#amstpurdue

After our discussion on the meanings and transnational routes of toys, I HAD to post this.  These are Yoga Joes, made by Dan Abramson, who states:  “I made Yoga Joes because I thought that it would be a fun way to get more people into yoga – especially dudes…” the creator says on his website. “Beyond that, I wanted to make a violent toy become peaceful.”  What do you think #amst201youth?  What’s the impact on US youth?

Conformity and rebellion are shaped by social and cultural norms, individual wants and experiences, family dynamics (and I would add, historical context), shape behaviors and identities of American youths.  These two tensions between conformity and rebellion shape the essential relationship between identity (who am I and what does that mean?) and citizenship (what power do I have and how are my rights valued in society?).  Nearly every example we encountered in the readings or films demonstrated how youths in ways that both conformed and rebelled.  Miss Representation demonstrated many girls conformed to cultural norms of female sexualization and infantalization by sexualizing themselves.  To engage in this self-sexualization is an act of conforming to norms of women's sexualization in such a way that presents this self-sexualization as an act of rebellion.  Likewise, in the chapter "Dummy Smart" from Victor Rios's book Punished, Rios argues that young black and Latino boys engage in practices of creating organic capital in an attempt to define their own identity in positive ways that both conforms and rebels - such as wearing expensive tennis shoes to a job interview.  These attempts, however, are frequently misrecognized as being lazy or disrespectful that, in turn, further reinforce negative stereotypes about youths of color.

For my mind map, I decided to try and convey the way in which youth culture is seen through the eyes of the youth.  WE ARE YOUNG, is infused with photos of young people expressing themselves in the various ways that they do. In this segment, I also tried to express what being youthful means both individually and socially. In WE ARE LEARNING, my goal was to indicate the many ways in which we as young people are receiving the world. There are many things that we are taught both institutionally, socially, and recreational at a very early age. This was something that we addressed when covering consumerism, toy culture, and sexuality. WE ARE GROWING represents the things that youths develop as a result of the environment they are placed in. Like the LA/Salvador, and Dummy Smart articles, youths grow, usually against the grain, and begin to develop their own identities based on the geographic and social location they are in. Usually, they develop a culture and a lifestyle that they can fit themselves in after being rejected by ‘normal’ society. WE ARE CHAGNING meant to represent the different paths that demographically diverse youths take. Some allow themselves to fall into the socially constructed system, while other don’t. Like the podcast on Hispanic youth and the documentary Teenage, new communities, identities, cultures, and social norms can arise when enough regulative pressure is applied to youth populations. The following section is like an acceptance of the inevitable, because as we have seen the trend of adult oppression and power over American youths has continued, which means that in the end, the rebellious youths found their way into their social bins picked out for them and grew up to continue the cycle. Perpetuating the disconnect between rebellious youth and their adult predecessors. Nevertheless, in the throes of youth and adventure, there will always be a degree of freedom that we only experience when we are young.

I’ve actually never done this before so I’m not quite sure how this mindmap thing actually works.  Anyhow I think the course divides and organizes the topic very well already and so I don’t see any reason go to and change that.  In addition to the topics covered in class, I added a branch for movies that I watched for this course since I felt that it was worthwhile to include.  All topic branches are further divided by some keywords that I thought up off the top of my head that relates to the topics.  In essence, when I visualize this class I divide it into the sections that we went over in class (it’s how I study for tests and stuff and at this point it’s more out of habit than anything).  Usually I’ll subdivide them even more based on stuff that I would need to know for tests, but in this case all I put the words that in my mind, are relevant to the topic.

https://bubbl.us/?h=2b9fe8/57f7b9/28ODVCrstHLq2&r=22324260

Looking at the big picture as well as how details interact with each other to create this pictures another concept I have taken away from this course. I feel that the idea of many concepts building off each other and also intertwining in a variety of ways happens in all aspects of life which is important to keep in mind. 

Looking at my finished mind map I can’t help but recognize a theme that describes American Youth Culture: organized chaos.  While I was reviewing the course objectives and reflecting on the course material it was extremely obvious how everything in a youth’s life is intertwined and helps shape who they are and who they will become.  Youth culture consists of many sub categories including, but not limited to, sexuality, rebellion, crisis, conformity, consumerism, hangouts, and behavior.  All of these sub categories play an independent and integrated role in forming youth culture.  The youth culture today consists of many stigmas against sexuality, from past and present.  The homoromances from the time of war might have impacted the way people viewed simple friendship between men from then on out.  Sexuality today is also used as a form of rebellion.  Rebellion is a major thing for some youths.  They can rebel in many ways, one common way is their sexual orientation or participation in sexual behaviors.  These practices can sometimes lead to crises, such as teen pregnancy.  Other crises youths experience include fitting in and childhood obesity.  These particular crises lead to the need for teens to feel they need to conform to society's standards to fit in.  This leads to a culture that revolves around conformity and consumerism.  The need to buy the clothes that are ‘in’ and hangout at the hip places is impossible for most kids to ignore.  The places where kids hang out then influence the activities they partake in.  The places they migrate to is also usually influenced by their social and economic backgrounds.  Their socioeconomic backgrounds then also influences their behavior and cultural norms.  This in turn is the very way kids are raised and the single most important factor in their own culture.  All of these subcategories connect in many ways, but can also stand alone in influencing youth.  That is why the way I would describe the American youth culture would be organized chaos.  

The film does a good job portraying kids in their youths in high school and the problems they go through. Looking at this film from where I am in life (almost graduating college) reminds me a lot of the times I went through in high school.  Sure my high school life was not as weird as Charlie’s, but we all know a person like Patrick, who finds his awkwardness and pain behind a show of extraverted confidence. We all know a person like Charlie who is observant and quiet who is always agreeing, trying to fit in.  We all a person like Sam who lacks self-esteem and seeks attention and undervalues herself.  The characters and stories seems to strike out at you.  And you get to see the shy, introverted Charlie slowly grow over the course of the movie, and even though he is still introverted at the end, he realized that, despite everything, they are alive and “[they] are infinite.”