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Socialization is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If someone has been socialized to be an adult by twelve, they'll mostly live up to that. If they've been socialized not to be an adult until 40, they'll do that too. It's mostly a function of what we all demand of adolescents. "Teenagers" are a modern invention. Legally and socially we need a clear line, which has for the past fifty years or so been eighteen. For the most part, that's not a bad compromise. But the socialization about what is expected of those age groups changes much faster than law.
Especially in the age of social media.
One factor that I'm seeing with the rise of streamer culture, a lot of the streamers (i.e. the role models many of these kids are glued to) are getting into their 30's and are still 'stuck' in a loop of playing video games all day, going out and partying and drinking, using light drugs (or hard ones), and obsessing about social drama amongst their cliques.
And they make good money doing this so there's no clear reason they should stop.
A handful of them make good eventually, but those who get families and responsibilities... tend to drop out of streaming.
So kids are getting socialized by role models that don't even know them, in social groups that only exist online, and whose norms are basically that of a particularly low-class high school, and that are incentivized towards anti-social activities, more often than not.
I don't blame the streaming sites for this per se, but I don't think our core social structures were prepared for the rise of this alternative culture that scales internationally.
Makes you wonder how. Presumably people with "real" jobs and things happening outside of streaming are sending them money?
Yeah.
I think there's an oversupply of lonely youngish people with decent-paying jobs who enjoy living vicariously through a streamer they identify with/find sexually attractive. Parasocial behavior is a bit under-studied I think.
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