Rant
EDIT: Seems I'm not the only one who thinks along these lines. At least someone at The Age appears to be following reason - Read on here.
I’m not sure why I’m posting now since this journal is now defunct (and I will be shutting down my Molly_Cule journal due to complete lack of interest), but anyway, there is just too much so deeply wrong with the world right now. The worst thing, the more I think, the more wrong I find, the more words I use to express it and it still doesn’t sound right.
In short, it sucks to be a teenager right now.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to air such thoughts to a medium such as this - with a readership of about four at the most - but there are some things that really need to be said (and which my housemate won’t tolerate me blowing off steam about, which is how I would normally dispel such rants).
It concerns the media coverage of the two young girls who suicided recently, their bodies having been discovered over the weekend. I do not intend to address their mechanism of death or their lives. Their family has enough to cope with right now, as do their friends - virtual and otherwise. I do not intend to add to the barrage of sentiments already published; I deal with enough grief at work to know nothing said can ever make things better to those who have lost, and in some cases can, opening your mouth and saying what you think is best can actually make things worse.
But I have watched the media response to this incident play out with interest. Aside from Dr. Nitschke and his euthanasia campaign (for the elderly and terminally ill), and the occasional famous person taking their own life, suicide is rarely covered in the Australian media for fear of ‘copycat’ incidents. Previously, when I took calls from the media enquiring on what cases were to be heard in the court that day, if you mentioned a case was a suicide they’d usually respond with ‘skip that - got anything interesting?’. But this is a particularly sensational case, highly unusual, with plenty of emotions and issues arising, and the media picked up on it early in their disappearance. Perhaps with the memory of the young girl murdered in South Australia earlier in the year, the connection between Myspace and the ‘emo culture’ was reported on early in the week when suspicions were that the girls could be with someone they knew online. However today, with it being apparent in the press the girls had taken their own lives together, a hornets’ nest of pop psychology opinions and broad generalisations came tumbling out, whilst news outlets were rubbing their dirty little hands with glee. I have to admit, I haven’t seen the Herald Scum or the news.com.au website today, I don’t think I could stomach it; nor do I watch television news, as it usually ends up with me wanting to throw the set out the window. However, with the news on my phone, The Age and ABC news websites, the general gist is fairly clear. And I have to say this - I am glad I’m not a teenager right now.
The general vibe is that parents must watch their children like hawks; any children associated with the two girls are considered a serious risk of following suit. By extension, with the wide-spread attention placed on Myspace (and I have to point out here, I’m not a Myspace user and have never more than glanced at the site) and the whole ‘emo’ thing, pretty much any teenager that uses the internet and isn’t into princesses and ponies could now be placed under the spotlight. One of the absolute banes of my existence (and, I’m ashamed to say, well into my early 20’s) was that my parents had no trust in me - Dad especially. He saw me as wearing weird clothes and make up, and all of a sudden I was wrong in every way (once, and I wish I was joking, he told me I’d be happier if I wore ‘brighter’ clothes. It was news to me that I was even unhappy). Every day I seemed to be under threat from murderers, drug dealers, rapists, accidents and destroying myself. As a result, my (social) activities were greatly restricted, further hindered by a shitty geographical location which made going anywhere on my own a challenge. I wasn’t allowed to go to the city with my friends until I was 16, nor was I allowed to go to concerts until I was nearly 17. Even parties with friends whose parents were on familiar terms with my parents were a battle to attend. Dad was convinced I was on drugs during and after university, and believed if I wasn’t, I should be, and hence I ended up on antidepressants that fucked my life up for two years. He also spent our teenage years preventing my sister and I associating with boys, and now laments the fact that neither of us have had a relationship longer than a week and show no desire what so ever to settle down (my sister, in her subtle way, has taken to telling the whole family that we’re going to be spinsters, bless her).
