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.

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.😁

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?

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.

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?

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.

ritual of youth

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 😁

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

🤣🤣🤣🤣

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!

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.

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.

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 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 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!