Nowadays adults continuously discuss about teenagers, how to educate them and how to transmit to them the social skills and values required in order to have a happy life in the future. In particular, they seem not to be able to define at once how a modern teen’s character is. But what if two fictional teens, a boy and a girl, could explain to us on the radio who modern adolescents really are? If you have never thought about this question and are curious to know its answer, you can watch the transcript of their possible interview here.
Transcript of a fictional interview with Mark McClivert and Destiny Stuart, who represent the modern figure of teen, conducted by John Dewson.
People involved:
Main characters:
John Dewson (JD): a 45-year-old interviewer working for the BBC.
Mark McClivert (MC): an imaginary 17-year-old boy interviewed by Dewson.
Destiny Stuart (DS): an imaginary 17-year-old girl interviewed by Dewson.
Appearances:
David Freedman: another journalist who has to introduce the most important news of the day.
Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1A
9th June 2021
(After 5 seconds of music, the image of a 45-year-old man in a studio appears. Behind him there is a big screen with the pictures of two teenagers ).
John Dewson (interviewer): Good morning everyone. This is John Dewson on BBC1. Today we are going to talk about modern teenagers, how they see themselves and also about what are the most common opinions about them. On air with us there are Mark McClivert and Destiny Stuart, two 17-year-old guys representing the figure of today’s adolescents. Hi Mark and Destiny, and thank you very much for coming!
Mark McClivert: Hello, Mr Dewson. Thank you very much for giving us an interview.
JD: When you asked for it, you said you wanted to clarify who modern adolescents are. Could you explain more what you meant?
Destiny Stuart: We just wish to describe us and our friends to adults. They have so many opinions about us, they seem not to understand our characters. One of them says we are too lazy, another that we are the only hope for the future… Maybe they could all be right, in some way. That’s why we want to tell them about our personalities.
JD: That’s very nice! So, you represent the modern figure of teen. But when was this figure actually born?
MC: It was born in the 1990s, in the pages of Enrico Brizzi’s “Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band”, which was published in 1993. You can find both our non-conformist and “normal” side in that novel. Sometimes we like dressing like lumpens (proletarians) and break the rules like Martino, while others we just have a lot on our mind like his friend Alex.
JD: What an interesting pair! But how can such different people establish a relationship?
DS: In reality, they are friends because they both have problems in feeling accepted by their parents and the society. They are like two faces of the same medal. The main difference is that while Martino is addicted to cannabis and ends up suiciding himself in order to escape from his situation, Alex meets a shy but smart girl named Adelaide and understands that even though the world is complicated you have to face and not to hide from it.
JD: So we can say you ignore the rules only to show there is something wrong, and not because you are evil. But let’s move to the topic of your relationships. Now I am showing to the studio the content of an anonymous message coming from one of our listeners. (The message appears on the screen, next to the images of the guys. JD reads it.): “Nowadays teens love loneliness, are always more addicted to social media, escape to fictional worlds through video games but can’t interact with each other properly.” (To the guys): What do you think about such statements?
MC: Unfortunately, they contain some truth. In reality a lot of us hate loneliness and try to find a shelter in virtual worlds so as to get rid of that feeling.
DS: But the problem is that when we do so it makes us always more isolated. It can also turn into an addition that steals and destroys our emotions. Although we can interact face to face with others, most of the time we are too concentrated on the easiest way to socialise, which is social networking.
MC: But luckily we can also get through such difficulties. Like Jaxon, the 16-year-old protagonist of the young-adult novel Cure for the Common Universe, published by Christian McKay Heidicker in 2016. In fact, throughout the plot his only objective is to complete his video game rehab on time so as to go on his first date with Serena, a beautiful and lively girl he met just before being sent to be cured of his compulsion to play.
JD: That’s very interesting! But are there times when you enjoy sharing your own experiences with others or cooperating for a particular goal?
DS: Yeah, sometimes we talk together about our highs and lows. But there are also days when we prefer to be left alone with them.
JD: Another message from a parent has just arrived. (He shows it on the screen). It says that adolescents grow up slower than they used to do in the past. Do you often feel less mature than how much you should be?
DS: Sometimes yes. For example, we hate when things go wrong, especially at school or during sports matches. We take such occasions almost like failures and so we can’t stand them.
JD: But do you agree that you actually grow up slower than previous teens?
