Damn Kids

By Joe Merrick

You don’t need some fat Mancunian bastard to tell you today’s culture is obsessed with youth. But, assuming you do, yeah, it is. We’re constantly reminded of our future generation, of how the very foundations of our existence are being influenced by people who wear pink shirts and khaki shorts even when it’s pouring with fucking rain outside; of people who words end in numbers; of people, or rather, vermin, who believe ‘Pigeon Detectives’ is a good name for a band and not for a horrible, unwatched Saturday morning cartoon show. Ladies and gentleman, I offer you our future: The Kids.

Now, if there’s a pic of me up here already, don’t let my appearance put you off; I am actually under 50. If you can’t see me (Good job, too. This jock strap isn’t flattering) I assure you I am in fact 21, and a student in fact. Combine these two facts, and major companies will have you believe I think the Kaiser Chiefs are as influential as Public Enemy. They would love to portray me doing some magically inspired group activity with a whole host of my peers, such as painting a rainbow through a city, or inpromptu dance numbers in the middle of the street. All for a cause such as a Greener Britain, or to sell mobile phones. According to these big companies, young people are all straight laced, ‘hip’ go-getters who will get together to do anything that’ll brighten up someone else’s day. Clearly, they have not met the assholes who went to Salford University.

None believe this farcical representation more than Channel 4. Oh, how they LOVE to pander to these cretins. Their adverts and TV spots cram in as many long-haired, eyeliner-plastered wankers as they physically can, in an attempt to sell themselves as the Generation X of channels, unlike that stuffy old codger, the BBC! And that TOTALLY LAME-O channel, ITV, haha! And not to mention Five, that..weird guy who stands in the corner talking to himself. Hmm.

Anyway. To make it worse, 4 saturates their channels with youth-obsessed bollocks 24 hours a fucking day. 90210, Hollyoaks, Skins, all shows that boast new-age drama and modern day storylines that are relatable to the young people of today. Really, what can be said except that if you relate to any of the wankrags in these shows you have some fucking reevaluating to do with your life. Every storyline boils down to a supermodel of some description crying in their underwear because the pizza delivery guy forgot to include the garlic bread. There’s usually some violent confrontation between two thick bastards who look like Jude Law after a makeover, acting like they’re as hard as Rambo’s lovechild with The Terminator but coming off about as intimidating as a kitten with cancer.

He will fuck you up.

They have names like Tyler, Raine, Caleb, Gaviscon and Vodafone, which I assume is some half-assed attempt at making their personalities look unique from one another. Usually, a writer uses a technique called ‘Character Development’ to accomplish this, but apparently Channel 4 is happy with the same exact ones running around with differences ranging only from names to hair colour. Speaking of character, at what point did it become acceptable to not have just the one stereotypical ‘vein, obnxious’ character, but to COMPLETELY CONSTRUCT THE ENTIRE SHOW with them? It’d be like The Breakfast Club only all the parts are played by Molly Ringwald.

Churchill isn’t happy after Confused.com cheated on her.

Not that that last reference would be understood by the idiots who watch this sewage. For a demographic that is often portrayed as having ‘culture’, they often display very little of it. What Channel 4 and the makers of shiteballs like 90210 don’t seem to understand is, some young people actually know who, say, Louis Armstrong is. Yet, when a scene arrives where a musician could be mentioned, the script instead chooses to make a reference to 50 Cent, a guy whose claim to fame is having bulletwounds and basically being the world’s first mumbling rapper. Yeah, that’s totally how we want to be represented; as narrow minded mouth-breathers who think the face of black music is some horse wearing a backwards baseball cap.

“Parfy inmda cluh, inaminnamunnafuh…”

Now, I understand that some of these characters are actual damn near accurate representations of real life youths. You know what the rest of us refer to these youths as? Wankers. We hate these people. These are the kind of people who make classes that bit less tolerable to endure, who make work that bit harder due to their incompetence and bitchiness. The kind of people who give people a bad name. Those Martians decide to make themselves known, they’re gonna zap our pathetic asses if they happen to switch over to E4 one night. All we can hope for is that they get distracted by the 14 daily Friends reruns, giving us enough time to at least offer up the stars of these shows as human shields before we all burn and die in glorious HD.

I’d like to say I have a conclusion, but short from sterilising any potential parent who listens to Indy music and thinks the name ‘Greg’ is cool for a girl, there isn’t going to be any concluding this horrifically pretentious phenomenon. The youth will always be obsessed over and sensationalised into this idealistic image of rebellion and individualism. How do I keep my sanity?

I don’t.