consider: teenagers aren’t apathetic about everything they’re just used to you shitting all over whatever they show excitement about
Teen: *gets a job*
“I GOT THE JOB!”
Parents: Well, when I was your age, I already had 5 jobs and was supporting my family
Teen: *gets all A’s*
“I worked really hard!”
Parents: Well, of course you did, this is the expectation, not a celebration.
probably why so many teens take to social media where they can enthusiastically share their interests and achievements and get positive feedback that their parents never gave
A LITTLE LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK
This hit hard
I remember once, when I was in my early 20s, I was an afternoon supervisor at my job, and I worked with mostly teenagers, and the one day this one kid, who was like 15, was bored so I suggested he could clean out the fridge. He did and when he was done I said he did a good job.
After that, this kid was cleaning out the fridge at least once a week, and I was like, “why are you always cleaning the fridge?” Like, I didn’t mind, but it seemed odd. And he said, “one time I cleaned the fridge and you said I did a good job. I wanted to make you proud of me again.”
Literally, I changed the entire way I interacted with teenagers after that. I actually got a package of glitter stars and I would stick them on their nametags when they did a good job, and they loved it.
My manager had commented on how hard these kids work and I said, “they’re starved for positive feedback. They go to school all day then come to work all evening and no one appreciates it because it’s expected of them, but they’re still kids. They need positive feedback from adults in their lives.”
Like, everyone likes feeling appreciated. Everyone likes being complimented and having their efforts be noticed. Another coworker (who was a mother of teenage children), hated that I did this, and said they were too old to be rewarded with stickers, but like… it wasn’t about the stickers. The stickers were just a symbol that their effort was noticed and appreciated. I was just lucky that I learned this at a time when I was still young enough to remember what it was like to be a teenager. I was only 2 years out of highschool at that point and highschool is fucking hard. People forget this as they get older, but ask anyone and almost no one would ever want to go back and do it again, but they expect kids to suck it up because they’re young so they should be able to do school full time, plus homework, and work, and maintain a healthy social life, and sleep, and spend time with family, and do chores and help out at home, and worry about college and relationships and everything else, and then just get shit on all the time and treated like they’re lazy and entitled. And then they wonder why teenagers are apathetic.
For a german exam I had to argue against an article that was essentially „kids these days, they don’t care about anything and are constantly on their phones“ and really it was the easiest essay I‘ve ever written.
Teens don’t talk to adults bc adults only ask „so, how‘s school“ to then interrupt them two sentences in. And because they can’t engage in a conversation about buying houses and working in a bank. I would’ve loved to talk about philosophy and politics and history with family the way I did with friends and in class but because I was young no one took what I had to say seriously.
And no, teens aren’t always on their phone. They’re on their phone when they’re bored. You think I‘m on social media when I‘m with my friends? When I‘m talking about something I‘m interested in?
Maybe the reason kids are so distant and always on their phone during family parties and the like is because you‘re failing to engage and include them.
Whoop there it is
When you respect kids, they really respond and learn from you. But if you treat kids like “theyre just a kid, what do they know??” then you’ll never find out.
As a Disneyland Cast Member, I’ll add my own experience onto this –
Very frequently, when I first speak to a child while I’m at work, they’ll kind of withdraw and act uncomfortable and shy. Their parents will then rather frequently tell them to not be shy and try to coax them to talk to me – whenever that happens, I always, without fail, politely dissuade the parents from pressuring them.
“I’m a stranger,” I’ll tell the kid’s parents. “I don’t blame them for not talking to me – if they were anywhere else, they’d have the right idea, to not immediately trust me.”
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that same kid – simply after hearing their initial reaction being validated, instead of reproached – immediately open up to me after that. I also cannot tell you how many times that child and I would go on to start a friggin’ marathon conversation, and I got to hear all about how great their day was or what their favorite Disney movies were or what rides they liked and didn’t like or how much they like a certain Disney character or song…all from me validating that initial feeling and showing genuine interest in what they had to say.
