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They're expressing the average 15yo worldview which is that social acceptance is everything and embarassment by your peers is literally a fate worse than death.

They're expressing the average 15yo worldview which is that social acceptance is everything and embarassment by your peers is literally a fate worse than death. It's pretty fucked up, but also I think an inevitable part of growing up for most except for maybe a few hard-core geeks whose passions supercede whatever social narcotics their peers subject them to.

fudged71 14y ago
>embarassment by your peers is literally a fate worse than death I hadn't considered that specific viewpoint, yet it makes so much sense.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Adolescent 17-year-old here, it is actually my greatest fear. But I do not have the healthiest mental state.
  - muraiki 14y ago
    The liberation from this fear comes in a somewhat disingenuous way: humility. I'm not saying that as a slight against you (as if you are proud) in any way whatsoever. Nor am I espousing humility as a sort of passive acceptance of "the way things are." But by recognizing, patiently overcoming, and forgiving yourself for your weaknesses and struggles -- and by offering others the same -- you will find that, over time, this fear will lose most of its strength. Furthermore, you won't be offended when others judge, reject, or humiliate you. Instead you will feel a sorrow for those who live in such a way, a sorrow that can hopefully be nurtured into compassion. If this sorrow turns into a holier-than-thou attitude, though, then we have a problem. :) The way to avoid this is through honest recognition of one's own weaknesses; once again, humility. Emotions and opinions are fickle; the way people treat others reflects as much about the struggles and burdens they bear as they do about how they might "really" feel about something. To make ourselves beholden to other people's opinions and judgments is to necessarily strap ourselves to a roller coaster. As someone who used to struggle with this a lot -- albeit unconsciously, because I was the one who was harsh towards others -- this is my experience.
    - fudged71 14y ago
      College offers you a much larger group of people surrounding you, so it's harder to judge everyone. And in turn, you recognize that people are judging you less. This is part of the freedom that you feel when you exit high school, I think :)
comrade_ogilvy 14y ago
Let's keep some things in mind. Adolescence is the onset of adulthood before the capacity to function as a real adult in the real world is reached. One of the things that adolescents search for is some form of personal validation besides their parents and immediate family. It is probably close enough to true that we are biologically driven to look for this outside acceptance. Unfortunately our society favors heavily segregating children based on age. That results in confused & clueless teens begging for acceptance from equally clueless people from the same wing of the same asylum. Once in the real world a functional adult who can hold down a job finds there are a million ways to find personal validation. Teens do not have that opportunity; they (often) imagine that the opinion of other teenagers is the only path to validation.
- siavosh 14y ago
  I'd never heard of the age segregation explanation, it's very interesting since it implies this degree of behavior isn't inevitable. Are there any references for this claim?
  - scott_s 14y ago
    This very long NY Magazine piece meditates on that topic, "Why You Never Truly Leave High School": http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/ http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/ I can't remember if the author states any scholarly work to support the idea, but she talks about it at length. One thing that I think is well established is that kids mostly being around other kids all day is a relatively modern phenomenon. It's a long piece, but it resonated with me.
  - marquis 14y ago
    I went searching for a great article I read on this lately but couldn't find it: the gist is that until schools become de rigueur, adolescents never spent time together as a group as they would be at work/apprenticeships whathaveyou with adult 'supervision'. It's a new phenomenon that leaves delicate minds in a Lord of the Flies situation. The study I read showed that even the 'cool' kids thought they weren't cool and the various coping mechanisms have been fodder for hollywood movies and novels since the last decades.
srumple 14y ago
The trouble is I don't believe that all, or even most of the people who told him to kill himself were teenagers. I have no problem believing that there are adults out there who also would have joined in.
- bgilroy26 14y ago
  Many who enter adolescence do not ever leave.
  - fudged71 14y ago
    The internet creates big pockets of social groups that have no consideration of age, race, social status, etc. There's an interesting side-effect of looking for validation from your peers when you don't know what those people are actually like. We can act more mature by looking up to a mature audience, we can look down on a less mature audience, or we can resonate with the values of a less mature audience. I went from Digg to reddit to HN mainly due to interests/content, but also because I looked up to the more mature audiences. Some people will stick to platforms where they are entertained by immaturity and seek those people's validation by mimicking them.
jlgreco 14y ago
Honestly I think it is more an expression of the average 15yo mindset that it is fun to be mean and kick people while they are down.
brc 14y ago
Required reading : Paul Graham; why nerds are unpopular http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html This is an incredibly insightful piece, one of the best. It talks about how, as a society, we shunt kids into a lord of the flies situation, and we force them to build skills that have little use outside the schoolyard. The problem is a lack of mentoring and not treating adolescents as people entering adulthood, but rather as a problem to be managed. Lots of cultures have initiations and rites of passage, and into this modern void hazing, bullying and downright weird stuff has popped up amongst peers rather than elders. I don't have the answer but it does cause a lot of problems.