When I was in year 10, my sister had a big birthday party at home. Fifteen-odd girls aged 11 - 13 were about to descend on our place, drink soft drink, dance the macarana and drool over Hansen. I had helped Mum earlier in the evening to prepare, and we drew little symbols on 15 plastic cups, so each girl would have their own for the evening and not waste a whole packet of plastic cups. Later, as the party was in full swing and the racket of a room full of pre-teens imitating the Spice Girls flooded through the house, I was doing my homework like a girly swot and watching TV. I happened to have Red on (the precursor to Channel [V]. Yes, that’s how long our family have had Foxtel for.). Dad came barging in, and the conversation went something like this:
“What are you doing?”
“Watching TV and doing my homework.”
“What are you watching?”
“Red.”
“No, what’s the clip?”
“Ah, Tool.”
“You know, I watched 60 Minutes the other night, and it said kids kill themselves to music like this.”
“Ah . . . so . . . ?” (Yes, I truly was that eloquent back then)
“What’s this?” (Exhibit A: one plastic cup with a doodle of a star on it)
“It’s a plastic cup with a star on it.”
“Are you sure it’s just a star?”
“Um, Dad, what else can it be? We were drawing pictures on the cups so the girls would know which cup was whose and I drew a star on that one.”
“Are you sure it’s not something else?”
“No Dad, it’s not a pentagram.”
“Good. Ok.”
At this point he left the room, though hardly reassured.
And the point of this story? With the current rhetoric flying around at the moment, parents like my Dad will be flying into absolute hysterics. One of the reasons I left home at 17 was because I couldn’t stand being treated like a little kid that needed to be kept under close observation 24-7. With psychologists being quoted in the media stating that parents need to watch their children’s every move online, know what they are doing and thinking at all times, parents will only be adding to their children’s misery and frustrations. All those kids who aren’t looking forward to Big Brother? Well, the reality could be a little bit closer to home for you.
Now, I’m not a big fan of the whole emo thing. Their music sucks and they’ve hijacked all the stuff that used to be cool, like eyeliner, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and red and black stripy stockings. They’re no less a product of a very successful marketing machine creating an image for them, and the spoilt-little-white-brat pity-me thing gets weary after a while. But fuck it, they’re kids. They’re allowed to feel like no one understands them, that everything’s so tough, that no one loves them for who they are, and all that other teen angst stuff, because ALL teenagers go through the same thing. All these little emo kids are going to turn into the doctors, garbage men, lawyers, childcare workers, accountants and beauticians of the future, and will look back at their teenage years with a mix of bemusement and nostalgia. But that’s not what the press would have you believe. Just as the fact that the two kids responsible for the Columbine Massacre wore trenchcoats therefore, apparently, all goths are serial killers, now emo kids will now be seen as the danger group you don’t want your kid to be, who are nothing but wholly negative, introverted (hey, the ones outside of Maccas in Swanston Street always seem pretty perky!), and a serious suicide risk which needs constant monitoring. I’m sure if you scratch that pouty little surface, you’re just going to find an average kid who likes the ‘scene’, dressing up, and having friends that ‘understand’ them. There is no better way to create the conditions for suicide than to present people with the feeling total isolation from which there is no way out. When you restrict your kids to the enth degree because you are frightened for them because of what they are wearing or the fact they use Myspace, they will feel more trapped and stifled than ever before. You really don’t want your kids killing themselves? Don’t let them drive.
I see every single non-natural death reported in Victoria each day. I can tell you that suicides under the age of 20 are extremely rare - there are ‘peak periods’, such as after exam times, but I’d say maybe an average of 2 - 3 a month compared to the average 35 - 60 total suicides a month. The majority of suicides are males over the age of 40, often estranged from their family or with employment difficulties; other major groups include those with substance abuse history, psychiatric history, major medical/pain problems and the elderly. Teen suicides are seen to have more impact because of the potential they have lost, the parents, friends and families they’ve left behind, and because it is seen as more tragic that a young person looses their life than one who is old, frail and weak (and to the bright “expert” stating that ‘suicide pacts between young girls are rare’, buddy, suicide pacts are rare full stop. Without doing the research, I’m willing to guess that you could count the number of them Australia on your fingers, if you discount homicide/suicides). So many people’s lives have been touched by suicide, but the impression that kids everywhere are topping themselves every day is just so, so wrong it only adds to that sense of mistrust that seems to permeate the generation divide.
