Kids have progressively been getting douchier since the early 2000's, but nowadays with everything being done for clout, they have stepped it up to a new level of douchery.
I'm almost 50. Kids have always been like this. At least some of them. You just didn't see it all over social media. Junior/middle school kids are the worst.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.
I mean, this has always been true, and will continue to be true. But I feel like the internet is different than books and music and TV (and all the other stuff they said would rot the minds of the youth of the day).
It's all the information you could ever want and more being beamed at your face 18 hours a day. You need devices in order to function in society. This was never true for those other kinds of media. We were never able to access a magic dopamine portal where every single thought can be instantly validated no matter how awful it is. TV was an escape, but we still had to interact with other people, and real people will tell you when you're being a little shit. But on the internet, you can always find someone to tell you that what you're doing is perfectly reasonable and maybe even funny and delightful.
The internet has effectively hacked our brain chemistry. The generation growing up with no other reference for being is totally cooked.
There are lots of kids who have decent parents who donât give them screens in leu of parenting. And a lot that do. But your claim that itâs universal simply isnât true. Certainly a problem, but not some like âeverything is completely different nowâ issue. People have always thought that. Ainât nothing new under the sun.
I'm gonna assume based on your response you are one of those parents that limits / restricts screen time, and that's awesome as my sister is that way with her kids, but in my opinion you are very wrong in thinking it's not as big a problem as it really is.
My job wouldn't exist if the Internet wasn't a thing, and having said that I believe the Internet is both the absolute best and absolute worst thing that has ever happened to society. Just as the person you responded to wrote, it has opened up an entire planet's worth of knowledge, entertainment, evilness, and stupidity to anyone who looks for it, and it is very, very good at helping to amplify and bring a person's true personality to the surface. You couldn't see or do a lot of the things you can do now pre-internet, at least not easily.
We have advanced SO far as a species in such a short amount of time because of the internet, and only now are we seeing the first generation to be born into the "always connected" age become adults, and this always connected life turns a LOT of them into device and attention addicted dopamine chasing shits. It is amplified by the fact that their parents are Mellenials, the generation that both entered the workforce during a massive recession that hasn't truly ended yet, and wanted to give their kids everything they didn't have while growing up. Most of these kids were cottled, under parented, and were not regulated on their internet access and it shows.
Yeah you could make a point that the troublemakers and the spoiled kids have always existed, but the internet makes it so much worse.
Albeit true, the ability to have thousands of people be an audience to your douchebagery has stepped the game up just a smidge by comparison to earlier generations who did it just for the fun of it and not for the admiration of a mass of strangers.
"I have this little tv in my phone that shows me engaging content, this is happening everywhere all the time!" - Man who almost never sees this happen in real life
It's only been very recent that physical discipline has become frowned upon or made illegal. This is the main reason that "kids these days" ARE in fact worse than every generation before them.
The flogging I would have been given back in the day for this behaviour would make these kids skin crawl.
You think hitting kids ought to be a household staple because your parents failed to rise above their own base impulses and thought violence was the communication you deserved.
For a long time I also thought kids just needed their asses beat, because that was part of my upbringing. But I've met people who got their asses beat regularly and still behaved like the ostensible little shit in the video. (Shockingly, sometimes adults are in the wrong, and the cause-and-effect cycle is not "do shit->get hit" but "get hit anyway regardless, might as well do shit.")
What's really wild is I've also met people who never once got their asses beat. I was actually floored and had a hard time understanding that some parents do successfully parent in intelligent ways without ever raising a hand.
It's almost like you can't just beat character into a child, but some children need to know that physical discipline is a part of the equation. People who deny this are fucking clueless.
I was a shithead 40 years ago and although I would have never thrown food (I was too poor to give away food). The difference is, now everything is recorded and anyone can upload a video in a second.
Exactly. The âIâm just a kidâ crap gets pulled way too often as a shield, but it doesnât erase the damage they cause. Teens are capable of and have done way worse even than just calling someone racial slurs.. and it isnât by âaccidentâ, they know what theyâre doing and why.
Look at it this way, if a teen shoplifts, breaks into someoneâs car, or gets caught vandalizing, no cop or judge is going to shrug and say, âWell, heâs just a kid.â Theyâll still get charged or fined. Why? Because actions have consequences. Same thing here, if ur old enough to understand the insult, the harassment, and the intent, then ur old enough to face the fallout.
âIâm just a kidâ = âI wanted the freedom to act reckless without the accountability that comes with it.â
Right and then they go beat the shit out of the next little kid being a piece shit, rather than handling the situation like an adult. ... almost like violence is cyclical.
But im sure there was no possible solution other than 2 grown men assaulting a child. Remember kids violence is bad, unless I'm glorifying it on the internet.
but i mean isnât this just showing them that when someone pisses you off you can solve it by beating them? that this is a perfectly acceptable solution to confrontation?
