Ep. 83 The High School Senior and The Pandemic Plus College and Mean Girls

The Modern Moron is very excited to have a high school senior as a guest on this episode.  We talk about how it sucks to be a senior in a pandemic.  How about that word… "sucks"?  Expressions for what is cool or hip or "bad"... remember when if something was "bad" that meant it was good?  But the term "sucks" seems to have remained a constant in the vernacular of teens everywhere.  Doesn't that make you feel good? We talk about being a student.  What it's like to head into college not knowing exactly what you want to study.  We also stumble upon the subject of "mean girls".  From preteen through middle school and high school, there is this "mean girl" mentality.  It really makes me curious about the why's of the mean girl mentality.   I have a couple of articles that I reference, the links are at the bottom of the show description as always. One article is from WebMD, which I consider to be a reasonable source.  The other is from Psychology Today Magazine.  Here is one paragraph I found very interesting: "Girls start from a point of weakened self-esteem: 69 percent of girls between the ages of 7 and 21 feel they are "not good enough," according to a 2016 Girls' Attitude Study. Many younger ones already know the pain of exclusion and instant reputation loss via social-media outlets. The same study done in 2017 revealed that half of the 7-to-10-year-olds worried about being bullied online. A University of Oxford study of boys and girls' technology use makes the concern over our daughters being bullied seem very wise: Girls aged 8 to 18 spend more time on their cellphones socializing than do boys, who focus more on playing video games." This is obviously exacerbated by this pandemic.  Our children are online more and there using technology to socialize to some degree.  I think??? Video games have become much more of a social activity with online gaming… do you other old farts even know about this.  I remember my guests brother playing Mine Craft 5 to 7 years ago online with his friends wearing a headset.  That's the way kids play and socialize now.  My daughter plays a bunch of games in a platform called Roblox.  They socialize while they're playing.  So far my rule is, no headphones or at least limit the use of headphones.  I can't be looking over her shoulder constantly, neither of us wants that.  But I can listen to what the hell is going on and if I hear something I don't like I can crash the party.   The following is in an article from greatschools.org titled, "Why are those girls so mean?" "Of course, not all girls are nasty and belong to cliques. But whether or not they are "in" or "out," all girls will be affected by the actions of cliques because these behaviors are all around them. They need to understand how this social pecking order works, how they can act differently in their relationships and rise above it." Technology makes it easy for kids to be anonymous in their meanness, and spread rumors and gossip like wildfire far beyond the school grounds.  And with the ease of use, 1) they don't realize what they are doing, and 2) they can't take it back." I'm not offering any solutions or even opinions really, just something to look at that we all know is already there, hopefully with some resources I've found that maybe you haven't looked at yet. "They think they're better than everyone".  I would say, since I know SO much about the opposite sex, that these "mean girls" don't think they're better than everyone.  I have a feeling they might be very afraid and insecure that they aren't even close to being as good, as nice, as pretty, as funny, as ANYyone; they're not as good as or worthy.  It becomes a panicked anxiety and the coping method that seems to work for them (temporarily) is to belittle everyone around them, to protect the what little low self esteem they have.  They're self esteem rises relative to you after I put you down. Any new person introduced to the group, especially another girl, represents a threat to their status in the group.  If I belittle you, I preserve my status.  If I allow you into the group, there is a chance you will displace me and lower my status.  It's a survival mechanism.  Maybe there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we view bullies.  Bullies are crying out for help.  They're completely afraid of losing whatever status they think they've built up.  They're very sad people and they don't need to be.  Most of us… I mean them… did I say us?  That was totally a … whatever.  Um, what were we talking about? But why girls more than boys?  Is it that way?  A lot of male bullying is structured and even sanctioned on the athletic field.  Trash talking is a form of bullying isn't it? How far do you have to go… or how far can you go, before you get called for unsportsmanlike conduct?  Quite a ways if it's team sports.  If I can get inside your head and mess up your game, make you think I'm better than you or that you are going to fail, that's a psychological win isn't it?  Icing the kicker in football is a legit strategy.  Maybe they should call it bullying the kicker.  I mean after all, it's the kicker right, they're not even real football players anyway right?  See, I did it right there.   I wonder if this mean girl syndrome is as prevalent with girls who are active on athletic teams as with girls who do not participate in sports.  And for now I'm going to say cheerleading doesn't count.  Yeah, sexist right?  But in the lexicon of the cheerleader, what used to be one of the first requirements?  She had to be pretty.  That might have been the neanderthal breeding grounds for the evolution of the mean girl.  Or… I could be completely full of shit.  Ha!  That's impossible. And why are boys perceived as being more laid back?  Is it because of a male dominated society where they know they're going to get their share whereas females have to fight and scrap for every slice of the pie they get?  I have no answers… only questions. We join our conversation with my guest speaking about a nursing degree or some degree in the medical field.   CLOSE - Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.  Remember that book?  Man, it ain't easy being a teenager… at any time let alone during a pandemic when you've been brought up to think life is going to go a certain way and then the universe says, "hold on… change of plans".  I guess life is a succession of those types of moments, both big and small.  Maybe one of the barometers of a good life is your ability to navigate those changes in plans with integrity…wow.  That was gross.  At least coming from my moron hypocrite pie hole. As for the mean girl mentality, I think awareness that it exists is the first step in stopping it.  I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.  Tina Fey wrote the book on the mean girls phenomenon, or at least the screenplay…