a lot of things that used to be true aren't true anymore. like that teenagers would look more like children than like adults, or that popular children would embrace activities designed by or for them and refrain from co-opting the pastimes of the anti-social kids. lately, teenagers disturb me. i mean, they were disturbing when i actually was a teenager, but they disturb me far more now.

i think they're getting worse.

they seemed to have gained a creepy level of sophistication.. the little girls wear their makeup like strippers and have dark, dark tans all year round. they wear tight clothes, push-up bras, they flaunt their sexuality almost as though they were enjoying the pedophilic attention to their exposed, undeveloped bodies. the little boys are more heavily muscled than i remember them being, they all tousle their hair, they all snowboard, they all skateboard. and all claim to be individuals, rebels, shy, artistic. they've seen popular culture ackowledge that those whose high school years are glory days are too often nothings later in life. so while they work the same system, they disavow it. after all, gauging popular culture is their job.

not too long ago, you didn't fuck with the popular kids. they ignored you or they tortured you, so you stayed out of the way and tried to make yourself invisible. infinitely more scary is to regress back and imagine all those same vicious children speaking in too-sweet voices, pretending to be your friend. it's just eerie.

but that's not what makes them obnoxious. teenagers now will fend for themselves against the popular ones, wolves in sheeps' clothing though they may be. no, now they just piss me off. they seem to think they've got it now, that they're playing effectively enough at hip, with their boardsport t-shirts and second-hand clothing, that no one sees through the facade, that the old assumption of a souless future in real estate is gone. they can still smell their own, and i see when i pass them that they think they're cooler than me, cause they see that i was a dork in high school and still am. and in some sense, they're probably right. but i'm bigger now, and it occurs to me that though they dress and talk like adults, they're still kids, and i bet i could pick one up and shake the smug grin right off of its overgroomed face. but i'm not a violent person, so i keep it to myself. they've still got the hearts of cheerleaders and football players and, ultimately, real estate agents. and they'll still live their pitiful little lives with their past lackeys slipping one by one away from them. and they'll die, no one remembering how cool they were in high school.