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Notes -
Age Gap Relationships
So its no secret that people, particularly zoomers, like to bitch and moan about age gaps in relationships. Should someone who's 30 date someone who's 18? Does it make you a pedophile if you do?
A lot of this discussion hinges on whether or not these people are actually "adults" that can make logical decisions. I've been pondering this myself so I'm going to run by two hypotheticals (Both for and against 18 year olds or "teenagers" being adults) and see what you guys think:
Case 1
Is it fair to say that you killed a child? Probably not. You killed teenagers? Technically. Did you kill some grown ass man thinking he could jack you? Many would say yes! On top of this, many people would judge these boys as adults, and have them take a prison/jail sentence as adults. It seems that in the eyes of many, if you do adult things, and are expected to take accountability as an adult, we should rightfully call you an adult. Make sense? Maybe lets consider case 2.
Case 2
Now, both Steve & Maddy choose to do an adult action (have sex) with an adult consequence (reproduction), and took responsibility as "adults" (getting married and getting a job). Would we say these 2 are adults? It seems the answer here, for many is no. You shouldn't want teenagers to be having kids: that's what adults are expected to do. That fact that Steve & Maddy have done adult things, and are now taking on adult responsibilities, doesn't make them true adults in the eyes of many.
So far, Im what I'm thinking with both of these cases is that the cognition needed to make adult decisions perhaps simply lie at different ages, based on said decision. Maybe its easier at 14 to know that car jacking & killing is wrong, than it would be to have the knowledge and maturity neccessary to handle a sexual relationship. And that the whole "lets have one universal age of adulthood" is looking at it wrong: Different actions simply have different complexities to them, and thus a universal set age of adulthood ignores those complexities. But assuming this is true, where does sexual relationships lie on the age scale? Is a 16 year old really too immature to date some one who is 19? 20?
If we should have universal age of adulthood, that tracts onto everything (alcohol, crime, sex) where would it be? Currently, all of these have different ages (21 is for alcohol if you are in the US). What do you guys think?
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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