To hate the vacuousness of some young girls nowadays?

[CarryOnCharon]

I find it so sad. 12 year olds obsessed by beauty brands, TikTok, doing their hair for school, fake tan, ridiculously short school skirts, it all seems so sad. And they are clones. Room in their heads only for brands

i know this is not all of them.

You know that is not even remotely similar right?

of course you were? it didn't bloody exist.

They're being exposed to the normality of it.

It isn’t normal in my world. By the time they are old enough the trout pout will be well out of fashion. Boob jobs are less common these days than they were a few years ago it seems?

I hope you're right.

Op hasn't been back. Let's hope she's feeling less grumpy today.

I'm loving all the posts with today's doctors and other successful professionals having been 'vacuous' teens obsessed with make up, being popular and boys.

I can beat that! My mum wore one of those hooped short skirts that were all the rage for a short time in the late 1950s to church one sunday. I guess my grandmother didn't go that day... Anyway, the vicar had a new topic to rage about from the pulpit that day. 😂

I’m 33 and there were 100% girls like this at
my school when I was a teenager!!

It’s always been a thing, OP - it’s just more visible since the mass access to social media.

When I was a teen, in the early 00’s, it was all about which flavour lip smacker you had, whether you ironed your hair for school, had the latest Benefit mascara etc etc. We idolised Britney and Paris and tried to emulate their look.

My family were churchgoers so it didn’t go down that well. Didn’t stop me from being ‘vacuous’ as you put it. Also didn’t stop me getting two degrees and a masters ✌🏼

I don’t hate them. I feel sorry for them. Social media should have opened a world of different ways to be a woman. It should be a window into millions of lives and sub-cultures. It should be liberating. But instead it presents a very narrow ideal. One or two aesthetics. And conforming costs money.

Teenage boys and girls have always exhibited shallow behaviour, but in my day - when rainbows were black and white - that shallowness took many forms and it was joyful. Now, it seems like a prison.

I believe it creates gender dysphoria. I’m fine with gender identity not being taught in schools but I wish gender expression was… Celebrating all the many ways to be a girl or a boy. A digression.

So no. I don’t hate them. I pity them.

Twas ever thus. Just the objects of desire change

If there are some vacuous young girls around, there are even more vacuous women who look like Barbie dolls with tattooed eyebrows, lifeboat lips and ridiculously long eyelashes. That’s celebrity obsession for you. It’s so refreshing to see natural looking young women.

I think it’s just a right of passage I remember the popper addidas trouser, the specific Nike trainers and spiffy jumpers that everyone just had to have. Not to mention the Ugg boots or the Sun in. The “what” the money is spent on has just changed, although I have seen the poppers are back in fashion 😂

I think as parents it’s about keeping them grounded and individual enough through this passage.

My DD is 12 and is interested in looking after herself, but she doesn’t faff around before school or anything, she still loves her footie and books so I think fair play it’s her pocket money she can spend it how she likes within reason. Although I do know the 12 year olds that you are referring to. They all look like they are wearing a uniform.

I think there have always been vacuous young girls. It’s just that they are more noticeable than the sensible ones. Empty vessels make most noise…

Do 12 year olds play anymore? Like imaginative play? When I was around that age I used to play dress up with old clothes from a trunk and we’d pretend to be fairies and witches etc and put on plays and dances. Is this still a thing with kids aged 8 to 12 or is that all over much younger now. Genuinely curious as mine are still little.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Just googled Heather Shimmer and Rimmel have obviously relaunched it!

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

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!

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....

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