Youth Culture Clash: When Parody Strikes & Adults Freeze

Keeping my finger on ‘whassup’ in youth culture can lead to ‘life’s most embarrassing moments’ in a keystroke. Case in point? I stay apprised with what’s circulating the net using a handy tool called Top Viral Videos to see what’s clicking through with 6 million viewers and such. Einstein, the amazing talking bird and sweet otters … [Read more...]

Girls as Boy Toys Takes A Toxic Turn: Body Image Shaping Youth

Shaping Youth wrote about the provocative viral promo targeting teen gamers to ‘place the tattoo anywhere on the woman's body’...We hit the op-ed pages when a teen radio station turned ‘hot 99.5’ into a plastic surgery pitch for breast implants. (you can imagine what they did with the numbers for the 'breast year ever' promo, as this teen journalist shares its demeaning … [Read more...]

7 clues to a New Year’s riddle for the 7th year of 2000

This landed in my e-mail from some pals of mine, and it seems worthy to toss out there to get kids thinking along these lines and open up some dialogue. Yes, I’m being ambiguous on purpose so I won’t spoil the fun. To challenge yourself, write down your guess after reading each clue; then, after reading all the clues, see which (if any) of your guesses is … [Read more...]