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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 08/15/2009

They tried that in the 90’s

Gossip Girl

I’m always complaining about how Gossip Girl and 90210 and that crap are completely unrealistic to teenagers’ lives. They depict angst…but not the angst we feel – the superficial angst that everybody thinks we feel. The truth is boys, popularity and eating disorders are not all teenage girls stress over (though that is part of it…) but even more so than the topics explored, the characters in these shows don’t look like me or really act like me or anybody I know.

I’m not saying a little escapism here and there is a bad thing. I’m not going to sit on my high horse and say I don’t sometimes enjoy watching perfect faces and bodies do reckless things. But it would be nice if there was a little reality thrown…

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 07/30/2009

The Books I’ll Never Forget

Judy Blume: the mother of teen fiction

Over at Salon, they’re talking about Lizzie Skurnick’s new book “Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading.” And it really got me thinking about the books I read as a kid (relatively speaking as I am 16) and how they really stick with you. I know Judy Blume is basically the goddess of my Mom’s generation and whenever her name comes up they all share a knowing smile. All I ever read was Blubber, which I personally kind of found upsetting, but apparently Judy Bloome introduced millions of girls to their period, which in a way is cute that millions of women have this shared experience.

this book stole my innocence

I found out a much less fun way – a family friend gave me the…

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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 07/8/2009

another teen show rant

I’ve been watching a lot of tv on the internet lately. Especially this school year, the scheduling of most “teen” shows [Gossip Girl; 90210; etc] really clashed with my own personal schedule, which was mostly dominated by massive amounts of chem tutoring due to my adamant demands that “chemistry is inapplicable to people with social skills and I’m pretty sure it’s a massive conspiracy against the youth” …that argument will not positively affect your grade – just for future reference.

Anyway this summer was crunch time. Every night so far, I’ve cranked out all the illegal sites (bad. baaaad) that provide me with my nightly fix of Gossip Girl, 90210, and even Skins (Britian’s take on the teen melodrama).