1

I see a lot of people saying it’s “okay” to be a virgin at 22, or if you’re 22 and have never been in a relationship, it’s “okay.” But it really isn’t. Most people lose their virginity when they’re teens, and most people get into their first relationships in high school. So if there’s a 22-year-old out there who’s still single, never been in a relationship, and is a virgin, they’re an outlier. They’re an anomaly, and it is something to feel bad and shameful about. It’s like never getting your driver’s license until you’re 21 or something. But it’s okay to feel bad and shameful—this can motivate you to make better decisions in life.

7

Unpopular opinion, but R-rated “teen dramas” like Euphoria should just be set in college.

The characters don’t look or act like teenagers. They’re played by adults, doing adult things—clubbing, drinking, hooking up, and having way too mature relationships for high school. Yeah, some teens experiment, but not like this. If you removed the scenes at school, everyone would assume these characters are 21-25.

Character ages should make sense narratively. Nickelodeon and Disney shows like iCarly or Victorious worked because they were actually about teens, played by teens, written for teens. Even Spider-Man makes sense as a teenage story—he’s a kid juggling real responsibility. But with Euphoria, it feels like they just made everyone “15” for shock value.

If your show’s rated TV-MA and aimed at adults, just make the characters adults. It’d be more believable and way less creepy.

Edit: I honestly don’t know why people don’t make these shows set in college. It seems like an environment more suited for this sort of drama/subject matter/etc.

13

It's not that I hate teen superheroes. I grew up loving Spider-Man, Teen Titans, Iron Man: Armoured Adventures, etc., but now that I'm older, I'm really tired of teen superheroes, mainly because in comics characters never really age, and when they get rebooted in cartoons, movies or TV shows, they usually just start the story around their origin story or after, so whenever Spider-Man gets rebooted, he's always in high school despite him graduating high school in issue #28 and then graduating college in issue #185. So he wasn't a teenager for really that long, but at the time he got powers and became a superhero at 15 years old, and that wasn't very common back then; most teen heroes were just sidekicks. And because Spider-Man is mostly marketed to kids (at least the TV shows and movies), they make him a teenager to appeal to kids.

Despite the fact that a lot of good, the best and mature Spider-Man stories come from when he's in college or at least graduated from his first 4 years of college, even in cartoons he's only been in his early 20s for two shows: Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series – that's it. And Spider-Man has had at least 12 distinct animated TV series based on Spider-Man, and he's only been an adult in two of them.

Basically, I'm tired of teen superheroes because I feel like it limits the storylines you can do, and because of comic book logic, the characters never age, so any time they are rebooted, they will be a teenager because that's their starting point. It's the same with Ms Marvel; she's still a teenager despite the fact that she should be 28 years old now because she was 16 in 2013. But also it's like there's no middle ground: if you are a "young" superhero, you are a literal child, and if you are an "adult" superhero, you are in your 30s or 40s. People in their 20s do exist.

1

I don’t hate teen superheroes. I grew up loving Spider-Man and Teen Titans, but I’m just tired of them. Comic characters never age, and every reboot resets them back to high school. Spider-Man’s been rebooted over a dozen times, yet he’s only been an adult in two animated shows. His best stories are when he’s in college or older, but studios keep him a teen to appeal to kids.

It’s not even just him — Ms. Marvel should be 28 by now, but she’s still 16. There’s no middle ground anymore. You’re either a teenage hero or in your 30s. What happened to heroes in their 20s?

18

Whenever a 21-23-year-old is dating or is having sex with men or women. 10, 15, or 20 years older than them, people on Reddit, TikTok, and X will claim the 21-23-year-olds are automatically “victims” of abuse or “paedophilia”, but that’s just not true for the record. I think big age gaps are weird and inappropriate; however, just because a 23-year-old chose to have sex with a 50-year-old doesn’t mean that 23-year-old is a “victim”. I have a problem with people on social media (or people in general) who treat 21-, 22-, 23- or 24-year-olds who are in relationships or sexual relationships with adults much older than them as the same as adults dating minors.

First of all, actual pedophile and actual statutory rape are horrible; they’re horrible evil things, and when people compare a 33-year-old dating a 23-year-old to a 30-year-old taking advantage of a 14-15-year-old, you automatically lose the argument. A 23-year-old is an adult, and when you call a 21-23-year-old a “victim” for dating men or women older than them, you are taking away their autonomy and comparing these men and women (yes, young men and women, but still men and women) to little boys and girls. You are comparing them to children, and this is literally the opposite of freedom.

While I think it’s weird that a 21-23-year-old dating an older person is really weird and inappropriate, I can’t compare an older adult dating a 23-year-old to a literal pedo who goes after literal children; they aren’t the same. One person deserves to die, and the other doesn’t. The one dating a 23-year-old is a little weird and deserves a side eye; the other deserves to be locked up in prison forever.

Claiming 21-23-year-olds who date older people are “victims” insults actual victims who are actual victims of abuse and pedo, and when you compare a 23-year-old adult consenting to sex with an older adult to an adult r-working a child, you are basically saying that statutory (insert r-word) isn’t that bad.

