Representations in today's world - Teenagers

Many people today form their own representations of how some groups of individuals act. These representations are later spread all over the media causing people to believe that the stereotype is true. One of the most misinterpreted groups is that of teenagers because many people see them as kids who are always on their phone, very disrespectful, and isolated from the social world. The truth is, teenagers, although they are constantly on their phones, aren’t any of those descriptions. In fact they are sometimes the complete opposite. Therefore, in my project for AICE Media, I am going to represent teenagers and talk about what is true and what is false.

            In the media nowadays teenagers are represented as disobedient, disrespectful, lazy people with no regard to anyone but themselves. As we can see from the movie “Back to the Future”, many teens are portrayed as being bullies or troublemakers that get whatever they want by being mean, rude, and big. Due to back to the future being such a big movie, many people who saw it now believe that teenagers are mean people, who are disrespectful and uncaring. Another common stereotype of teenagers is the dumb jock that plays sports. In the series “Blue Mountain State”, they are represented as being dumb kids who only go to school to play sports, do drugs, get a girl, and go to parties. This series made people believe that all athletic people in school are like them. Therefore, this is why in today’s world those who play sports are considered “dumb jocks” because of all these representations that the media has of athletic people doing stupid things.

            `I do not believe that these representations are fair or correct of the teenager group. In fact it is completely wrong to what teenagers actually are. For example, in the series “Blue Mountain State”, athletic kids are seen as dumb and not caring of others. I happen to be an athlete and play for a competitive soccer team. Having the experience that I have, being around all these kids, I can say that yes, some kids are dumb and don’t care about anything but the majority of them have good grades, care about others, and have their priorities set. This isn’t fair because since many media outlets today, characterize athletic teens as being “dumb jocks”, many people now believe that they are like that, when in reality they are completely different. This goes the same for bullies. Due to the fact that many media outlets represent teens as bullies, many individuals think that many teens are kids who bully smaller and weaker people.

                        Although many of the representation characteristics are incorrect, some of them are also correct. One of them I would retain is that teenagers are constantly always on their phone. Due to the growth in technology over the past years, the teens in today’s society do everything with tech. Therefore, we are constantly using technology, either for social media or homework. In fact, it is so extreme that many kids are addicted to tech and are in need of it for the majority of the day. A stereotype I wish to challenge in my project is that of teenagers being seen as disrespectful kids, who don’t care about school and do drugs. This is completely off from reality and due to media this rumor has spread and quickly became implemented into the stereotype. Therefore, I plan to challenge this stereotype and show that most teenagers are caring people that do care about their grades and the way they treat people. Overall, media has developed many stereotypes in the world, one of which is on the group of teenagers. Although these can be completely misleading, many people believe them and go along with them. With this project I hope to minimize the impact of those rumors and show people the truth about how teenagers really are as people.