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{{trope}}
[[File:Vicky.jpg|link=The Fairly
{{quote|''They say that teenagers scare the living shit out of me''
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Of course, this can be, on an individual basis, [[Truth in Television]]; there are monster teens in [[Real Life]] in the same fashion that we can find some [[Kids Are Cruel|mean kids]] and cruel adults. The mere fact of being a teenager doesn´t make people automatically good or evil; it ''does'', however, make any given person more susceptible to reckless or selfish behavior than they otherwise would be as an adult, for biological reasons. This makes it [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|all the more commendable and impressive]] when a teen acts maturely, responsibly, or selflessly in situations where it would be difficult or unexpected for an average adult to act that way. '''Still, no personal examples, please.'''
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime
* Mohiro Kitoh's manga titles tend to take a very dark view of teens and tweens. The best example would be ''[[Narutaru]]'', in which [[Mons|strange creatures called "dragonets"]] partner up with certain children, most of whom have issues with the way the adult world works, conferring upon them considerable power. Unlike other [[Mon]]-themed manga where that power would be used to protect Earth from alien or supernatural threats, many of the ''children'' become the threat themselves, turning their dragonets on each other and the adult world with horrific results.
** Mohiro Kitoh's manga titles tend to take a very dark view of ''everything.''
*** To the degree that, when Kitoh announced his next work would be [http://www.animenewsnetwork.
* ''[[Akira]]'' has some great examples of this trope (with Tetsuo's being the most dramatic and disturbing).
** ''Akira'' manages to both play this trope straight and deconstruct it. Whilst Kaneda and his gang are portrayed as teenagers that have little regard to the law, they are also shown as having a sense of honor (though it is small), particularly with Kaneda's feelings toward the death of a friend (in both the anime and the manga). By the end of the series, they actually {{spoiler|manage to revitalize Japanese nationalism}}.
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* This was America's prevailing attitude towards [[Young Justice (comics)|Young Justice]] in [[The DCU]], causing them to eventually become America's most wanted super-group, despite the fact that they were actually pretty heroic and set a good example for others like them.
* The [[X-Men]] and other [[Marvel Comics|Marvel]] [[Mutants]] literally exemplify this trope. Most mutant powers seem to manifest around puberty, and turn their recipients into freaks or outcasts of some sort.
* Elizabeth of ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20150814070058/http://tinyurl.com/38mg7t2 Gemini Storm]'' was recently revealed to be one of these, spending her teen years in juvenile hall and mental hospitals until government funding ran out from the quarantine and the institutes closed down.
== Film ==
* Mark Collins in ''[[Twisted]]''.
* The first ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' movie used disaffected youths to form a thieves' guild.
* From [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]: ''[[Kitten With a Whip]], [[I Accuse My Parents]], [[The Sinister Urge]], [[The Violent Years]], [[What About Juvenile Delinquency?]]'' (short) and ''[[Teen-Age Strangler]]'' {{spoiler|strangles teens, but is actually an adult}}
* Also ''[[Welcome to The Dollhouse]].''
* The classic horror film ''I Was a Teenage Werewolf'' took this quite literally.
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* In ''[[Darth Plagueis]]'', it is revealed that Palpatine, as a teenager, ''ran over two pedestrians with his speeder'' and then ''told his father he wanted to be a racer. And Plagueis didn't need to give him a big nudge to get him to murder his folks. He pledged himself to the Sith at seventeen.
* Pollyanna subverts this about as hard as possible.
* From the ''[[Encyclopedia Brown]]'' books, of the 74 characters confirmed to be teenagers, 44 are crooks, con men, bullies, and/or cheaters. This doesn't include Bugs Meany and his gang (stated to be "tough older boys", but unconfirmed age) but it does include recurring antagonist Wilford Wiggins.
== Live-Action TV ==
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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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* The [[wikipedia:Red Guards (China)|Red Guards]] were a political movement started by high school students at the beginning of the [[Red China|Chinese Cultural Revolution]], which quickly devolved into a gang of thugs who publicly assaulted or humiliated everyone who was perceived to be an enemy of the Revolution. The movement became co-opted by Mao and manipulated to help him purge his rivals in the Communist Party. Eventually, the Guards got so out of hand that the army itself had to be called in to reestablish order all over the country, and even Mao wouldn’t help them.
* The murder of [[wikipedia:Murder of Reena Virk|Reena Virk]] in British Columbia.
** And the murder of Kimberly Proctor which also happened on Vancouver island. The teens who were convicted of the crime [https://web.archive.org/web/20120617235638/http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110404/teen-murder-sentencing-110404
* The murder of [[wikipedia:Murder of Shanda Sharer|Shanda Sharer]] who was tortured and burned to death by four teenage girls.
* The reputation of teenagers being monsters and the fear of school violence is the basis of zero-tolerance policies in the USA. This means that instances that fall under the heading of these policies are not investigated for anything but to determine whether the infraction itself occurred, which of course it did or it wouldn't be an infraction. [[The Other Wiki]] has links to criticisms of said policies in [[wikipedia:Zero tolerance (schools)|its page on the topic.]]
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[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Villains]]
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