Kids these days....

I had an interesting encounter on Twitter yesterday. It all started when Tracy said she didn't think Britney Spears should be a judge on X-factor (or something, I don't know), and got called a bad name by some teen Britney fan. Well, I thought that was funny, and I like to make fun of people like that, so I butted in with something snarky and got this in return

Wow! This will be such fun! I love fucking with people like this; angry, pointless and not very smart. So I gleefully responded with something or other, and we went back and forth for a while. This was, without question, the best one:

But as we went on, she started to get smarter; my first clue was her proper use of "you're a cunt," instead of "your a cunt," which is what I would have expected. Her grammar improved; her spelling improved; she literally questioned my "logic." Okay, you can fake being stupid, but you can't fake being smart, and this girl (she's 17) was obviously smart.

Sadly, once I figured that out, it all stopped being fun for me. I like mocking stupid people, but not smart people pretending to be stupid. But I wondered... why would an obviously smart girl pretend to be dumb? Is she playing a role? Does she get some sort of advantage for being dumb? She was pretty, assuming her avatar was actually her; does she think she needs to be stupid in order to get guys? In order to get ahead? In order to get... anything?

I actually felt quite sad about it. Is this what society teaches girls? Is this what parents teach girls? Was this true when I was 17? (I don't remember, it was so fucking long ago....)

As a parent, I consider it my moral responsibility to raise my kids to be nice people, and honest, and true to themselves. But since I have boys it is also my intention, as a feminist, to make sure that they know that it is their moral responsibility to treat women with respect.

How are the girls of today being raised? Are they being raised to own their strength, and to respect themselves? Based on my twitter encounter yesterday, I'm afraid that this isn't the case. Then again, I don't know what the real case is. I'm sure that anybody who is raising girls and who is reading this will tell me that they're raising their girls in that way, but even so, what about the rest of the world?

Anyway, I signed off by telling her that it was awesome to be smart and that she should own that; smart women can rule the world! She thought I was just a crazy old person (she was right). I'm sure she will mature as she gets older; she will (hopefully) go off to college and realize that there are so many more options for her than to play the role of dumb, angry girl on Twitter. I'm sure she'll figure that out. I hope she figures that out.

(Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think the pitbull eating my legs thing was just a joke, in which case: good job! If that was a joke, it was a good one. I'd even say she won that round....)

What do you guys think?

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