typing and swearing with the same two fIngers by Adam Behr
THE INNER ADOLESCENTS OF THE WEB
G
odwin’s Law states that as an online discussion progresses, ‘the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1’. Certainly the comments posted after most articles on broadsheets and tabloids alike bear this out as clearly well-informed people with ‘adult’ jobs resort to playground style slanging matches. Godwin’s point describes some of the less productive adolescent mudslinging on the web- although the web itself, at a little over twenty years old, is only just out of teens and still itself something of an adolescent medium. Open to all manner of uses and abuses, it has in that time changed the state of play in a few other fields- commercial and cultural. Often enough, it seems, appeals are made to our ‘inner child’. Jungian psychologists, 12 step programmes, new age quacks, r ‘n’ b albums, MacDonalds adverts- our ‘inner child’ is a potential path to healing or fun, or creativity. Or whatever it is that we want to be but aren’t, or want to have, but don’t. It’s a familiar enough concept to be used without controversy in popular culture. We all sort of know what it means, even if we’re not really sure that we’ve got one.
But we never get the same call to our ‘inner adolescent’. This is mostly understandable. As far as the meaning of the word goes, ‘adolescence’ refers to growing and change- a period of flux between the stages of life loosely defined as ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’. In terms of a raw comparison of experience, it’s even easier to see why childhood is valorised and adolescence passed over. Childhood, for the adults making the adverts (and spending the money) stands for innocence, safety, and a carefree existence. Adolescence is confusion, frustration, arguments and acne. Kids are cute. Adolescents are a pain. Calling forth the inner child is meant to evoke picnics in the park and bedtime stories. Not tantrums in the supermarket and toilet training. But we’ve got better memories of our adolescence, so painting it as a kind of ‘golden age’ won’t wash. And good- the whole point of adolescence is that you get to be an adult at the end of it. But childhood and adulthood aren’t static either- and all of it happens in a world that’s changing along with us. So maybe it’s worth looking again at that inner adolescent to see if it can’t come in useful somewhere.