And that emos seem obsessed with whining and writing miserable poetry about killing themselves and black and all that other guff, well, have you ever read the poetry section in Dolly? My sister used to send poetry to them all the time, and it was bad, teenage angst poetry written by teenyboppers. It doesn’t matter what ‘scene’ you’re into, if you’re a teenager, and especially if you’re a girl, you’ll get angsty. Unless you have a hysterectomy at 8, you can’t avoid it. My Grandma had the best attitude for dealing with teen angst. Once, whilst staying over in Adelaide one school holidays, my sister and I had a massive fight (as only young teen girls can have), the result of which I was so, so angry, I locked myself in my room and penned a furious missive on how much I hated my sister. Grandma, with her booming voice and no-bullshit Yorkshire attitude, yelled outside my door “Are you looking for stillbeing, Brian? Oh, yes, she’s just in her room writing her last will and testament and how much she hates us all. Don’t worry, she’ll get over it.” Despite the genius of reverse-psychology on the 13yo mind, it worked because she had the belief that I would calm down and deal with it. No panicking and rushing off to counselling with the fear of some underlying mental illness, just the confidence and the knowledge that getting stroppy and dramatic is what you do at that age.
This is turning more into an essay than I’d thought, but I have just one final point I’d like to make. I watched the Sky News clip on my phone in relation to this incident. It featured one psychologist stating that seeing tragic incidents on the news, such as the recent massacre in the US, or September 11, can increase the feelings of hopelessness in kids already at risk of suicide. The newsreader continued and the footage then cut to the undertakers loading bodybags onto a gurney in the forest and loading them in the undertaker’s van. For fuck’s sake! I guess nobody in the editing team Sky News has a brain between their ears. Can there be anything less appropriate than showing bodybags being loaded up? Isn’t that exactly the type of image their ‘expert’ was just warning against? In my job, death is a daily thing. I see dead people, I see photos of dead people, and sometimes we even get videos of dead people. But that is my job, and part of my job is to have the correct constitution to deal with that and to be prepared to deal with it on a daily basis. But really, this is not a restricted, confidential document: this is the press, in a myriad of formats, showing the bagged up remains of two young girls, beamed out to everyone everywhere. Who cares if there are families out there mourning, or if there are kids who won’t have friends turning up to school tomorrow; it’s all worth it if you can grab a bit of extra attention. While I’m not in favour of censorship, and sometimes I feel that people could take a few leaves from Chopper’s book, but there is a time for the gruesome stuff, and there is a time for respect. Suicide is an issue that I feel is hugely neglected in public dialogue, but really, the “news” does not need to show bodies’ being loaded up, does not need to pester ever friend or family member in mourning for a soundbite, and - and I guarantee they will try this on - they do not need to turn up to every single bloody funeral. If people die, it is expected they will have a funeral - let those gathered to farewell them do so with a bit of privacy and dignity. With such ruthless, reckless attitudes with the aim of getting the best ratings, I have no doubt they’d try to show them in situ if they could.
Ugh, it’s now nearly 1am, I’m exhausted and my fingers can’t find the right keys any more. This didn’t not start with the intentions of a four-page rant, and I wish I could say all I mean to say in a clearer, more concise manner because I doubt anyone is still reading by now. But these things cannot be helped sometimes. If anyone is still reading and is incensed by what I’ve said, by all means feel free to disagree, but I don’t want what I’ve said to turn into a flaming match. I talk about suicide because it’s a daily reality for me; I do not want to pass any judgements on the two deceased, their friends, family or lifestyles in relation to the incident. I just can’t help but feel that there are things that need to be said.
