h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just can't understand how the world has become so obsesed by image. I go shopping and stuggle to find "normal" clothes. Have we really bred a MTV generation of clones who all have to dress and look the same in order to feel comfortable. I just can't get my head around it.

I live in Australia and the kids all talk like they've just stepped out of an American teenie soap where "like" is used like all the time. And everything is like so cool.

What happened to intelligence and individuality? Can anyone tell me why this is so?

i think its always been like that to an extent..perhaps its just more noticeably so today?

'What happened to intelligence and individuality?'

Small numbers of people collect the discarded husks and cryogenically archive them in the hope that someday they can be restored to life.

'Can anyone tell me why this is so?'

Try John Stewart Mill in 'On Liberty': 'I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in preference to their own inclination. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary.'

i thought as much - i've seen small enclaves of intellegence popping up here and there - but they are mostly laughed away from the masses of individuals all laughing at once.

I don't think it's always been like that at all. I'm only 28 and i can't beleive what i see....young adults chomping with their mouths open, knocking over old ladies while maddly yapping on their mobile phones. Where do they get the money to chat all day and if their parents are paying - why are they paying...values people values - the universe can't stand the apathy....

I can remember a picture which was drawn in the middle ages and makes fun of the latest fashion, so it's been like that even then and there were people who didn't like the new fashion.

.. I just found it. It's from 1494
On top it says something like (I try to translate it):
Who wears the new fashion brings anger, earns disgrace and walks hand in hand with the jester

'i've seen small enclaves of intellegence popping up here and there - but they are mostly laughed away from the masses of individuals all laughing at once.'

Individuals, you say?

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) uses the term 'induhvidual', which may come in handy.

It's not just the fashion - it's the whole attitude. Development of the global personality is fine and progression and change will always be...but manners, compassion and love seem to be dwindling. The media is spinning like a whirl wind - sucking in everyone and everything it encounters and no-one is doing anything to stop it. What can we do???

Hopefully it hasn't sucked me into the void. Just been at Beltane with 15,000 oth loike minded souls to celebrate the dawning of summer, with lots of fire,,,, and you're answer to the question, I believe it is to sing and smile, and be lovely to your neighbour.

This reminds me of how, in about 2002, I was walking through a park, and hidden by trees, a couple of girls were walking towards me, talking broad "American" sounding like they'd stepped out of 'Saved By the Bell' or some teen comedy about High School. (This is in New Zealand.)

As I crossed the park, the girls came into view. Lo and behold, they were a couple of Maori girls, in the uniform of the local Catholic school. Long skirts, green cardigan, backpacks across their backs, talking like characters from Sunnydale High! What happened to their *own* culture?

Exactly - you've hit the nail right on the prverbial head. What has happened to our own culture. I'm an English girl, living in Australia (Perth) and i'll always be English. That is exactly what is happening here in Perth. Young girls thinking they're heading off to school in Beverly Hills, not Perth.

I just don't get it.

I'm not sure that it's vanity so much as the prevalent youth culture. Haven't there always been trends that people want to follow to be part of the in-crowd?

The widespread availability of media has probably influenced the loss of local culture & adoption of something more bland & universal. The loss of manners is another facet of the changing nature of societies.

Hopefully as these youngsters turn into adults, they'll develop their own individual identity.

<> (Teasswill)

I think that Tavaron's post about fashion followers in the Middle Ages certainly backs that up.

<> (If. . .etc)

Ah, this is the same old 'things used to better . . .' lament that I believe is partly due to looking at the past through rose-coloured spectacles. I doubt that if we were suddenly transported back in time 50 or 100 years that we would find any more 'individuality' going on. In some ways we would probably find less as people then used to conform to social norms more than we do these days.

In any case, teenagers have always been the ultimate 'fashion victims' - I don't think they are any more so these days. Perhaps it's more noticable (to some) as styles and trends become less individual due to things like globalization. And the influence these days tends to be governed by large US corporations (film & television, clothing industries, fast food chains etc).

I think it's quite natural that teenagers 'try on' or 'try out' various styles as they move from child-to-adult before developing one of their own.


az

'I think it's quite natural that teenagers 'try on' or 'try out' various styles'

Is that what they think they're doing, or an observer's interpretation?

Well, this is obviously my interpretation as an observer, which doesn't make it either true or untrue.

But if I cast my mind back (waaaaaaaaay back ) to when I was a teenager, I reckon I probably didn't have the sense that I was just 'trying things out'. All the things I tried felt very REAL for the time I experienced them. I don't think I ever imagined that I would 'grow out of' what I was doing - I think that would have left my experiences feeling somehow invalid.

Meanwhile, I'm *still* growing out of stuff, into new variations of myself that I didn't know existed before.

I guess this is why I can't see 'the state of teenagers today!' as any sort of crisis. They're just trying out different stuff.


az

If you want my opinion: it's a fact!

It's psychology if you want. The time when you are a teenager is the time of trying things out, in this time it's very important for most people to belonge to a group, fashion is one of the things which can show such a belong to something.
The style of course may change and has to change, it's got to do with the developement of an own personality.

And for the thing with teenage language: that's also always been like that. Language is a living thing, it has always been influenced by other languages. A few centuries ago it may have been e.g. French, today it's american English.
On the other hand: you stop talking like that after a certain age, and: language is a group related thing too. Different groups of people speak different types of the same language. It's like saying "if you understand what I say and are able to speak like that yourself, then you belong to us".

I think this conversation has developed to show me that what i think i mean is the loss of identity in our world. I am also going on my own experiences. I never wore and still don't ware fashionable clothes - that's not to say that i'm a total dag... I never felt the need to fit in - i tried lots of things as a teenager and more so in my early 20s (mostly things i shouldn't have) but i never lost my identity and never tried to "fit in" Why are people so insecure? Why are they so influenced by the media? In the past and the present, why is it so important to people to be liked? It scares me that kids as young as 9/10 are wareing maycup and worrying about their figures - and parents are encouraging it!!!

there are some individuals left in the "teen" world, i am living proof of this, I am 14, I speculate philosophy, I speak properly and show respect to others, I THINK unlike most of my generation, I am my own person. I have retained my individuality

forgot the comma (,) after THINK

Thank god...i was begining to wonder if there were any left. Good on ya. Please don't tell me you ware only black and listen to maralyn manson.

Isn't rehashing all these old cliches about fashion victims and being an individual following a trend just as much? Just like quoting Monty Python .

"Yes, we're all individuals".

Language is a subject where conformity is pretty much always good. Its not there to make an indy statement, its there to help your communicate.

And I certainly don't think someone should be restricted to the culture of their origin, for a start I'd otherwise be forced to type in home counties faux-cockney.