MC: We don’t want to become adults too quickly. As we pointed out before, we really like fictional worlds, but not only those on the computer or on the PlayStation. Perhaps we are similar to the teens of the 1970s in this sense.
JD: What do you mean?
DS: We mean that we love fantasy and to use it to escape from reality. Exactly like Jess Oliver Aarons and Leslie Burke do in Katherine Paterson’s bestseller of 1976, Bridge to Terabithia. These two characters discover a magical place populated by different fantastic creatures and decide to keep it secret. We also like to feel that we are the only ones that have the right to own what we really care about.
MC: Furthermore, we change our mind about other people very frequently. At first we could be cold towards a person and later become his or her best friends. Also Jess and Leslie don’t like each other very much at first but end up developing a brotherly bond.
JD: So you are not really unsociable. At last, someone could ask himself why people think you are so perplexing. What’s your point of view? Do you think your parents are too concerned about you?
DS: No, we don’t see it that way. Sometimes we would like a little bit more freedom, whereas others we prefer to feel as a member of a group. The whole complexity and chasm are part of adolescence, aren’t they? A very well-crafted novel that can perfectly answer this rhetorical question is Every Day by David Levithan, a book that manages to depict the normal life of various albeit different teenagers. Summing up everything, it’s not so bad. We just wanted to explain our characters to the public and we hope that we have achieved that. That’s what really matters.
JD: Thank you very much, guys. It has been a very interesting and profitable discussion. Through it we have understood that in spite of many differences from other generations you are normal teens that can have a defined opinion about yourselves but also recognise your challenges and limits in front of others.
MC and DS: Thank you very much for having listened to us.
(MC and DS’s faces disappear from the screen, replaced by that of another man).
JD: Now we are going to David Freedman, who is going to show us the most important news of the day. Hello David!
(The interview ends).
Thank you very much for reading this post. If you liked it, please leave a comment at the usual link: https://anamendigain.edublogs.org/. We are very sorry to tell you this will be our final post. We will never thank you all enough for your support during this incredible journey and for having provided very useful feedback. We wish you all the best by giving you the pictures of the books this article is based on, so as to let you discover new places through reading as we have proposed to do together through this blog.
A curious radiophonic interview
Nowadays adults continuously discuss about teenagers, how to educate them and how to transmit to them the social skills and values required in order to have a happy life in the future. In particular, they seem not to be able to define at once how a modern teen’s character is. But what if two fictional teens, a boy and a girl, could explain to us on the radio who modern adolescents really are? If you have never thought about this question and are curious to know its answer, you can watch the transcript of their possible interview here.
Transcript of a fictional interview with Mark McClivert and Destiny Stuart, who represent the modern figure of teen, conducted by John Dewson.
People involved:
Main characters:
John Dewson (JD): a 45-year-old interviewer working for the BBC.
Mark McClivert (MC): an imaginary 17-year-old boy interviewed by Dewson.
Destiny Stuart (DS): an imaginary 17-year-old girl interviewed by Dewson.
Appearances:
David Freedman: another journalist who has to introduce the most important news of the day.
Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1A
9th June 2021
(After 5 seconds of music, the image of a 45-year-old man in a studio appears. Behind him there is a big screen with the pictures of two teenagers ).
John Dewson (interviewer): Good morning everyone. This is John Dewson on BBC1. Today we are going to talk about modern teenagers, how they see themselves and also about what are the most common opinions about them. On air with us there are Mark McClivert and Destiny Stuart, two 17-year-old guys representing the figure of today’s adolescents. Hi Mark and Destiny, and thank you very much for coming!
Mark McClivert: Hello, Mr Dewson. Thank you very much for giving us an interview.
JD: When you asked for it, you said you wanted to clarify who modern adolescents are. Could you explain more what you meant?
Destiny Stuart: We just wish to describe us and our friends to adults. They have so many opinions about us, they seem not to understand our characters. One of them says we are too lazy, another that we are the only hope for the future… Maybe they could all be right, in some way. That’s why we want to tell them about our personalities.
JD: That’s very nice! So, you represent the modern figure of teen. But when was this figure actually born?
MC: It was born in the 1990s, in the pages of Enrico Brizzi’s “Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band”, which was published in 1993. You can find both our non-conformist and “normal” side in that novel. Sometimes we like dressing like lumpens (proletarians) and break the rules like Martino, while others we just have a lot on our mind like his friend Alex.
JD: What an interesting pair! But how can such different people establish a relationship?