I’m not sure why I’m posting now since this journal is now defunct (and I will be shutting down my Molly_Cule journal due to complete lack of interest), but anyway, there is just too much so deeply wrong with the world right now. The worst thing, the more I think, the more wrong I find, the more words I use to express it and it still doesn’t sound right.
In short, it sucks to be a teenager right now.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to air such thoughts to a medium such as this - with a readership of about four at the most - but there are some things that really need to be said (and which my housemate won’t tolerate me blowing off steam about, which is how I would normally dispel such rants).
It concerns the media coverage of the two young girls who suicided recently, their bodies having been discovered over the weekend. I do not intend to address their mechanism of death or their lives. Their family has enough to cope with right now, as do their friends - virtual and otherwise. I do not intend to add to the barrage of sentiments already published; I deal with enough grief at work to know nothing said can ever make things better to those who have lost, and in some cases can, opening your mouth and saying what you think is best can actually make things worse.
But I have watched the media response to this incident play out with interest. Aside from Dr. Nitschke and his euthanasia campaign (for the elderly and terminally ill), and the occasional famous person taking their own life, suicide is rarely covered in the Australian media for fear of ‘copycat’ incidents. Previously, when I took calls from the media enquiring on what cases were to be heard in the court that day, if you mentioned a case was a suicide they’d usually respond with ‘skip that - got anything interesting?’. But this is a particularly sensational case, highly unusual, with plenty of emotions and issues arising, and the media picked up on it early in their disappearance. Perhaps with the memory of the young girl murdered in South Australia earlier in the year, the connection between Myspace and the ‘emo culture’ was reported on early in the week when suspicions were that the girls could be with someone they knew online. However today, with it being apparent in the press the girls had taken their own lives together, a hornets’ nest of pop psychology opinions and broad generalisations came tumbling out, whilst news outlets were rubbing their dirty little hands with glee. I have to admit, I haven’t seen the Herald Scum or the news.com.au website today, I don’t think I could stomach it; nor do I watch television news, as it usually ends up with me wanting to throw the set out the window. However, with the news on my phone, The Age and ABC news websites, the general gist is fairly clear. And I have to say this - I am glad I’m not a teenager right now.
The general vibe is that parents must watch their children like hawks; any children associated with the two girls are considered a serious risk of following suit. By extension, with the wide-spread attention placed on Myspace (and I have to point out here, I’m not a Myspace user and have never more than glanced at the site) and the whole ‘emo’ thing, pretty much any teenager that uses the internet and isn’t into princesses and ponies could now be placed under the spotlight. One of the absolute banes of my existence (and, I’m ashamed to say, well into my early 20’s) was that my parents had no trust in me - Dad especially. He saw me as wearing weird clothes and make up, and all of a sudden I was wrong in every way (once, and I wish I was joking, he told me I’d be happier if I wore ‘brighter’ clothes. It was news to me that I was even unhappy). Every day I seemed to be under threat from murderers, drug dealers, rapists, accidents and destroying myself. As a result, my (social) activities were greatly restricted, further hindered by a shitty geographical location which made going anywhere on my own a challenge. I wasn’t allowed to go to the city with my friends until I was 16, nor was I allowed to go to concerts until I was nearly 17. Even parties with friends whose parents were on familiar terms with my parents were a battle to attend. Dad was convinced I was on drugs during and after university, and believed if I wasn’t, I should be, and hence I ended up on antidepressants that fucked my life up for two years. He also spent our teenage years preventing my sister and I associating with boys, and now laments the fact that neither of us have had a relationship longer than a week and show no desire what so ever to settle down (my sister, in her subtle way, has taken to telling the whole family that we’re going to be spinsters, bless her).
