I have just read “Radar fine-tuned to `cool’ sets some teens apart” (Family, March 5). Being a teenager, I had thought that our whole secret-teen-world-of-wants was about to be discovered. After reading “the facts,” I felt that the article had fallen short.
Although all of the information was well-researched, I don’t recall ever filling out a “what do you think is cool and what group are you from?” survey. I know that I wouldn’t have wanted to be in any of those groups. If the name sounded good (ooh, “Influencers”) then the connotations were bad (“In fact, much of their existence revolves around how they look and what they wear”).
I hope that these labels are just referring to how we shop and what we buy. If these terms are not limited to the marketing world, then I feel gypped out of an identity, because none of those labels fully describes me or anybody I know.
Are grownups going to read this and see us this way? My bottom line is that in high school, students are trying to escape the stereotypes of middle school so that they can become their own category of person. As we branch out to figure things out for ourselves, we fall out of the judgments of our peers and we fall into a new set of stereotypes–the stereotypes of the consumer world. Are teens so well-researched that we can be organized by CD preference and movie star resemblance?
I suppose the big question is, are we supposed to fit into one of these groups, or are the groups supposed to fit us?
I feel that if the world wants to radar in to our fine-tuned definition of “cool,” it is crucial not to encourage people to see teens clumped into crude categories.
