To hate the vacuousness of some young girls nowadays?

I don’t know not convinced it’s worse than my teen years- I have a diary to prove the hang ups about looks but also entries about how people were quite shallow and didn’t like the music I did, equally how boring suburban London was- It is quite an insight to life in mid 90s as a teen!

My DD is a young teen and does tend to wear her skirt quite short but she isn’t into lip pumping, she has a modern day Avril Lavigne vibe going on, she has good taste in music though likes my Amy Winehouse album and Mazzy Star that’s her retro taste! She likes eyeliner but she is a talented Artist and plays the piano well, she doesn’t read as much as me but she she is certainly not vacuous! Both of mine wish they had my youth so would have preferred to be teenagers in the 90s early 00s when phones weren’t the Oppressors!

I do see your point OP and it’s worrying when a 12 year old has even heard of Drunk Elephant - let alone own several of their products. They def know a lot more about beauty products now.
But one big plus I notice as the mum of a 14 year old dd is the girls seem far more accepting of different shapes and sizes.
My generation were all Kate Moss diet - cigs and Diet Coke. At least this lot seem to eat (from my experience) and not all hang everything on being stick thin.

I loved Chelsea Girl when I was in my mid to late teens, the one in my home town let you put a deposit on something you were coveting, I would do this and then save up my Saturday girl wages to pay the difference.

I agree with other posters, there has always been something that every generation has bonded over. Back in my day it was white musk from the Body Shop, coloured denim, Sun In and the like for the girls. Both sexes did the Kickers trend. Boys then moved on to Stussy clothing.

Difference now is SM and in-flu-enzers who have upped the marketing to the younger generation so the cost has exulted, but underneath it it's all the same thing.

It's not just girls... Boys have to have the latest labels (just bought my 12 yo SS Nike Air 270s at the weekend because the Jordans he had and then the Air Force Ones are now out and 270s are in, I just thank my lucky stars the old ones don't really fit well now as he's on a growth spurt so it was justifiable) and are obsessed with football, Playstation and Xbox gaming and I sometimes find it sad not to see them out socialising with their friends like we used to do, but rather logging on to 'chat' whilst gaming (on which they will spend the majority of their pocket money given half a chance).

However, as others have said, this is a tiny tiny snapshot of them and not their 'lives' as a whole, they are still 'finding themselves' for the next 8 years at least, in a world that doesn't make it easy for them, so let's cut them some slack! We need to give them enough space and freedom to find themselves, whilst setting the boundaries that allow them to learn it safely and in this world that is sometimes a bloody tough call.

My nieces and friends daughters love football (a couple are top players in the area), music (trumpet), art, reading, animals (wants to be a vet). None of them are purely vacuous as individuals.

Oh, edited to add, as for skincare, all of us probably could have done with learning to wear SPF containing products a whole hell of a lot sooner knowing what we know now though so some of it is actually beneficial.

It's heart-breaking, especially when you realise it's social media being targeted at their age group.

My daughter has naively fallen for a lot of this shite, along with her friends.

I loathe these influencers who have persuaded her that she doesn't look normal, and needs lip plumping, eyelid shaping to look "normal".

Don't blame the girls, they are victims, although its not easy to pinpoint a single cause. I suspect there has always been something (remember Amy March with the limes in Little Women?) but it's got very sinister.

That's because marketing strategies used to reach you only through TV and magazines! There are so many more brands now compared to the 80s, with many more channels to sell through.

If you were a child today, I guarantee your 'fun and experimenting' would include 'viral' brands!

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I have a 12 year old who does a full on skin care routine every evening.

She doesn't have stupidly expensive stuff though - not when it's me paying! Mostly stuff from the 'simple' range.

She offers to give me facials so I'm not complaining 🤷‍♀️

She wears discreet make up to school and doesn't roll her skirt - the waistband is too snug for that.

Sometimes I roll my eyes but it is true that just about all of them do it. If it makes her happy, doesn't cost me a fortune and isn't damaging in any way - then I've got bigger things to worry about than that

I dont know about anyone else, but I had one of these heads that you could practice hair and makeup. I'm sure I had one from the age of 9.

By the end the poor lass looked liked she'd been in a serious car accident 😁

ritual of youth

It’s a stage. I think it’s cruel to criticise. 11-13 is an extremely difficult and awkward transitional stage. I would cut anyone that age massive slack.

Hasn’t it always been like that though? Weren’t there girls who were obsessed with make up and beauty magazines when you were 12?

I can assure you I’ve never bought any drunk elephant or skincare shite for dd2.

She’s used birthday/ Christmas money from grandparents or wheedled my dad into buying it.

It’s all a load of fuss over nothing - the stuff is a marketing rip off but the online horror to it is if anything even more ridiculous.