A 21-23-year-old dating men in their 30s or 40s is weird and gross, but it is not the same as adults R-wording children. A 23-year-old might be young, but they are old enough to consent to this if they want, and claiming they don’t have that right is wrong. Even if their choice is weird to you, it is still their right as an adult in their 20s to do so.

Stop comparing this to a paedophile; one is very weird and gross (but the two people consenting have the right to choose to be weird and gross), the other truly evil.

1
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Grimreaper@sopuli.xyz to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

There’s a big difference between weird or questionable and criminal or abusive. Once someone is over 18—especially in their 20s—they have legal and moral agency. A 23-year-old dating a 40-year-old might raise eyebrows, but it’s not pedophilia, and calling it that cheapens what real victims go through.

While I think it's weird that a 21-23-year-old dating an older person is really weird and inappropriate, I can't compare an older adult dating a 23-year-old to a literal paedophile who goes after literal children; they aren't the same. One person deserves to die, and the other doesn't. The one dating a 23-year-old is a little weird and deserves a side eye; the other deserves to be locked up in prison forever.

Stop comparing this to a paedophile; one is very weird and gross (but the two people consenting have the right to choose to be weird and gross), the other truly evil.

1

Unpopular opinion, but R-rated “teen dramas” like Euphoria should just be set in college.

The characters don’t look or act like teenagers. They’re played by adults, doing adult things—clubbing, drinking, hooking up, and having way too mature relationships for high school. Yeah, some teens experiment, but not like this. If you removed the scenes at school, everyone would assume these characters are 21-25.

Character ages should make sense narratively. Nickelodeon and Disney shows like iCarly or Victorious worked because they were actually about teens, played by teens, written for teens. Even Spider-Man makes sense as a teenage story—he’s a kid juggling real responsibility. But with Euphoria, it feels like they just made everyone “15” for shock value.

If your show’s rated TV-MA and aimed at adults, just make the characters adults. It’d be more believable and way less creepy.

1

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I really think R-rated teen dramas like Euphoria should be set in college or centered on young adults instead of high school students.

First off, the “teens” in these shows don’t look or act like actual teenagers. Most of the actors are in their twenties playing 16-year-olds. Sure, sometimes you’ll find a 25-year-old who looks 17 or a 17-year-old who looks older, but that doesn’t mean everyone in high school looks like a full-grown adult.

Then there’s how they act. These characters go clubbing, drink constantly, have casual sex, and talk like people in their twenties. Yes, some teens do that, but not to this extreme. Relationships in these shows are also written like adult relationships—serious, dramatic, and way too mature for high school. In some cases, the teenage characters are even involved with adults, and the shows barely acknowledge how wrong that is.

Take Euphoria, for example. The characters are supposed to be 15 or 16, but they act like they’re 21 to 25. It’s a TV-MA show made for adults, so why make the characters children when the target audience is clearly 18–25? If you removed the scenes of them going to high school and kept their ages ambiguous, most people would just assume they were college students.

Also, character ages should serve a narrative purpose. Teen shows about actual teens make sense when the story fits that age group. Shows like iCarly, Victorious, or Drake & Josh worked because the actors were real teenagers, and the shows were written for kids and teens. Even though the situations were ridiculous and comedic, the stories were about friends hanging out—something their audience could actually relate to.

Look at Spider-Man, for example. Peter Parker being a teenager makes sense narratively. He’s a kid juggling adult responsibilities—taking care of his aunt, worrying about bills, trying to survive high school, all while being the only teenage superhero in a world full of adults. That’s why people relate to him. But it wouldn’t make sense for heroes like Daredevil, Batman, or Superman to be teenagers because their worlds and responsibilities are built for adults.

That’s the problem with a lot of these modern “teen dramas.” They want the intensity and freedom of adult stories but still call the characters teenagers. If the characters are going to act, look, and live like adults, then just make them adults. It would make the story more believable and a lot less uncomfortable.

1

Fridging is when a love interest gets killed just to push the main character forward. It used to mean a woman getting hurt to make a man act. Now it covers any partner dying to pump up the plot.

Here’s the cold truth. A romantic loss is the only loss that actually justifies losing your head over it. If your boyfriend or girlfriend dies, that grief can spiral into obsession or a need for revenge. That is story fuel. Everything else is background noise.

An uncle, a child, a best friend, a parent, a teammate getting killed is not tragic nor is it enough to be sad and enough to motivate you to be a hero. Those losses might be a little sad but they do not automatically justify turning your life into this crusade against injustice. They are not dramatic enough to demand you drop everything and hunt a killer down.

So yeah, fridging as a device works because romantic love is one of the few things audiences treat as absolute.

Whenever there is a story about a main character who is depressed because their best friend, parent, or child dies, I just can't get into it, and I'm always like, "Please get over it," because this isn't enough to be depressed over, and it's not enough to want to become a good person.

1

If real people got powers, do you think they would all become corrupt, evil psychopaths?

1

I know Superman fans may not like this, but the act of keeping a secret identity has always involved gaslighting, lying, and manipulating people. My question is: between Light Yagami/Kira and Clark Kent/Superman, who’s the better liar, manipulator, and gaslighter?

1

Do you think people who illegal street race are 'bad people'?

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Grimreaper

joined 1 week ago