Teens Are Monsters: Difference between revisions
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== Webcomics ==
* Jeffrey Rowland in [https://web.archive.org/web/20150906231804/http://overcompensating.com/posts/20080620.html this strip] seems to be subverting this, and then says in the alt text, "When I was a teenager I probably should've been put in prison."
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508140713/http://www.rhjunior.com/GH/00348.html This] [[Goblin Hollow]] strip subverts it in [[RH Junior]]'s favorite way
* About half of [[Homestuck]]'s six-sweeps (thirteen years)-old Troll characters qualify. Specifically [[Killer Game Master|Vriska Serket]], [[Fantastic Racism|Eridan Ampora]] {{spoiler|and [[Monster Clown|Gamzee Makara]]}}.
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== Real Life ==
* [[Science Marches On|Now science gives some credence to]] Teens Are Monsters: the frontal lobe of the human brain is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468\]{{Dead link}}, [http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/teen_brains_trial.html\]. This explains why teenagers tend to engage [[Didn't Think This Through|in risky behaviors]] and [[Black and White Insanity|go to extremes.]] This does not, however, give teens monstrous or evil tendencies; it merely devalues and muddles the perceived risks of an action, as well as the potential negative consequences. It's when this is combined with high social pressure, the extremely confusing and paradigm-shifting development from child into adult and dependency into independence, major hormonal changes, and the EXTREMELY confusing and new subjects of sexuality (or at least sexuality in relation with romance and sex), attraction, and sexual orientation (even for hetersexuals, yes) that teenagers are most prone to bad or reckless actions. Realistically speaking, teens are more like victims to a perfect storm of [[It Got Worse|environmental and biological developments]] that pile on top of each other. Notably, there are many, ''many'' teens who subvert and avert this trope altogether, even when severely handicapped in the ability to see and understand the consequences and perspectives of situations and actions, as well effectively empathize with others in many situations (futilely struggling to understand ''oneself'' with a constantly changing self makes effective empathy difficult, like trying to hit a distant target with an uncalibrated gun that is constantly recalibrating itself randomly and in new ways).
* There was a spate of mass shootings at American high schools in the late 90’s, culminating in the [[wikipedia:Columbine High School massacre|Columbine massacre]] of 1999. Although high school violence had been common in inner cities, the [[wikipedia:Heath High School shooting|West Paducah]], [[wikipedia:Westside Middle School massacre|Jonesboro]], [[wikipedia:Kip Kinkel|Springfield, Oregon]], and Columbine shootings startled the USA because they took place in otherwise quiet rural or suburban schools, and they targeted the student body as a whole instead of an individual whom the shooter hated for a particular reason.
* The main factor that made the [[wikipedia:Leopold and Loeb|Leopold and Loeb]] case so sensational in the 1920s (apart from the fact that, well, they were both kind of ''gay'') was that they were both intelligent, well-off, and 18–19 years old.
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