In Australia, a reality show in which kids lived for a week without parents has spawned heated discussion about young people in the media. Comparing the show’s premise to an “abusive parent” who sets young people up for failure and then punishes them for it, The Age bemoaned the negative stereotyping of teens on TV.
But in “The Yoofs Are So Over Talking About Themselves,” in the Sydney Morning Herald (access fee required), a 23-year-old argues that the real problem is not the media’s misrepresentation of “yoof.” It’s that there are too few places for young people to talk about anything other than being young and misrepresented. Young “yoof advocates,” she warns, “only exacerbate the boxed-in perceptions and exotic otherness they sought to combat in the first place, while selling themselves short on what they have to contribute.”