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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Yeah it's a Sociology 101 take. By today's standards, at least.
A retired teacher once told me that the funniest thing about high schoolers is that they'll repeat something they read in an old book and act like they discovered something brand new.
Well it was a brand new discovery to them, and if they found value in it then it makes sense that they'd want to repeat it. But yeah, I guess I can see why that's "funny" coming from the perspective of an older person who may have forgotten what it's like to be a young, inexperienced kid capable of feeling fascination and wonder.
The be/amusement is at the appropriation some teens (unwittingly) do. Presenting something well-observed and well-documented as a novel thought is laughable. If an acquaintance walked up to you and said "I've just figured out fire is dangerous and people not liking you back makes you sad" you'd either laugh or worry they'd taken brain damage.
But, in fairness, you don't and shouldn't have to cram citations into every social media post. And we also could probably do better about giving kids the mindset and the resources to research things that interest them so they don't have badly reinvent the wheel every adolescence.
Yeah, I see where you're coming from. Although instead of laughing I'd probably reply with "sounds like it's time for a story." Because I think I would assume that something happened to them recently that highlighted the danger of fire lol
"Presenting something well-observed and well-documented as a novel thought is laughable." I really like this sentence. It made me realize that I'd interpret "laughable" as either "humorous" or "ridiculous" depending on the context. Specifically regarding how genuine the person is being, which is impossible to be sure of. You can only make assumptions about whether a person is being genuine/honest, although you can get more comfortable with those assumptions as you get to know them better.
Those types of "hey did you know water is wet?" comments can also serve as a jumping off points for sarcastic remarks with friends.
I remember being 15 and laughing at people my age who thought that "Catcher In The Rye" was written about them.
I mean it kinda was, wasn't it? If anyone can relate to teenage angst it's teenagers.