fudged71 14y ago

>embarassment by your peers is literally a fate worse than death I hadn't considered that specific viewpoint, yet it makes so much sense.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Adolescent 17-year-old here, it is actually my greatest fear. But I do not have the healthiest mental state.
- muraiki 14y ago
  The liberation from this fear comes in a somewhat disingenuous way: humility. I'm not saying that as a slight against you (as if you are proud) in any way whatsoever. Nor am I espousing humility as a sort of passive acceptance of "the way things are." But by recognizing, patiently overcoming, and forgiving yourself for your weaknesses and struggles -- and by offering others the same -- you will find that, over time, this fear will lose most of its strength. Furthermore, you won't be offended when others judge, reject, or humiliate you. Instead you will feel a sorrow for those who live in such a way, a sorrow that can hopefully be nurtured into compassion. If this sorrow turns into a holier-than-thou attitude, though, then we have a problem. :) The way to avoid this is through honest recognition of one's own weaknesses; once again, humility. Emotions and opinions are fickle; the way people treat others reflects as much about the struggles and burdens they bear as they do about how they might "really" feel about something. To make ourselves beholden to other people's opinions and judgments is to necessarily strap ourselves to a roller coaster. As someone who used to struggle with this a lot -- albeit unconsciously, because I was the one who was harsh towards others -- this is my experience.
  - fudged71 14y ago
    College offers you a much larger group of people surrounding you, so it's harder to judge everyone. And in turn, you recognize that people are judging you less. This is part of the freedom that you feel when you exit high school, I think :)

comrade_ogilvy 14y ago

Let's keep some things in mind. Adolescence is the onset of adulthood before the capacity to function as a real adult in the real world is reached. One of the things that adolescents search for is some form of personal validation besides their parents and immediate family. It is probably close enough to true that we are biologically driven to look for this outside acceptance. Unfortunately our society favors heavily segregating children based on age. That results in confused & clueless teens begging for acceptance from equally clueless people from the same wing of the same asylum. Once in the real world a functional adult who can hold down a job finds there are a million ways to find personal validation. Teens do not have that opportunity; they (often) imagine that the opinion of other teenagers is the only path to validation.

siavosh 14y ago
I'd never heard of the age segregation explanation, it's very interesting since it implies this degree of behavior isn't inevitable. Are there any references for this claim?
- scott_s 14y ago
  This very long NY Magazine piece meditates on that topic, "Why You Never Truly Leave High School": http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/ http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/ I can't remember if the author states any scholarly work to support the idea, but she talks about it at length. One thing that I think is well established is that kids mostly being around other kids all day is a relatively modern phenomenon. It's a long piece, but it resonated with me.
- marquis 14y ago
  I went searching for a great article I read on this lately but couldn't find it: the gist is that until schools become de rigueur, adolescents never spent time together as a group as they would be at work/apprenticeships whathaveyou with adult 'supervision'. It's a new phenomenon that leaves delicate minds in a Lord of the Flies situation. The study I read showed that even the 'cool' kids thought they weren't cool and the various coping mechanisms have been fodder for hollywood movies and novels since the last decades.

srumple 14y ago

The trouble is I don't believe that all, or even most of the people who told him to kill himself were teenagers. I have no problem believing that there are adults out there who also would have joined in.

bgilroy26 14y ago
Many who enter adolescence do not ever leave.
- fudged71 14y ago
  The internet creates big pockets of social groups that have no consideration of age, race, social status, etc. There's an interesting side-effect of looking for validation from your peers when you don't know what those people are actually like. We can act more mature by looking up to a mature audience, we can look down on a less mature audience, or we can resonate with the values of a less mature audience. I went from Digg to reddit to HN mainly due to interests/content, but also because I looked up to the more mature audiences. Some people will stick to platforms where they are entertained by immaturity and seek those people's validation by mimicking them.

jlgreco 14y ago

Honestly I think it is more an expression of the average 15yo mindset that it is fun to be mean and kick people while they are down.

brc 14y ago

Required reading : Paul Graham; why nerds are unpopular http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html This is an incredibly insightful piece, one of the best. It talks about how, as a society, we shunt kids into a lord of the flies situation, and we force them to build skills that have little use outside the schoolyard. The problem is a lack of mentoring and not treating adolescents as people entering adulthood, but rather as a problem to be managed. Lots of cultures have initiations and rites of passage, and into this modern void hazing, bullying and downright weird stuff has popped up amongst peers rather than elders. I don't have the answer but it does cause a lot of problems.