I also remember my high school times, it was at the bridge between the analog and the digital and it's a completely different playing field. I understand where you are coming from, but I am very close to my sister and what they are experiencing does not compare to what traditional high school coming of age scenarios had.
You mention who is dating whom and what the cool kids are up to. Imagine what the global reach and competition do to this particular interest.
Movies about high school go back to the 1950s, nearly always with a cast of "teenagers" that have lines and receding hairlines and are 28 years old. To me, they look ridiculous pretending to be kids.
Having read it, I feel kinda stupid. My teens were all about just getting through HS, parties, bonfires and generally all sorts of stupid things you do as a kid. I did not think thoughts on the level of 'my generation'. That level of abstraction did not even occur to me.
I was just very lucky to have cohort full of very smart kids, so even with all HS drama, I managed to learn a lot.
I dunno. In a sense, we had it easier. Mistakes were not live streamed. At worst, they were remembered.
I do not envy the pressure teens feel today. Not participating in this at all risks missing out on a chance to 'stand out'.
If my experience from high school is still relevant, showing interest in much of anything besides the opposite sex, drugs, and music was considered uncool and being a tryhard.
I am talking about the western society. In the 80s and 90s, you don't really see movies about an entire generation of teenagers being oppressed. The main characters are likely to be teenagers but most adventure stories have teenage main characters.
In the 2000s, you started seeing popular sci-fi books (then movies in 2010s) like The Hunger Games and Maze Runner that depict teenagers as the opposed class.
Personally I think the 2000 Japanese classic Battle Royale started it all.
Generally a pretty shitty one at that, full of bullying, cliques, popularity contests and anxiety. Being constantly surrounded only by people your own exact age for 18 years isn't a great design.
My personal experience is the opposite and most young people I interact with don't really box people in like they do in old movies. In high school at least half of the most advanced math/science classes were 'jocks'.
I hazard a guess that the author is somewhat atypical for an 80s girl. She certainly seemed to be comfortable with a lot of activities that would draw scorn and condemnation from the popular kids in the 80s. Not giving in to peer pressure is very hard for teenagers. I don't know for certain, but I suspect it's even harder for girls than boys. Boys seem more willing to go it alone if they have to.
This is mostly from my own life experience as a computer nerd during the late 80s and early 90s. You get shunned by anybody even remotely popular. This is really tough during middle school since you become bully bait but perseverance pays off in the end. In some ways I had it easier since I lived in a neighborhood that had no kids my age (or within 3 year of my age), so being a loner and an outcast wasn't a new situation.
But imagine you didn't do any of those things and therefore weren't as social in high school. Would you be as well-adjusted as an adult? Or would you have felt isolated in ways that affected your development and left you worse off in adulthood? All the teenage cringe is pretty developmentally appropriate even if it's awful in retrospect.
Teenage boys and girls partying together without adults is something many kind of societies frowned upon. They used to be scared of unwanted pregnancy a lot.
It did happened occasionally, but it was seen as something bad and stigma (especially toward such girls) could be quite high.
It makes me think that the prom table would be full of nonsense, expletives, and talking about women, but isn't that what you'd normally expect?
reply