Teenagers_101

Teenagers 101 Sarcasm; it’s a universal language that everyone learns sometime in their lives, regardless of age, race, or gender. It’s also the preferred method of communication of Generation Y. While the Baby Boomers and Generation X view our excessive use of sarcasm as ‘attitude,’ we personally do not see it that way. Quite the contrary, actually. For those who are illiterate when it comes to Generation Y’s use of sarcasm, pay attention. In various social scenes that concern both adults and teenagers, you will often see teenagers putting on a nice smile, providing pleasant conversation to adults we’re not familiar with. While most adults will think ‘oh, what a nice child,’ we are not usually like this. Talk to any of our parents, and you will find a majority of us are sarcastic by nature. The ‘nice smile, pleasant conversational’ us is the side we only show to those we are unfamiliar with. Normally we are incapable of immediately ‘chumming up’ with people we don’t know. Why only show your nice side to people you don’t know' You may ask. Well, this is the explanation. Although we are definitely not the only generation who act nice around people we do not know, we are the only generation who verbally abuse our close friends. It’s just how we grew up. Such things as bullying have grown to epidemic levels in today’s youth society. And guess what' Bullies tend to use (semi) intelligent criticisms and insults to belittle their victims. We needed a way to stand up for ourselves. We found sarcasm. It stuck. Fight fire with fire. To an outsider at first glance, a pair of best friends will appear to be having some sort of verbal fight to the death. In reality, this is a common way of showing affection between friends. Today’s teenager will often verbally abuse the people they love more than the people they hate. It’s as normal for us as it is for our parents to nag us about why we are talking to the opposite gender. It’s alright when the verbal jabs are just between us teenagers, we all know that saying ‘Why don’t you go jump off a bridge'’ really means ‘I love you, don’t actually do that.’ Unfortunately, we tend to use this method of showing affection on everyone we are familiar with. As said earlier, our ‘subtle’ humour is often interpreted as attitude by the older generations. But, don’t judge us too soon. Often, there will be a joking nature behind the harsh words. Body language tells it all. Admittedly, our generation is not the first to use body language as a form of communication, though it can be argued our form of body language is the most confusing. To the older readers, keep this in mind. Pay attention to both our actions and words, they can often be contradictory. Among ourselves, a hostile glare is interpreted as ‘I’m just playing with you.’ However, if we did this to our parents (or any adults, for that matter) we would get a 10 minute lecture on ethics that would somehow end in a topic irrelevant to our ‘attitude.’ A raised eyebrow can either be genuine surprise, or a common way of belittling our friends. A way of saying ‘did you really just say that…'’ I have noticed when my parents have an argument (which is quite often) a raised eyebrow will often ensue some form of challenge, another way of saying ‘go on, do it, I dare you.’ The only time we use the raised eyebrow with this meaning is with the tallest posture we can muster with arms crossed over our chests. Chip off the old block, aren’t we' And then there is the most common misinterpretation of all. This can often end in arguments that make outsiders think someone has left the toilet seat up. And what is this terrifying expression' The eye roll. Consciously done or not, it has devastating consequences (for us, that is). This is one thing we may admit has the potential to annoy adults. A simple eye roll can cause numerous lectures from teachers, shouting from parents, and disapproving looks from others we barely know. Sorry for that, but the truth is, we don’t do it consciously (most of the time). Contrary to popular belief, a majority of us respect adults. Strange, yes' We might perform an eye roll to our friends, as a way of saying ‘that joke was really lame.’ It’s a different case for adults. It’s not exactly like we’re aliens from the planet Zog. We’re not made of stone. We hate it when our friends cry, feel happy when they’re happy. This means we hate begin shouted at. Often times when we’re being shouted at we might think ‘I hate this, can you stop now'’ This is most common thought in our heads as the eye roll is brought out. We're teenagers. We're still learning. Stuff happens. We cheat, we lie, we criticise, we fight over stupid things. We fall in ‘love’ and end up getting hurt. We party until dawn. We hate people for no reason, we call each other names. We stay up late having deep conversations, or stay up late just to think. We go out and have a kick ass time with our friends and those will be the memories. One day that's going to all pass. So, I’m asking this of the older readers. Next time your teenager is busting out the sarcasm, try to sympathise rather than dominate, it’s probably their way of joking around. I promise you, you’ll get better results. Surprise them; roll out your own sarcastic comment. It will end better that way.