DS: In reality, they are friends because they both have problems in feeling accepted by their parents and the society. They are like two faces of the same medal. The main difference is that while Martino is addicted to cannabis and ends up suiciding himself in order to escape from his situation, Alex meets a shy but smart girl named Adelaide and understands that even though the world is complicated you have to face and not to hide from it.
JD: So we can say you ignore the rules only to show there is something wrong, and not because you are evil. But let’s move to the topic of your relationships. Now I am showing to the studio the content of an anonymous message coming from one of our listeners. (The message appears on the screen, next to the images of the guys. JD reads it.): “Nowadays teens love loneliness, are always more addicted to social media, escape to fictional worlds through video games but can’t interact with each other properly.” (To the guys): What do you think about such statements?
MC: Unfortunately, they contain some truth. In reality a lot of us hate loneliness and try to find a shelter in virtual worlds so as to get rid of that feeling.
DS: But the problem is that when we do so it makes us always more isolated. It can also turn into an addition that steals and destroys our emotions. Although we can interact face to face with others, most of the time we are too concentrated on the easiest way to socialise, which is social networking.
MC: But luckily we can also get through such difficulties. Like Jaxon, the 16-year-old protagonist of the young-adult novel Cure for the Common Universe, published by Christian McKay Heidicker in 2016. In fact, throughout the plot his only objective is to complete his video game rehab on time so as to go on his first date with Serena, a beautiful and lively girl he met just before being sent to be cured of his compulsion to play.
JD: That’s very interesting! But are there times when you enjoy sharing your own experiences with others or cooperating for a particular goal?
DS: Yeah, sometimes we talk together about our highs and lows. But there are also days when we prefer to be left alone with them.
JD: Another message from a parent has just arrived. (He shows it on the screen). It says that adolescents grow up slower than they used to do in the past. Do you often feel less mature than how much you should be?
DS: Sometimes yes. For example, we hate when things go wrong, especially at school or during sports matches. We take such occasions almost like failures and so we can’t stand them.
JD: But do you agree that you actually grow up slower than previous teens?
MC: We don’t want to become adults too quickly. As we pointed out before, we really like fictional worlds, but not only those on the computer or on the PlayStation. Perhaps we are similar to the teens of the 1970s in this sense.
JD: What do you mean?
DS: We mean that we love fantasy and to use it to escape from reality. Exactly like Jess Oliver Aarons and Leslie Burke do in Katherine Paterson’s bestseller of 1976, Bridge to Terabithia. These two characters discover a magical place populated by different fantastic creatures and decide to keep it secret. We also like to feel that we are the only ones that have the right to own what we really care about.
MC: Furthermore, we change our mind about other people very frequently. At first we could be cold towards a person and later become his or her best friends. Also Jess and Leslie don’t like each other very much at first but end up developing a brotherly bond.
JD: So you are not really unsociable. At last, someone could ask himself why people think you are so perplexing. What’s your point of view? Do you think your parents are too concerned about you?
DS: No, we don’t see it that way. Sometimes we would like a little bit more freedom, whereas others we prefer to feel as a member of a group. The whole complexity and chasm are part of adolescence, aren’t they? A very well-crafted novel that can perfectly answer this rhetorical question is Every Day by David Levithan, a book that manages to depict the normal life of various albeit different teenagers. Summing up everything, it’s not so bad. We just wanted to explain our characters to the public and we hope that we have achieved that. That’s what really matters.
JD: Thank you very much, guys. It has been a very interesting and profitable discussion. Through it we have understood that in spite of many differences from other generations you are normal teens that can have a defined opinion about yourselves but also recognise your challenges and limits in front of others.
MC and DS: Thank you very much for having listened to us.
(MC and DS’s faces disappear from the screen, replaced by that of another man).
JD: Now we are going to David Freedman, who is going to show us the most important news of the day. Hello David!
(The interview ends).
Thank you very much for reading this post. If you liked it, please leave a comment at the usual link: https://anamendigain.edublogs.org/. We are very sorry to tell you this will be our final post. We will never thank you all enough for your support during this incredible journey and for having provided very useful feedback. We wish you all the best by giving you the pictures of the books this article is based on, so as to let you discover new places through reading as we have proposed to do together through this blog.
Bye,
Andrea Gaetano Sequi and Chrysa Mylonidou.
Andrea Gaetano Sequi
June 11, 2021
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