by Kenneth Young

Created on: September 07, 2008

The curtain must be yanked back exposing the wizard for all to see. Culture in all of its masterful guises aims at the heart of every one of us, regardless of age. Youth however, is the easiest target. Individuality, in fact hyper-individuality, is sold at any cost. It is under this pretense that every young American can be made to believe almost anything. Introversion sits at the core of the matter. Kids aren't dreaming of walking on the moon anymore, they've got the moon in the palm of their hands. If a kid from Anytown, USA can feel as cool as a kid growing up in New York City, all at the touch of a button, almost any product can be spoon fed to him if it reinforces his belief in his validation. It is quite a blatant, yet cleverly unsuspecting, dichotomy. Chain stores sell the gear that media pimps. All the while the notion of non conformity is established within. So, while setting up a custom made life, the products eventually being sold are homogenized free trade zone made carbon copies of a look ripped off from something seen on someone, who at the time very well could have had some sense of individuality and wore the garment with brazen pride. Now a look once fresh and exciting, now a tired cheapened shadow of potential hipness.

Culture is not a friend to the youth it claims as its own. It seeks to dehumanize, to degrade, to simply count this easy demographic. Youth is coveted, as was and as it will be. In Western society youth plays a much more present role in daily life. Still, the world seen as youth driven is in fact controlled by middle-aged men for the most part. The illusion is quite transparent once clearly focused in on.
This youth culture is hardly that. The kids of today, teens, tweens, are hapless victims of a machine long in control of its domain, and I personally feel and fear for that generation. The media machine only gets hungrier, only gets better, more precise, and as time goes on there's an endless stream of sheep lying in wait. They beg for guidance. The popular is only so because they are told so. These 'idols' haven't earned their keep, haven't carved out their place in the pantheon of the famous. Transparent. Lost. This youth generated world is not what it seems. Line the lockets. Give them what we want, what they want, in cyclical opulence until the next lot line up. The one great pitfall we must try our hardest to avoid is giving in to the very beast that we identify as perpetrator of evil. Call out the bastards. Find yourself, for yourself.

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