Reaction to Teenagers Talking Back Assignment

I spent a little while searching the web for something about teenagers talking back or about the media and I have to say, I'm really disappointed. I knew that a goole page wouldn't give me much because  basically every single article about teenagers comes from some outside adult source trying to decipher teenagerhood. I felt like I was reading stuff straight out of Raby's article about discourse. There were articles about teenagers literally talking back...to their parents. It was a how to article about how to stop your bratty kid from talking back to you.  If you look at the website it's from, it's called empowering parents...oh gosh is all I can think right now.

I decided to go to YouTube, because kids these days are always making videos on the interwebz. First off, tons of them were news casts about teenage problems. They literally have a special news segment on one channel that addresses teenage stuff lie cyber bullying and buying jeans at Hollister (that was sarcastic). Again, this is all Raby. These teens need to be analyzed because they're at risk and we need to protect them...or protect ourselves from them if they're social problems.

Some videos had teens in them talking about these issues of social networks and dating. But the problem with basically all of these is that they consist of adults standing behind a camera asking teens questions. I don't see these as teenagers talking back. Teens aren't saying "hey this representation of me is wrong, let me fix it." They're being asked to tell stories about how they were marginalized or made self-conscious because of a beauty standard. Sure, they're talking for themselves, but they're not really getting to push back against this adult controlled media when they're just stories that adult media features.

Maybe you disagree and if so, I would love to hear what you have to say...that's my question to the class. There was one video series called Talk Back Teens that was interesting. It was a bunch of teens putting together an internet talk show about different things which I thought was pretty cool. They weren't specifically talking against representations of themselves, but I think fighting against the representation by hosting their own channel was pretty neat. Of course, the link disappeared and YouTube won't find it for me. Thanks YouTube.

I found one thing that's really neat!! A girl went to her hometown and interviewed a bunch of her peers about sex in teen culture. It's almost 20 minutes long if you have the chance. They get to open up because it's a teen interviewing teens.