So while reading my newsfeeds yesterday, I came across this story: Kids Incorporated. I felt it definitely deserved some examination. The initial premise of the article is this:
David Archuleta’s going to win American Idol — you may as well get that through your head right now.
Now, I don’t really know much about American Idol and what’s been going on with it lately, but I’ve always had a deep abiding distaste for the show. The idea is a great one, have a democratic, meritocratic forum that decides who should become a pop star. Unfortunately, if someone whose talents are best described as a “willowy voice convey[ing] all the passion and soul of Muzak” can win this competition, you’ve got to wonder what the hell went wrong. And here, Chez examines something that goes way beyond just American Idol:
It doesn’t matter, because Archuleta has the one thing that matters — tragically, the only thing that matters these days: The unwavering worship of every 13-year-old girl in America.
The ’tweens are legion, they are powerful, and they will see to it that David Archuleta is crowned boy king of the pop culture universe. In a couple of months, they’ll have his face plastered everywhere you look — and only the little girls themselves, and maybe NAMBLA, will have reason to rejoice over it.
Now, I’m not that far removed from my teenage years that I forget what it was like to idolize a media star, but honestly, I was more about admiration than the naked lust that seems to be de rigueur among young girls. Maybe that’s a major difference between boys & girls at that age level, but I remember my girl friends being pretty levelheaded about the celebrities & pop stars they found musically enticing. There is, of course, a very simple solution to this problem:
All adults have to do, is take back the world from their kids.
Chez goes on, describing exactly how we arrived at this place, and it’s true. And while I certainly came from a privileged upbringing, my parents were careful to never let me forget that it is a privilege to have nice things, and is not something that just “happens”. Hard work not only grants you what you desire, either directly or indirectly, but also sweetens the taste. Nothing is ever so valuable as when you’ve worked your ass off for it, and quite so lacking in that quality when it’s merely granted to you. And I’m not talking about gifts, the value of a nice gift is rarely lost on anyone. I mean the constant stream of things so that getting stuff becomes the expectation, not the exception. Chez describes it really well:
Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about, because it’s become impossible to ignore: A generation of parents who spoil their children rotten — hubristically buying into the notion that their specific spawn is somehow special and deserving of society’s deference — combined with the technology that gives every computer or text savvy kid a voice, whether he or she deserves one or not, has conspired to hijack a good portion of what we see and hear. It’s a Wiki world, one in which a vocal majority can literally rewrite the rules and twist reality to suit its needs, and right now, the ‘tweens are the most vocal — and what they need, apparently, are crappy, overproduced, Disneyfied Stepford Teens to scream for and sing along to.
This is why Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers are all but inescapable right now — and why David Archuleta is next.
Now, I haven’t any children of my own, so I can’t speak to the whole “child takes over your life” thing personally, but I certainly know friends of my parents and other people with children who merely lived for their spawn. That’s the root of this whole thing in my opinion; if you can’t have your own person and opinions anymore, then you’ve ceased to really be a person, no matter how wonderful your child is. As Chez states more eloquently than I:
It’s one thing to let parenthood change you — to rightly make your kids a priority; it’s another thing entirely to completely forfeit your identity and become nothing more than an extension of your child’s tastes. In years past, this kind of sloughing off of the various predilections that make someone an adult didn’t have the far reaching affect that it does today; before the age of viral transmission, YouTubed kingmaking and iRule, prepubescents didn’t really have the ability to inflict their will on the rest of us. But all that’s changed, now that text messaging and the internet have allowed for the creation of a hive mind — and what’s worse, one that’s turned Generation-Y into one big conduit/amplifier for whatever’s been cleverly marketed in its direction. It’s no longer a kid grabbing Mommy’s sleeve and screaming, ‘I want that!’ It’s a kid hooking into the Borg and joining with every other kid in the country, then voting and calling and posting and commenting and asserting power in every way possible until his or her request is no longer a request but a demand, and one that’s been handily brought to fruition. In the chaos theory of popular culture, all it takes anymore is a few butterflies flapping their wings to start a tempest that becomes a juggernaut. The ‘tweens decide what they want, the parents follow, the lapdog media that are always on the lookout for the next big thing trumpet it, and before you know it, it’s unavoidable — on every TV and radio and in every magazine and department store across the nation.
Seriously, that’s one fine piece of writing. Chez goes on from there, but you can click through & read his whole article yourself if you like. Back to the topic at hand, Chez reminds us that we, the adults (young & old) are still in control, and we need to remember that and exercise that greatest of adult privileges: the ability to say “no” to children. As my parents always used to say when I asked why: “Because I know better, and you’ll understand someday when you’re older.”
(Via Deus Ex Malcontent.)
