The Kids Love to Rebel
And who the hell can blame them
What you’ll get from this article: A way to believe in the damn youths.
No AI was used to write, edit, or otherwise modify this article. Which may mean the article is worse, but at least it’s genuine.
I'm sitting outside of a coffee shop in Boulder, Colorado, which is one of the safest and most upscale cities that I've ever lived in. Everyone around me is smiling in the sunshine, soaking up the afternoon, when brrrrraaaaaap - a bunch of kids on motorbikes passed by.
Motorbikes are a bit of a bane in this city because they're loud, and aggressive, and kids who are squeezing the throttles to the max might not even be in puberty yet, but they certainly are zipping down the street at 30+ miles an hour.
And as I'm sitting here, I see those three or four kids pass by on their motorbikes, feel them abruptly stopping the quiet scenery of the cafe, and watch as somebody behind them yells at them to get off the road, from their car.
Then the greatest thing happened. The kid in the back turns around, looks at the guy, pops a sick wheelie and laughs, then just keeps on going. His friends see it and they laugh and continue on braaaping down the road, completely unbothered by this man's frustration. They're in their absolute own little world where the only thing they need is validation from each other, regardless of what us lames at the cafe give a hoot about.
As I'm looking at them, I see a little bit of myself . Specifically, the period where the whole intention of being in public is disruption. The whole schtick is to be seen as different, to be made an outsider by my own actions. To force other people to see me doing ‘wrong’, and know I'm seeing them seeing me do wrong. To feel their judgment, then shove it back that I flat don't care. Their opinions are water off my back, and it feels free.
I felt kind of powerful to shake off the chains of the expectations of authority figures and do whatever I wanted. In rebellion, there was quite a bit of autonomy that I didn't feel in the rest of my life, where I was being told when to go to school, how to behave there, and what to do afterwards. Whenever I got the chance to stick a middle finger up in the face of it all, that freedom of rebellion was extremely enticing.
It's pretty interesting that rebellion seems to be part of the natural order of adolescence, especially since it's usually antagonistic to normal society. By loitering menacingly, smoking in a no-smoking zone, revving your motorbike, or roaming the streets, you're breaking the social contract. If everyone did that, we would have no functional society, so it has to be reined in by responsible adults. But also, that’s what makes it so damn tasty in the first place. Beyond that, and maybe even more importantly, rebellion is a social contract with your in-group. It's a way of signaling to the people that you do want admiration from (your peers), that you are one of them, and that they can trust you because you are all the same.
It’s also interesting that most rebellious kids end up fitting into a certain category, whether that be the goths or the skater kids or the kids who do drugs behind the bleachers. Rarely is it actually a signal of a person following an individualistic path; it's usually a break free from the norm that their parents and teachers enforce, and it signals a little bit of questioning of greater authority. The kids don’t want to be individuals as much as they want to just be less like their parents and more like their friends, whatever form that takes.
Rebellion also signals that for the first time you are questioning the rules that have been imposed upon you and deciding that those rules can suck it, you’re going to seek the alternative path. The first action towards making your own place in the world. It is a bit of an irony that instead of the ‘normal’ path, you follow the path that everybody around you is taking and usually you're rebelling in the same way that everybody around you is doing, so it’s just another ‘normal’ path, but whatever. Regardless, it is a signal of identity creation.
Which I love. I love that the kids are still pushing back, still going full tilt towards freedom. It’s a joy to see the fire of angst burning bright, even if it does mean I have to deal with miniature Evel Knievel racing down residentials. I would much rather have that than apathy and non-chalance. Good to see the screens haven’t muddled their brains too hard, and love live the rebels.
With love, from me to you,
Alec