When I was in year 10, my sister had a big birthday party at home. Fifteen-odd girls aged 11 - 13 were about to descend on our place, drink soft drink, dance the macarana and drool over Hansen. I had helped Mum earlier in the evening to prepare, and we drew little symbols on 15 plastic cups, so each girl would have their own for the evening and not waste a whole packet of plastic cups. Later, as the party was in full swing and the racket of a room full of pre-teens imitating the Spice Girls flooded through the house, I was doing my homework like a girly swot and watching TV. I happened to have Red on (the precursor to Channel [V]. Yes, that’s how long our family have had Foxtel for.). Dad came barging in, and the conversation went something like this:
“What are you doing?”
“Watching TV and doing my homework.”
“What are you watching?”
“Red.”
“No, what’s the clip?”
“Ah, Tool.”
“You know, I watched 60 Minutes the other night, and it said kids kill themselves to music like this.”
“Ah . . . so . . . ?” (Yes, I truly was that eloquent back then)
“What’s this?” (Exhibit A: one plastic cup with a doodle of a star on it)
“It’s a plastic cup with a star on it.”
“Are you sure it’s just a star?”
“Um, Dad, what else can it be? We were drawing pictures on the cups so the girls would know which cup was whose and I drew a star on that one.”
“Are you sure it’s not something else?”
“No Dad, it’s not a pentagram.”
“Good. Ok.”
At this point he left the room, though hardly reassured.
And the point of this story? With the current rhetoric flying around at the moment, parents like my Dad will be flying into absolute hysterics. One of the reasons I left home at 17 was because I couldn’t stand being treated like a little kid that needed to be kept under close observation 24-7. With psychologists being quoted in the media stating that parents need to watch their children’s every move online, know what they are doing and thinking at all times, parents will only be adding to their children’s misery and frustrations. All those kids who aren’t looking forward to Big Brother? Well, the reality could be a little bit closer to home for you.
Now, I’m not a big fan of the whole emo thing. Their music sucks and they’ve hijacked all the stuff that used to be cool, like eyeliner, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and red and black stripy stockings. They’re no less a product of a very successful marketing machine creating an image for them, and the spoilt-little-white-brat pity-me thing gets weary after a while. But fuck it, they’re kids. They’re allowed to feel like no one understands them, that everything’s so tough, that no one loves them for who they are, and all that other teen angst stuff, because ALL teenagers go through the same thing. All these little emo kids are going to turn into the doctors, garbage men, lawyers, childcare workers, accountants and beauticians of the future, and will look back at their teenage years with a mix of bemusement and nostalgia. But that’s not what the press would have you believe. Just as the fact that the two kids responsible for the Columbine Massacre wore trenchcoats therefore, apparently, all goths are serial killers, now emo kids will now be seen as the danger group you don’t want your kid to be, who are nothing but wholly negative, introverted (hey, the ones outside of Maccas in Swanston Street always seem pretty perky!), and a serious suicide risk which needs constant monitoring. I’m sure if you scratch that pouty little surface, you’re just going to find an average kid who likes the ‘scene’, dressing up, and having friends that ‘understand’ them. There is no better way to create the conditions for suicide than to present people with the feeling total isolation from which there is no way out. When you restrict your kids to the enth degree because you are frightened for them because of what they are wearing or the fact they use Myspace, they will feel more trapped and stifled than ever before. You really don’t want your kids killing themselves? Don’t let them drive.
I see every single non-natural death reported in Victoria each day. I can tell you that suicides under the age of 20 are extremely rare - there are ‘peak periods’, such as after exam times, but I’d say maybe an average of 2 - 3 a month compared to the average 35 - 60 total suicides a month. The majority of suicides are males over the age of 40, often estranged from their family or with employment difficulties; other major groups include those with substance abuse history, psychiatric history, major medical/pain problems and the elderly. Teen suicides are seen to have more impact because of the potential they have lost, the parents, friends and families they’ve left behind, and because it is seen as more tragic that a young person looses their life than one who is old, frail and weak (and to the bright “expert” stating that ‘suicide pacts between young girls are rare’, buddy, suicide pacts are rare full stop. Without doing the research, I’m willing to guess that you could count the number of them Australia on your fingers, if you discount homicide/suicides). So many people’s lives have been touched by suicide, but the impression that kids everywhere are topping themselves every day is just so, so wrong it only adds to that sense of mistrust that seems to permeate the generation divide.
