Adolescence, Emoji Codes and a Charmed Life
Complete and utterly random musings about ricocheting thoughts in my noggin
A non-working Monday - you gorgeous beauty you! How I missed thy / thee? You get the gist. There is a certain languorousness that permeates your Sunday evenings when the following Monday is a holiday. Wish I could say that but well one can’t have everything.
Finally got around to watching “Adolescence” and everything that is being written and said about the show is well deserved. What really grabbed my attention apart from how ‘adolescence’ is spelt (its not easy - close your eyes and try spelling it out yourself) was how the adults were flummoxed with the new language of emojis that the kids were using. The subtext behind colours. The appropriation of ideas without knowing the source (‘Matrix’). The question or feeling that I was left with at the end of the show wasn’t why teenagers behave this way or how scary it is to be a school going child as viewed from the eyes of an adult… but, just how alien the whole thing feels despite us having crossed the threshold of adolescence and into adulthood.
I have a working theory about this - it has got to do with (a) Institutional Syndrome (b) organic evolution of coded language and (c) failure to provide villains.
Let me break this down :
(A) The fastest way of institutionalising somebody is by getting them into a prolonged state of sleep deprivation and hunger. The Army does it with their cadets, reality shows (like Bigg Boss) do it with their contestants and so does ones’ job - what do you think chasing deadlines, emails and follow up calls is meant to do? Our generation (and by that I mean people over the age of 35), have been primed to move from one institution to another - board exams, college, job, marriage, kids. At no point of time, is the illusion of free agency even provided. Now in your teenage years, you are rebelling and revolting, against the constrictions that are being placed on you. You challenge the system. But the system evolved as does any system - the enforcers gradually reduced the use of physical violence and replaced with more psychological means. And the challengers evolved to more subversive means. And when you become assimilated into the system, the institution, you take on the mantle of enforcing the rules rather than challenging them. Another reason as to why people have noted that the older people get, the more conservative they become. And the more conservative one gets, the more dismissive they are of everything else. Including the evolution of the system itself.
(B) When one is rebelling and trying to subvert the system, you can’t employ the same language as everybody else. And teenagers more than anybody else are epitome of revolutionaries. The romantic idea of a young idealistic woman/man trope is well entrenched in all of history and glorified. The language needs to be coded. Else reprisals are incoming. Each teenage generation has had its own coded language, signs and symbols. And the status-quo was maintained for a fairly long time with the adults ascribing the coded behaviour to “hormones” and “teenage years”. But smartphones has changed all that. The level of policing and lack of safe peer space without the presence of prying big brother eyes of adults no longer exists. I am already cringing thinking of the conversations and actions that parents would have had with their kids about red pills and purple hearts. Expect new emojis to get added with twin meanings attached to them - one for them adults and another for its real meaning.
(C) Think the most egregious things that adults have done to kids/teenagers is to propagate this trope of, “you have nothing to worry about… You have everything that you will ever need”. This I reckon is reflective of the scarcity of mindset that the previous parental generations came from and view this statement as a reflection of their own success and evolution than as a guiding principle. One can’t fault them kids when everything is readily available (readily available credit? check! next day / 10-min delivery? check! - the examples are plenty in nature). The problem isn’t that attention economy has lop-sided its core structure towards convenience - the problem is that nobody is aware of the trade-offs. Especially kids. Think about it - as kids, we have had parents do the occasional project the night before but the message was drilled and further underlined because things weren’t readily available - kids learned that yes, parents will come and bail them out, but last minute work is always sub-standard, things are not always available and hence planning and doing work on time is essential. And I wonder, what is the lesson that kids are learning when last minute project work is being done the night before or the morning of.
You know what I am really interested and curious about, how the AI native kids are going to be like - you know the generation of kids born during the pandemic types. And I am even more curious about how their parents will adapt and evolve. Like the Chinese proverb - interesting times!
I was thinking about something - forgot what it was, but I realised that I have lived a charmed life - one that doesn’t have a parallel. Oh right! Now I remember what I was thinking… I was reading about the secret history of SAS and there were obviously dates being mentioned and I thought to myself why I keep trying to find something of historical significance to have transpired on my birthday - the answer is pretty simple - because I am looking for early signs of my myth making narrative. And then I obviously reframed the whole thought into - its a good thing nothing of historical importance is competing for attention for my birthday. And so I started to mentally list things that puts me in a different circle than everybody else which soon devolved into me counting my blessings.
I acted as an extra once on a movie set for 3 days (got paid 500/- per diem which got spent for new year party)
Was supposed to be the Heros’ entry and fight scene.
Been on one of them dance reality shows’ set as an audience member.
Have lived in a palatial colonial house and have spent my summer vacations in a tree house reading comics and devouring litchis from the orchard and practicing archery with a DIY bow and arrow.
Have studied in as many schools as # of years of schooling - which means I understand a smattering of all major Indian languages.
Watched and remember classic movies like Moonraker, Hoosiers and Carry-on series before I could understand sentences (the carry on series probably explains my inclination to indulge in absolute crass and juvenile humour as my default)
Played competitive sport and understood the spirit of competition since kindergarten (the story of me crying because we had to leave to catch a train and being unable to take part in the 10m finals is still lodged somewhere in the deep recess of my subconsciousness).
Had access to libraries (not the school kinds) from an early age and was encouraged to abuse that system of getting books, reading them and then exchanging them for more books
Made to participate in plays and choirs
Realised early on that power that charm and manners has on people
Played everything under and with everything and everybody under the sun - from doll houses with dolls and GI Joes to basketball and pittu / seven stones
Probably explains why I have difficulty in understanding genders and the narrative of differential performance.
There are plenty more on this list - and while some of these experiences might be similar in nature to other kids from armed forces background, there are also few unique ones. Which makes it all the more difficult to distill the lessons learnt in a shareable manner.
But the biggest advantage that I have come to realise which lies in my possession is the ability to navigate both the outsider and institutional realities. Which is probably why product trifectas which have been working on a product for a really long time often fail to innovate fast in the presence of clear and present danger.
Thinking that starting from next week, will start posting on Sundays rather than on Mondays. But will play it by the ear. Who knows how the world will turn.