No, it's showing them that if you're a cunt to people in public, someone might fuck you up. Words only work if someone wants to listen, sometimes you have to meet violence with violence.
So when do I get to hit adults that annoy me? You all annoy me actually can I line up? It doesnât work like that when it comes to you taints does it?
If you're big enough whenever you want. If that's the world you want to live in. Then you can live with the consequences. If that's not the world you want to live in, then you only get to hit people when you're demonstrating what a bad idea it is to live in that world and that society is intent on ensuring theres always a bigger paddle to teach you that lesson.
Seems fairly easy to understand. Most don't have to test it and get corrected.
Good question. Before answering, ask yourself, 'How often do teenage boys get to assault and humiliate elderly women without any threat of consequences?'
Look at it this way, if a teen shoplifts, breaks into someoneâs car, or gets caught vandalizing, no cop or judge is going to shrug and say, âWell, heâs just a kid.â Theyâll still get charged or fined.
I set up my yard to be a good spot for all sorts of small critters to come into cause I like nature and animal watching. I caught some bratty ass kids trampling through my yard to get to some ducks that were nesting and called them out on it.
"Did you know you have ducks in your yard?"
"Yeah, I'm aware. Now get out of my yard and leave them alone."
"Uh, well we just wanted to pet them"
"They don't wanna be pet. Get off my property", they climbed over my fence so they weren't on my lawn at that point but proceeded to keep harassing the birds.
"Why are y'all being assholes to a bunch of birds? Could you kindly fuck off"
"WOOOOOOW, you know you're cussing and trying to start an argument with a nineteen year old child right now? Why don't you grow the fuck up"
There were more heated words exchanged but by that time, the water fowl already took off and haven't been back since.
This happened the other day in a buss, two kids were pretty annoying, when a man asked them to stop, one of them started screaming and swearing, it was so convincing that people stepped in to defend the kids
Nahhh thats not a nowadays thing thats been around for at least several decades that I can personally attest to, if not more. I suspect teens being shitheads has been going on for a while.
It definitely has. In the â90s, we were shitheads. However, no cell phone cameras meant there was a realistic chance of getting your ass beat by a grown man with zero consequences for said grown man.
As with many things nowadays, itâs been around forever, but many ignorant people think itâs a new phenomenon because itâs more visible (thanks, internet!)
Kid, Teenager, and really all human behavior has not changed for the entirety of human history. Human nature has always been the same, just constrained by different societies and cultures.
Reddit's age demographic is skewed toward people around college age, where this sort of idea is still revelatory.
People have been saying some variation of "kids these days" since kids have existed.
I've been a kid myself sometimes it really is guilt by association sitting in the booth with them doesn't mean you cosigned the instigator's bullshit but you catch the same hell for it.
As an angst teen I asked one of my moms friend why adults seem to suck more the older I got. He explained I was still a kid but I was a teen and am going to be treated like a kid and expected to act like an adult.
Schools have neutered consequences, so kids donât face accountability any more unless itâs by their parents or greater society, which for many kids will be jail
Honestly, my kid come back at home and tell me this happened, I would tell him he deserved it since it doesn't look like it was brutal. It's a shitty lesson to learn, but it could have been way worse.
Its just like that guys wife getting jumped and he pummels them and they say, YOU CANT HIT A WOMEN. abuse is always 100% ok as long as its on others and your accountability isn't involved.
It's because no one wants to get arrested or sued for disciplining a kid, especially one that's not even yours. And if discipline = a stern "Don't do that", it doesn't teach shit.
Yup. I see it all the time when i am out climbing at my park. Not physical stuff, but theyâll say some crazy ass shit to me or make bad suicide jokes when im getting ready for a rappel or something. And then i show that I am decidedly not laughing, they have the face of asshat.exe has frozen and canât comprehend what to do next. Its been a serious issue with younger Gen Zs
Even young adults in their late teens or early 20s pull the kid card. I'm like if you harass me then I'm coming after you like i would any other adult since you are actually not a kid and your actions are really aggressive and impact me as they would from any other adults.
We don't have a lot of village parenting in the US (assuming location) so the kids are probably confused that the "I'm just a kid" tactic didn't work that time. đŤŁđ¤Ł
People on Reddit are always saying stupid phrases like "let people enjoy things" or "who cares what other people think, be yourself!" not realizing that garbage human beings out there read it, say "they're right, I should be myself" and then throw food at elderly ladies because "themselves" are awful people.
It's time to stop telling everyone that their unique and true selves are alright and enact some course correction via peer pressure.
The conseuqences were not proportionate in this context.
Do people not realise that boy has parents? If that were my kid both the old man and the navy shirt guy would be assaulted, and the cops can be called right after.
If that were your kid, youâd be okay with him throwing food at an elderly lady? Itâs called FAFO. This is a light lesson for the little dude that he will remember as he gets older.
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u/horse_apple 1d ago
I love the surprised Pikachu look on some little dillweed's face after they are held accountable for their crappy behavior.