And that emos seem obsessed with whining and writing miserable poetry about killing themselves and black and all that other guff, well, have you ever read the poetry section in Dolly? My sister used to send poetry to them all the time, and it was bad, teenage angst poetry written by teenyboppers. It doesn’t matter what ‘scene’ you’re into, if you’re a teenager, and especially if you’re a girl, you’ll get angsty. Unless you have a hysterectomy at 8, you can’t avoid it. My Grandma had the best attitude for dealing with teen angst. Once, whilst staying over in Adelaide one school holidays, my sister and I had a massive fight (as only young teen girls can have), the result of which I was so, so angry, I locked myself in my room and penned a furious missive on how much I hated my sister. Grandma, with her booming voice and no-bullshit Yorkshire attitude, yelled outside my door “Are you looking for stillbeing, Brian? Oh, yes, she’s just in her room writing her last will and testament and how much she hates us all. Don’t worry, she’ll get over it.” Despite the genius of reverse-psychology on the 13yo mind, it worked because she had the belief that I would calm down and deal with it. No panicking and rushing off to counselling with the fear of some underlying mental illness, just the confidence and the knowledge that getting stroppy and dramatic is what you do at that age.
This is turning more into an essay than I’d thought, but I have just one final point I’d like to make. I watched the Sky News clip on my phone in relation to this incident. It featured one psychologist stating that seeing tragic incidents on the news, such as the recent massacre in the US, or September 11, can increase the feelings of hopelessness in kids already at risk of suicide. The newsreader continued and the footage then cut to the undertakers loading bodybags onto a gurney in the forest and loading them in the undertaker’s van. For fuck’s sake! I guess nobody in the editing team Sky News has a brain between their ears. Can there be anything less appropriate than showing bodybags being loaded up? Isn’t that exactly the type of image their ‘expert’ was just warning against? In my job, death is a daily thing. I see dead people, I see photos of dead people, and sometimes we even get videos of dead people. But that is my job, and part of my job is to have the correct constitution to deal with that and to be prepared to deal with it on a daily basis. But really, this is not a restricted, confidential document: this is the press, in a myriad of formats, showing the bagged up remains of two young girls, beamed out to everyone everywhere. Who cares if there are families out there mourning, or if there are kids who won’t have friends turning up to school tomorrow; it’s all worth it if you can grab a bit of extra attention. While I’m not in favour of censorship, and sometimes I feel that people could take a few leaves from Chopper’s book, but there is a time for the gruesome stuff, and there is a time for respect. Suicide is an issue that I feel is hugely neglected in public dialogue, but really, the “news” does not need to show bodies’ being loaded up, does not need to pester ever friend or family member in mourning for a soundbite, and - and I guarantee they will try this on - they do not need to turn up to every single bloody funeral. If people die, it is expected they will have a funeral - let those gathered to farewell them do so with a bit of privacy and dignity. With such ruthless, reckless attitudes with the aim of getting the best ratings, I have no doubt they’d try to show them in situ if they could.
Ugh, it’s now nearly 1am, I’m exhausted and my fingers can’t find the right keys any more. This didn’t not start with the intentions of a four-page rant, and I wish I could say all I mean to say in a clearer, more concise manner because I doubt anyone is still reading by now. But these things cannot be helped sometimes. If anyone is still reading and is incensed by what I’ve said, by all means feel free to disagree, but I don’t want what I’ve said to turn into a flaming match. I talk about suicide because it’s a daily reality for me; I do not want to pass any judgements on the two deceased, their friends, family or lifestyles in relation to the incident. I just can’t help but feel that there are things that need to be said.