October 15th, 2007
Hubert’s great trick
Apart from supplying the idea behind this surreal strip, Maddie has the honor of being the youngest regular reader I know…
…on the subject of youth I just want to ask:
Does anybody know why the society we live in, despite being so obsessed with youth and staying young, gives young people such a hard time?
Here in the UK there’s now a daily bashing on the news which would have us all believe that young people are illiterate, lazy, violent scallies with nothing to contribute to society.
I think Maddie is evidence of how that’s just not the case.
Sean on 
Maddie on
It seems like when I watch the news here it America there’s a split where an 18-19 year old is a boy if he’s the victim and a man if he’s the perpetrator.
Although I’ve always kinda hated teenagers for the most part. Especially when I was one. I hated the other teenagers.
Perhaps because people are inherently hypocritical? That would actually answer a lot of things.
Interestingly enough, I’m a teenager, and I often say that my generation is a bunch of lazy slobs. I’m not sure why, though, I haven’t really seen very much to confirm that.
I must admit to having a certain level of disappointment in my contemporaries as a teenager, but that’s only grown as I have got older.
Hi easca, I think you’ve got a point there. A lot of people feel like that, but on analysis realise they’re not sure why. I think it’s drummed into you from an early age that your generation is useless… I think this has happened for every generation since at least the 50s.
i kind of agree, i personally think a bunch of the other people my age are idiots and deserve anything they get from the media.
but they are the more stupid ones, and they should definitely not give my whole generation a bad reputation like they have.
may i flatter myself by saying people like my friends and i have done nothing (or little!) to deserve it.
half intelligent teenagers unite!
All kids are scallies until they prove themselves.
Actually, thats not true. It’s the same for everyone, kids and adults. Some people don’t have squishy things in their heads. There’s a small percentage who have the wild cats in them. Perhaps 95% of people are great wonderful human beings.
Good luck Maddie, and good show! Capital idea.
Haha! I initially read:
“Apart from supplying the idea behind this surreal strip…”
As:
“Apart from supplying the idea behind this surreal trip…”
And it worked just fine that way. I actually didn’t notice I’d read it wrong until just now, and I saw the comic when it first went up.
The radical feminists (raise you hand if you were expecting that to come up in this thread) have some interesting things to say about treating children as non-humans. It’s similar reasoning to the second class nature of women: a dominance and control issue.
I worked in a developmental psychology lab for a bit, as an undergraduate, and about the only thing I learnt was that the life time of a child stretches just as far back as the life time of an adult. They have memories stretching back over an entire life, just like the rest of us. There’s a relativity to experience, I think.
Well, I also learnt some unpleasant things about the quality of scientific research in psychology. But that’s an other story.
Adam, you rock. you rock so hard, the roof of your house is held on by staples.
Thank you! this is like the most awesomest comic strip ever
And i feel proud to be the youngest regular reader you know, although *shock horror* i turn 15 next week…
I don’t know why society gives us such a hard time. but it’s not as bad as parents. :p
Oh and thank you for the compliment at the end..i only just noticed it.
Prime example of parents being annoyind-i showed dad this strip and said i was slowly spreading myself accross the internet, and he decided to tell me for the first time ever to “be careful, you don’t know who’s out there” right *rolls eyes*
Thank you Seraphine! just saw your comment as well.
Yeah, society gives us a hard time but admittedly in England they’re pretty much right. we’re all either lazy “chavs” who spend most of their time in bed (occassionally with other chavs) or “emos” who are just sad and lonely. me, i’m a mimo. a vague emo who says “meep” a lot.
and owns a squidgy thing.
It is because as older ppl, we can condescend to them for being in-experienced, but envy their youth and vitality.
“youth is wasted on the young” ask any young person i know if that’s true, and sadly they will say yes. we’re rubbish and we admit it…oh, the shame…
Maddie, you’re Dad is right though…
The internet contains the same proportion of nutters and nasties as the real world.
But you know that. As we’ve mentioned before, you belong to the first real generation that has been online throughout their life. I think that you’re probably more savy than me. Still, pretty cool that you showed my comic to your Dad… ‘Hi Mr Maddie’… and better still that he cares enough to mention that.
But the thing I think is the most dangerous on the internet is the fact that employers now check you out online. I’ve always been up-front with this website, it contains quite a lot of ‘personal’ information. My name is real and so are my opinions.
So, if I apply for a job it should be pretty easy for the interviewers to read all of this, and I know it’s not to everyones taste.
Now, I made a decision a while back that if this ever stopped me from getting a job I’d be OK with it, but you have to leave your options open… and one of the best ways of doing that is to limit the personal information… pseudonyms, false info and a lack of identifying facts are a good way to do that.
Sometimes it pays to be vague.
i know i don’t know everyone, Adam. being, as you say, a member of a generation that has been online throughout their whole life, i have been told so many times that i don’t know whos on the internet that i may go find the guy who invented the internet and kill him, even though it’s not his fault! It’s funny, in a way, how all the teachers and parents warn us about it, yet most of my friends are better on the internet than any adults i know. i can get around the internet better than my i.t teacher. i think i’m probably safe enough. but thanks for the warning
and yes, sometimes it pays to be vague. i’ve never needed a pseudonym, but i can damned sure talk for 5 minutes about a subject without telling you anything.
ben tells me im vague, but he also tells me i should be, because i am young and on the internet. even our ben is giving out warnings about the dangers of the internet! i get it though, it happens.
yeah. be safe on the internet, blah di blah di blah. but it’s one of those things, you hear it so many times that subconciously, if someone you don’t know sends you an e-mail or something you immediatly suspicious. or at least i find i always am. but i don’t entirely get it. if you met a person on the street, they’re just as likely to want to rape you etc. as someone on the internet. but kids aren’t really tought about stranger danger any more, just things like chatsafe. surely some people will realise that kids don’t know not to take sweets from a stranger any more, and take advantage?
ew, i know what you mea with the immediate suspicion thing. that sucks, because some peopl are real, and it feels mean to be suspicious of them, too. but the stranger danger thing is a really good point, maddie, i hadnt thought about it. i guess our generation is pretty much the last one who would have gone through primary school without learning about the internet, its probably so different now.
It is funny.
It is not the strangers that do the most damage via molesting, kidnapping, abusing, etc, kids, it is the known family members and friends.
Our gubbymint just spent $68million in the hope to keep kids safe from harm online, but they fail to protect them fromt he real threats.
hehe. gubbymint. that may be my new favourite word..
and you have a valid point Ben. no matter how much the prime minister or whoever goes on about the young and protecting them, they still somehow manage to make the wrong decisions. every single time.