Now that I very, very definitely
am not a teenager anymore, my mind has turned to adult culture,
which has not been the predominant one in our country for about
40 years now. Prior to the mid 1950's, art, entertainment, fashion,
politics, you name it all revolved around the grown up sphere.
But after thousands of years, teenagers finally gained some buying
clout, Madison Avenue hopped to and created the myth that "grown
up equals square," and adult culture was pushed under the
rug with just a little bit of smugness. Teenage culture, soon
to be known as The Mainstream, ushered in such inevitable goofiness
as rebellion for everyone, the Beatles, and legal drinking ages.
Decades later and teenage energy results in alot of great
things, like acne and car crashes, as well as the more obscure
desires to pop horse pills and storm fragile waterslides. When
you combine that energy with a rather brief life experience,
you get really neat stuff like the belief that communism could
really work if we'd just all learn to share, the assertion that
rock and roll is still rebellious and actually rocks, and the
belief that any given outfit is actually really really cool and
attractive, especially on pudgy girls. You also get bitchy defiance
as a standard reaction to almost anything. Even in regard to
the trivial, some teenagers still haven't figured out which battles
are worth whining about and which are, well, stupid. And bitchy
defiance in the face of triviality continues to reign since teenagers
everywhere know that no one will say anything nasty to them about
it since no one wants to damage their precious psyche and everyone
wants to keep them happy and spending.
I encountered one of these defiant teenagers recently and
witnessed everything that makes a teenager a teenager manifest
itself in a single useless transaction. I was in line at a photo
counter, two teen girls were in front of me, with their flared
jeans (cut at the bottom, of course) and their crisp new leather
waistcoats. One girl, the rosy cheeked, wide eyed one, is clinging
to a photo of herself and her boyfriend at some dance. Valentine's
Day is near. As she finishes sending off her disposable camera,
she tells the counter girl, "I'd also like to get two photo
mugs, one white, one black," and holds up the photo.
Her friend points to one of those large stand-up photo mounts.
"Get him that instead." She rightfully counters "What's
he gonna' do with that?" to which her friend mysteriously
answers "What's he gonna' do with a mug?" The counter
girl doesn't quite know how to order this girl's mugs, one white,
one black, and the next 15 minutes are spent in a dizzying array
of reaffirming that she wants one white, one black, of the girl
insisting that she doesn't need the negative for such a product,
the print is good enough, and at the last minute deciding that
she wants a "saying" on it. The flyer offers 100 prearranged
mottoes on their mugs, like "Warm Seasonal Regards"
and "World's Best Dad" and stuff like that. The confused
counter girl can't find the list of mottoes. The teen stands
defiant to the corporate cog.
"I want two mugs, one white, one black, " she asserts,
"and I'd like a saying."
What should I have done? Should I have bestowed upon her the
gifts so rare to a girl that age, Hindsight and Perspective?
Should I reveal the laws governing useless items? Should I explain
to her that this boy soon to be mugged would go off to college
with his mug and have a few meaningless encounters that hurt
her and made her look like a doormat? Finally, they would split
up, though she would pine for him. He would rebound, with the
ease of a guy who girls stick on a mug. And what about that mug?
She would throw hers in a psychotic frenzy one night when she
hears from a cousin of a friend that he might be interested in
getting back together, but really isn't. He would lose his and,
then, it would appear ten years later in a box while he is cleaning
out his garage. He'll decide to sell it at a garage sale, thinking
someone out there would buy a used mug with a photo of him and
some dopey girl on it. It's a 90's retro-kitsch thing. "That's
what you'll get for your $12.99 plus tax! I'm over 30 - I've
seen this time and time again!" That's what I could have
said.
But what good would that do, to assault this doe-eyed teen
with my blunt and jaded regret? It would be assaulting the spirit
of youth, the same spirit that will give us more irrelevant indie
rock bands, more updated versions of Romeo and Juliet, and, most
importantly, more foolish trends for adults to make wads of cash
from. Besides, we under-the-rug adults need teenagers to be diverted
by that crap, otherwise they might latch onto all our enthusiasms,
just to inject them with that infuriating, passionless irony
that ruins everything a teenager touches. If that means we have
to sell them retreads of the embarrassing fashions from our past
to occupy them (and allow us to snicker behind their backs while
it's committed to coffee mug for all posterity) then I am required
to do my own part to protect my culture.
She could have her two mugs, one white, one black, with a
saying. It was her inalienable right as a teenage girl who went
to a dance with a boy.
Besides, she might have misinterpreted me and taken it all as an argument in favor of those large stand-up photo mounts, and what's he gonna' do with that? You couldn't sell it at a garage sale, that's for sure.