the truth about youth by JessP

"so the fact is that the middle class late teens and twenty-somethings of america are absolutely obsessed with getting fucked up.

there are some who do it, because it is "fun". they "love" getting fucked up. or so they claim. but on the contrary i think it goes a lot deeper than that.

one must first separate out those who were born addicts, and received the disease of addiction through genetics. naturally if the person never took the first drink or drug, they'd never have a problem, but for arguments sake i'm going to weed these people out into a separate category. I'll talk more about them later.

with that said and separated, i'll classify next category as the "general youth population". For brevity i'll refer to these people as the GYP's.

Lastly, there's the "tortured youth", or the TY's.

In this rant I am going to generalize and stereotype. In my experience I think that most of america's youth falls into one of the above three categories. i'm going to say some things that might piss some people off, but its only my opinion, and i don't expect everyone to subscribe to it, so here goes...

"THE GYP'S" AKA THE GENERAL YOUTH POPULATION:

The GYP's are a diverse group of people. Some are very intelligent, others are really stupid. Some are marching band kids, homecoming queens, frat brothers, hipsters, kids who don't give a fuck, and the list could go on for days. The GYP is the General Youth population that encompasses most kids born from 1983 to 1990. The GYP have all grown up on AOL instant messenger, video games, myspace, mtv, and hollywood. Whether they would like to admit it or not, they grew up in a media-driven "cyber society", a good amount of their contact was electronic. Hollywood, whether it be the indie hipster stars, or the mainstream stars all encouraged the GYP's to grow up fast, in leading by example. When the GYP's were coming-of-age, getting FUCKED UP MANNNNN was the thing to do because that's what was socially acceptable to do, because that's what the people they looked up to did. The loss of inhibitions is something that the GYP's really like about getting fucked up, because from growing up in a cyber society where half of communication is electronic, they are socially inept. However the GYP's would not consider themselves so, because they go to bars and parties all the time! (Parties that are centered around the keg, or the blunts, or the lines, that is.) The GYP's don't like hearing why it really is that they drink. They hate authority so they don't like to think that there is a driving force besides their own will that dictates what they consider to be fun. Go ahead and ask a GYP why it is that they drink, even if its only an occasional habit. i bet you they will tell you that its fun. I personally think that its sad. The GYP's are a generation of people who know how to interact without chemicals, but really hate doing so. Its awkward and "boring" for them. I believe that a few of these people will be in miserable self imposed addictions later in life, because in some cases they will become physically and emotionally dependent. Those who don't will lead "happy" functional lives, but will remain prisoners of a social chemical fog and their own poisoned thinking for the rest of their adult lives- following the heard of other GYP chemically social sheep.

THE TY'S AKA THE TORTURED YOUTHS:

Now the TY's or the "tortured youths" are also a diverse group of people. However i'd say that most of these individuals could be described as "jaded". They may not necessarily be more intelligent than the GYP's but they have a little more insight as to why they do what they do for the most part. The TY's sometimes recognize the plight of our youth. They don't care for the GYP attitude, although they may be friends with some GYP's. They resent society for telling them how to feel and what to do and what is cool. The TY's rebel. They want to be seen as the anti-cool, which they believe makes them sooooo much cooler than everyone else. The TY's may or may not try really hard. They may or may not have other things besides the plight of their society that "torture" them like hard childhoods, broken families, etc. The telltale sign of a TY is most definitly their "FUCK IT!" attitude. TY's are so jaded and bored that they don't know how to feel anything but jaded, depressed, or bored. They hate feeling jaded, depressed, bored, and angry, so they say FUCK IT! and get fucked up. All the time. Allllllllllll the time, or at least a whole lot. They too become numb. Some of them will suffer the same plight of self imposed dependency. They are more inclined than the GYP's to fall into this trap because they generally have a negative outlook, and tend to generally care less about their well-being and responsibilities than GYP's. Others will lead functioning lives when they get a little older and settle down with a fellow TY, but they will never feel completely whole, and they will always be jaded or depressed somewhere on the inside.

Then there are the Junkies. They don't get a clever abbreviation because their name is already short. These young people fell into chemicals for one of the two reasons above, but unlike their counterparts they couldn't stop. In other words, a junkie started out as either a TY or a GYP, but that was over veryyyy fast. They don't just get fucked up a lot, they are always fucked up. A junkie will harm others to get fucked up, and could care less about themselves. Junkies didn't really choose their plight, they have a disease given to them genetically and they live in a society that thrives on things that are poison to them. They are no better or worse people than the TY's or GYP's, they are just more of a danger and more of a pain in society's ass. They either end up in mental institutions, dead, in jail, or they get help. When a junkie gets help they can actually become happy people so long as they don't fall back into the junkie trap. Ironically, if you are a junkie who gets help, you can end up better than all of the other categories if you put your mind to it.

I'm not really sure why i wrote this. When I talk to other young people, these categories really come to life for me. I guess maybe I spend more time than the average person asking myself why I ever started getting fucked up. But I think that most of America's youth is sad, no matter how smart some of them are. A lot of this bleak reality has become apparent to me in the past year or so. It was about this time last year that i tried to stop drinking for the first time, and couldn't do it. Some might say that I'm bitter that I can't get fucked up anymore, but its not that i can't its that i CHOOSE not to. I choose to remain aware of everything rather than numb, I choose to relearn sober socialization skills. Do i miss that feeling sometimes? hell yeah! i'm a friggan junkie, and being fucked up is as natural to me as breathing. If i get fucked up, there are huge consequences like death, homelessness, friendlessness, and terminal illness that hang over my head. but what i guess im saying is that im glad they do. because there are a lot of young people out there with sad realities regardless if they realize it or not.

go ahead, get pissed. i don't care. who knows, maybe i am just jealous that i can't get fucked up. but if this blog does annoy you, ask yourself why. I may have hit a nerve, eh?"



By Jess Palmer.