This time next year it’ll be something else.

It’s the parents buying or not buying the products though. A 12 year old isn’t employed and spending income on Drunk Elephant (which products awful quality IMO).

I don’t think things are that different apart from SM and more indulgent parents?

Don’t worry, OP, a vacuous 12/13 year-old could be totally different a few years later.

My DD (19) went through a daft phase at 13/14. Now she’s pursuing a STEM degree at a top university.

15 was the lightbulb age for her, she suddenly matured. She does the occasional fake tan though as it’s better for her skin than sunbathing. But she knows how to do it properly so it doesn’t look fake.😁

We must be similar age and location as my wages were about the same.
TS was brilliant - every few months they'd need stockroom space and would have massive staff sales. We're talking 50p for tops, coats for a few £, super expensive dresses for £10 (the tafetta ball gown types that were all the rage) which I took home and cut up to make a 'better dress'. Lived it so much I got a full time job there at 18 until I got bored and went to live in Italy for a year! I'm freaking out because my 20 Yr old DD is going to Canada for 6 weeks ofe a uni placement!!!

The carefree bliss of youth

Oh that sounds familiar, except my job was in Superdrug and we never got a discount!

My first saturday job at 16 paid the princely sum of
£1.93 an hour....

Ooooh, I wish! Most of the list were wishes. Never had branded shoes until I convinced my mum DMs were clinically best shoes for school kids. Never owned anything from Warehouse or Next. Could afford Top Shop and Chelsea Girl as had a Saturday Job at TS which came with a discount card. Make up was mostly Avon. I saved up for a Bourjois lipstick (a Concession stand in TS so got my discount). Most of my clothes were from markets / second had shops and my nan was a seamstress so that helped!

Just googled Heather Shimmer and Rimmel have obviously relaunched it!

Off down to Superdrug tomorrow in my batwing top, denim mini and corkscrew perm!!

wow if you could afford all of those you were doing better than me! I was more Constance Caroll than Bourjois! Although I did covet Bourjois.

And to this day I mourn Chelsea Girl!

ETA Tell me you at least had Heather Shimmer #ifyouknowyouknow

80s teen. We were exactly the same. Chelsea Girl, Top Shop, Next, Warehouse, DMs, Kickers, Clarks, PODs, Boots 17, Rimmel, Bourjois, Constance Carroll, Avon, Max Factor, Cover Girl, lemon juice, Sun In, Henna, Nike, La Gear, Puma, sunbeds, micro skirts, bra tops, fishnets, Paco Rabanne, Chanel, AnaisAnais,

These are just off the top of my head! Don't get me started on late 80s /90s...!

At 12, I was also obsessed with brands, boys, make up, Perfume, clothes brands, short skits, long skirts, skimpy tops, cover all tips, even having the right carrier bag!

I think Rose tinted denial glasses are playing tricks on you

What? Serously?

You might have a point.

But every generation since 1918, and probably before, has made the same claims.

But they're also closely associated with the parents making those claims.

60's was extreme fashion and over-sexualised music, after the gentle crooning of the 50's. And suddenly the teenagers and youth have greater dominance in news and popular culture and not listening to their parents. And youth rebellion.

70's had to be the worst with mass widepsread hippy drug-taking and introduction of contraception and free causal sex.

And it all sort of normalised over the next 5 decades.

Until the next Arab Spring of global warming. (And none of those idiots realise the solution is halving the human population on the planet - because we're all in a big Ponzi scheme of forever needing a wider working youth population to pay for the elderly and health care and pensions. But hint, if we don't stop expanding the human population we will actually destroy the planet and other life forms,)

And the newest outrage of reality? 74 human and sexual identities? And no one knowing or believing who is male or female?

And you're complaining about beauty brand addiction?

Have you not even read about the generation game dominance of China - and no one challenging their global and political and economic infiltration? And China is planning on invading Taiwan. Shortly.

Russia? Who knows is Putin is still alive. But we are on a brinkmanship of nuclear war.

I sort of suspect you never look at the greater landscape. Today's annoyance is beauty brands. Tomorrow's will be lipstick.

Yes but tbh it's always been the case. However there do seem to be more who, as you say, are clones. Working in schools honestly most girls have the same long straightened hair, false eyelashes and nails and contoured makeup. At least before there was a mixture of hairstyles and individuality. So boring!

My 10 year old will sometimes play schools with her younger sister, and build with Lego but other than that doesn't really do any other imaginative play - unless you count the role play type games on Roblox. I would imagine this would end before she’s 12.

It's board games or crafts most of the time.

Also from what I’ve observed the skincare craze is influencing even primary school aged girls 9/10/11 which to me is utter madness.