There are a lot of things wrong with today’s society. Thanks to my youthful naivety, I look to the future with optimism and hope. However, my buoyancy is conflicted as I am troubled by the next generation. Do today’s current teenagers have the foresight to correct the destruction left behind by the baby boomers?

My uneasiness is caused by many reasons, most of which, though, are clearly illustrated by the MTV series, My Super Sweet 16. Now, I don’t believe Sweet 16 is the root of youth’s corrupted spirit. But, the show’s premise is to showcase parents’ shameless display of extravagance while exposing their shortcomings. This failure in parenting has not only spawned a degenerate generation but revels in exploiting it for entertainment.

Sure, it’s easy to place blame on the parents. They’re responsible for instilling goodness and morality in today’s children, thus providing a strong foundation for tomorrow’s adults, right? That’s certainly easier said than done. I know it’s not entirely their fault that the prevalent parenting method is based in believing love is best demonstrated through gaudy status symbols. 

I can only hope all this materialism in place of parenting will provide fertile grounds for an eventual realization and rebellion. Finding this source of emptiness is what keeps therapists in business, no? More disconcerting than bad parenting, though, is the lack of role models to unearth this discontent.

In fact, Sweet 16 is a show about the inadequacy of current cultural role models. Using the Paris Hilton method of success, anyone with enough money can buy their way onto TV into the hearts and minds of impressionable young ones. And it’s the girls that are suffering the most from these disposable influences.

It used to be that a girl’s sixteenth birthday was a celebration for surviving the unforgiving journey from awkward adolescent to developed adult. But it seems to me that every character featured on Sweet 16 revels in acting and behaving like a spoiled child. In fact, most delight in dramatic tantrums and sinister bitchery for the television cameras.

Regardless of the legitimacy of the dramatics, the show illustrates an unsettling new level of bratty-girl behavior. Whereas boys use physicality and violence to bully, girls have always resorted to verbal attacks to belittle each other. This belittling was once done behind backs and with a slight sense of wrong-doing; today’s young girls are meaner than ever without any sense of remorse.

And this new level of bratty-girl behavior is not limited to extreme insults. Aggressiveness and domineering have surpassed catty putdowns to become the favored form of intimidation. Where did this perverted sense of female entitlement come from? Because I’m pretty sure Paris Hilton wouldn’t instigate, let alone win, a bitch fight with even the most "exhausted" Hollywood starlet.

Julia Pflaum