their lifestyles and branch out into new networks. Teens often assume that this freedom is a good thing but conventional wisdom has it that large companies take advantage of them. Now, Myspace.com has become an entertainment capital filled with ads and companies that push teens to confide in a certain look or way of life. The same is not said for Facebook but with the recent sale to a major corporation, Facebook.com is following the same path as myspace.com.