Kids These/(Those) Days

My grandmother's aggravating antics aside, I'm writing today's post about a topic that passed my mind a number of months ago. I'm . . . I'm going to try to wash this exasperation out of my system before I begin.

[Brief Pause]

Alright, let's do this.

First off, let me admit that writing this at an earlier date would have been ideal. Social trends change, popular tides ebb and flo, et cetera. This issue is dated, but I am going to write about it anyway.

Perhaps you can conjure up a time, long ago, when Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and Twilight were at the forefront of every (pre)adolescent's mind. Yes, this is still somewhat the case, but just imagine the time when this was at its peak.

Of course, everyone everywhere (on the internet) was aghast at this cultural phenomenon. We (a collective we) were disgusted with this slurry that had become ever teenage girl's obsession, we took every chance we could to denounce and deride Meyer's books, the Jonas' music, and so on.

In the midst of this, however, it struck me one day what we were doing. A lot of the issues that people were nitpicking were tenets that I not only agreed with, but that I lived by as well.

In Twilight [SPOILERS, I guess] Edward refuses to have premarital sex with Bella, and is adamant that if they are to go any further they must get married first. The Jonas Brothers wear purity rings to symbolize their commitment to, well, being pure. Lo and behold, both of these things were brought under scrutiny and publicly mocked.

Why is it that the one time young people (okay, girls) have role models they should actually look up to, they're ridiculed? Miley Cyrus actually wasn't half bad as someone to imitate, before she decided to grow up. Of course, back before all of this she too was labelled as childish, annoying, et cetera.

Frankly, I'm disappointed with all of us. Yes, the Twilight books were less than stellar, and yes, I read them all. No, the Jonas Brothers are not fantastic at music, but they're not awful either. Here we are, sick of the way Disney gets into every single thing, but when was the last time any of us watched the Disney Channel and saw what was going on there?

Okay, so I watch it every now and then. I have issues with them portraying kids in shows dating, I can't be down with that. What I do notice, though, is how there's this refreshing absence of sexualization that runs rampant on MTV, and on most other channels after six. I honestly don't see almost anything wrong with it.

Maybe we (okay, mostly the internet) should sit back one day and watch some of the Disney Channel (Family Channel, here in Canada) and try to look past the lame jokes and the terrible acting and just admit that it's not terrible. This isn't corrupting kids, and I'd let my kids (I don't have any yet) watch it a billion times before I let them watch almost anything out there these days.

Counterpoints are more than welcome, and even encouraged (though not necessarily anticipated).