Dumb Kids
“Kids these days are always doing dumb shit trying to impress some strangers on the internet! Back in my day, we’d do dumb shit trying to impress some stranger we met in our neighborhood who seemed a bit too old to be hanging out with kids our age!”
– local curmudgeon
Every time I hear about some new dumb TikTok trend that’s got adults everywhere worried about the next generation, it always turns out to be some shit that kids have been doing for forever. Stealing from/vandalizing school bathrooms? Does nobody else remember how fucked up public school bathrooms were when they were kids? Graffiti, missing stall doors, flushing entire rolls of toilet paper until they flooded? Fucking cherry bombs in the toilet? But oh no, someone stole a soap dispenser, kids these days are so unruly!
Not to mention complete non-stories like the supposedly viral “challenge” of jumping off of a moving boat. Wasn’t actually a trend, by the way, but I’m sure you knew that from reading the article I just linked. As if we haven’t been daring each other to jump off of random shit since the first hominid fell out of a tree.
Remember when adults in the 90s freaked out over The Simpsons because Bart was teaching the youth to be disrespectful hooligans? And we rightfully mocked them for their uptight fearmongering? I wonder what would happen if old Bart Simpson clips started trending on TikTok and inspired a “Bart Simpson Challenge.” Would we blame TikTok or The Simpsons for impressionable youth imitating Bart’s tomfoolery?
– James
