The Problem with Teenagers is (almost) Everyone Wants to be a Teenager.
I was recently asked at a media conference what is the death kiss for a social media platform from the point of view of teenagers and my unsurprising answer was “when their parents and then grandparents join the platform.”
Generation Z and Generation A are astonished to learn that when (the)Facebook (now Meta) came out in the hazy sands of time that was 2004, it was for a while the coolest ever millennial toy, kicking MySpace’s butt in the young social media platform’s race to the top, with now thirty and forty-somethings who were then-teenagers clamouring to record their every breakup, get-together, success, sadness and where they went to college/uni.
By 2008, as the first of Generation Z became digital-curious, the first jokes started to appear about Facebook (now Meta) that foreshadowed all the Gen Z jokes that would be made about things that were millennial beloved (Harry Potter, Hamilton, Fleabag, Ted Lasso and of course, Instagram.) Though Instagram was globe-dominating for a while, it always felt like a millennial platform, and when Gen Z finally became of digital-age, they wanted a digital place to call their own and to move on.
Nobody enjoys being dumped and rather than lean into an Elder Stateman/Woman kind of role, all the major platforms had a kind of midlife crisis, invested in a tonne of digital Botox, but not just because they were chasing the kids. Sure, the OG-platforms wanted to appeal to younger audiences, but they also wanted to remain fresh and young for its original audience, because the stark truth is, that audience doesn’t want to be its age either!
Forget all the culture war nonsense, the true didactic dictum of our time is ‘thou shalt not grow old’ and not just in terms of our faces and bodies, but in spirit and behaviour too. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem too bad – after all ‘staying youthful’ is viewed in a tellingly positive light, but in the last two decades this has tipped over into something more extreme.
Adults no longer want to be adults – adults – even the very serious ones – want to remain in a perpetual state of adolescence, and the world is becoming like an endless high school. But because only adolescents can actually be adolescent (a fact someone really ought to tell Bryan Johnson, 45, before he blows another several million on trying to scientifically turn the clock back to 18), older people can only manage a cringey simulation of adolescence. And more seriously, the institutions and things – including our actual kids – that need adults are starting to look very neglected and in need of some grownup intervention.
Politics was once-upon-a-time the quintessential symbol of grownup seriousness filled with grey-haired people who went on the news and talked about serious things like economic and political stability – it doesn’t matter whether you agreed with them or not – the point is, they looked and talked like competent adults. Politics is now filled with pouting, preening, consequence-evading quasi-adolescents who cry on the news, hide in fridges, yell at news reporters who dare ask them to tidy up their country, and throw boozy, snogging parties and then lie when they get caught. When people ask why (actual) teenagers don’t drink or party much anymore, it’s probably less to do with Gen Z-puritanism and more to do with the fact they don’t want to be caught copying Boris Johnson. And it’s happening on a domestic scale too. One of the most frequently expressed worries teenagers have across socio-economic, geographic and every other line, is the behaviour of their parents and older relatives – a kind of inversion of generational concern:
Chloe, 21: I wish my Mum (47) would grow up. She spends all her time shooting videos and then filtering them all to hell on TikTok. It’s gotten so much I’m actually scared to go on TikTok and loads of my male friends watch them and comment on my Mum being fit, which she absolutely loves.
Griffin, 19: “My Dad (49) came to Wireless last year and got absolutely munted on pills and coke and got off with one of my older sister’s (21) mates. And she’s fit. To be fair, he’s been long divorced from Mum and all my friends were calling him a ledge, but I was so embarrassed. He keeps giving me his credit card to book this year and I’m trying to find a way to put him off. I don’t want my Dad to be a geezer party animal who posts about getting off with younger girls on TikTok.”
Taylor, 14: “My Stepmum (40) is nice, but she’s so obsessed with looking young, it’s putting me off her. She keeps buying all the clothes I do and doing all these TikToks with her friends on Friday and she’s a barrister. Why can’t she be just a mum and dress like a mum?”
TikTok came up so frequently as a kind of symbol of generational tug-of-war that it’s fascinating. It clearly still means a huge amount to Generation Z who view it as ‘theirs’ (like they view Instagram as millennials) and often resent older generations muscling in on their turf. But it’s not just a turf-war. Older people obviously really enjoy the youthful aspects of TikTok – the dances, mimes, games, confessionals, makeovers and silliness – and the fact they get to replicate what their kids do in a world that isn’t just about mortgages, the energy crisis and nagging health issues. The problem is, Generation Z are getting to an age where they are starting to worry about mortgages, the energy crisis and health problems and desperately want some adults in the room to advise them on these things. Problems are now arising, because older millennials, Gen X and Boomers are having such a good time in their TikTok spaces, having growing up kids to help, countries to run and jobs to do, just isn’t as much fun. TikTok is filled to the brim with older people with staggering followings – something the kids – and often their own kids – aren’t too thrilled about.
Carin’s (15) *not her real name Mum is a popular Instagram ‘Mumfluencer’ and now has a large TikTok following: “Mum has been obsessed with being an influencer literally since I can remember and has made an OK living out of it. Looking back, I feel a bit used if I’m honest, because she monetised every aspect of our growing up from first walking photos to videos of us being potty-trained. But I could deal with the Instagram stuff, because that was all in the ‘Mum space.’ Since, joining TikTok, it’s like she’s regressed and she’s one of those Mums who pops up in the Daily Mail to tell everyone she gets mistaken from my sister and gets torn to shreds in the comments section. Her videos are getting sexier and more about how she looks and wearing teenage clothes and her general hotness. I’m quite a private person, ironically, and I absolutely hate it, and I feel like it’s actually ruining our entire relationship. I honestly wish she’d get off TikTok and grow the fuck up.”
But almost no one wants to grow the fuck up – and not just on TikTok.
Every national conversation we have has been reduced to intellectual equivalent of “my Dad could beat up your Dad” with debate being less about knocking about interesting ideas and changing hearts and minds and more about humiliating the other side. Any notion that ‘the other side’ might have something valid to say even when we don’t agree with them died somewhere around 2014, and we all coalesce around rhetoric and events that are global versions of fights after school. There are huge global news stories pertaining to climate, war, genocide and human rights violations that got dwarfed next to the coverage of The Oscar’s Slap or the Chris Pine/Harry Styles Spit, and that’s because me, you and everyone else clicked on those fun high-school-ish stories rather than kidnapped schoolgirls from a place we’d struggle to locate on a map.
Even our heroes seem to be regressing. People that were once uber-grownup cool have been infantilised by a combination of chasing youth, social media, and often toe-curling opinions they spout (on social media, naturally) with the confidence of, well, teenagers. Without picking on any one individual, we can all name someone who once admired, who has morphed into a version of themselves we wish they hadn’t, and this version is always some variation on them trying – and failing – to keep up with the kids.
The fact is it doesn’t matter how many social media followers you have, or how outrageous the things you say are, how many youth-inducing procedures you have, or how young the people you date and sleep with are, once you are out of your teens, you are never, ever going to be a teenager again.
So, it’s time to make ‘being an adult’ cool again. This doesn’t mean anyone over the age of 28 has to take up crocheting (which teens think is actually cool) or smoking a pipe (ditto), but someone in the room has to start being a grownup again. If we are going to fix things, be it, politics, mental health, the economy, education, climate, and our actual kids, it’s time to put down TikTok, start talking and listening, stop yelling ‘woke’ or ‘fascist’ anytime someone says something we don’t agree with, and leave the business and behaviour of being teenagers to actual teenagers.