This isn’t just young children, either. I will always remember being positioned outside the Animation Academy one day and starting up a conversation with a young lady, perhaps 12 or 13, who joined the line with her father a full 25 minutes before the class was supposed to start. Now keep in mind, we do a drawing class every 30 minutes: there was no one else in line at that point, and no one else joined the girl and her father in line for a full fifteen minutes. So I could tell pretty quickly that this girl was very emotionally invested in getting a good spot for the drawing class: a conclusion all the more bolstered by the fact that she had a notebook under her arm. I asked her if she was an artist – she said yes, but seemed uncomfortable at the question, so I skipped even asking her if I could see her work, instead admitting that I myself wasn’t very good at art, but that I’m trying to get better and that I love the history of Disney animation. On the screens around us was video footage of different Disney concept art and animation reels, so I pointed one of them out (for Snow White) and asked if she knew the story behind the making of the movie. Upon confirming that she didn’t, I proceeded to get down on the floor so I could sit next to her and her father and dramatically tell the whole story of how “Uncle Walt” created the first full-length animated motion picture, even though everyone and their mother thought he was an idiot for even trying, and how the film ended up becoming the first Hollywood blockbuster. After the story was over, the girl’s father said that his daughter really wanted to be an animator when she grew up, and she finally felt comfortable enough to open her notebook and show me some of her artwork. It was wonderful! Every sketch had such character and you could tell how much work she put into it! And I could tell how much telling her that – and sharing that moment with her, where we got to connect over something we both really enjoyed – had meant. And after the class was over, she sought me out to show me what she and her father had drawn – and sure enough, hers was great! (Her father’s was too, really. XD)
People, kids and teens included, love sharing what they love and how they feel with others. You just have to give them the chance to show it.
A LITTLE LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!
-~-
I feel like I am obliged to add one more thing: don’t ever think that the kids won’t feel your unspokenjudgements cause they do!
I felt always like a ‘problem’ in my family, until I was about sixteen, I got this teacher who was litterally the first to tell I was worthy. He changed my life up till this day.
Also how do grown ups imagine how ‘we’ will ever learn to engage in conversations with adults properly if you don’t teach us?
This post is
Everything
I told one of my new coworkers (who is 26) that he was doing really well and that I was proud of him and his progress. I thought he was going to start crying for how quietly he said “really?”.
Positive feedback makes the biggest difference to everything.
I used to have a coworker who only spoke Burmese. She knew a few words in English, but literally it was like “hey Susu, can you clean the cooler for me?” “Yes yes, I clean, I clean.” She’d moved to the US in her late 30s and never really got the hang of English. (I don’t say this to make fun of her. She was a refugee fleeing a brutal and bloody war in Myanmar and her broken English was a sign of deep determination and tragedy. I say it because the language barrier, and the extent of it, is important to what happened next.)
She was shy, and kind of withdrawn, and extremely slow—it took this woman an hour to do a sink of dishes that took me 30 minutes and I was considered not particularly fast—but she was absolutely dogged. She would do her job and get it done.
So this one day I realized we had all kinds of “hey, great job!” cards on our little recognition board thing for almost the whole crew, but none for Susu, because “she won’t understand anyway.” So I threw a couple of simple sentences into a translation app and spent like half an hour very painstakingly drawing these sentences in Burmese characters (and drawing is really what it was—I felt like I was four years old and holding a pencil for the first time again) and gave her the card. She kind of glanced and it and went “oh thank you” and then did this massive double-take and raised it in front of her face and read it, and read it again, and then just about hollered “OH THANK YOU THANK YOU” and I showed her where she could pin it on the recognition board if she wanted. She chose to take it home instead, which, totally fair.
All it said was “thank you for your hard work, you’re very reliable.”
Everything changed after that. She started using her limited English more, picking up new words here and there (rather amusingly, ours was a multilingual kitchen but she didn’t know which words belonged to which language, and you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen a tiny Burmese woman slap a fryer and say “Oy vay this thing, yeah! Pendejo!” I mean yes, completely valid emotion about that fucking fryer, but when this is how you’re discovering she’s picked up both Spanish and Yiddish and thinks both of them are English, lemme tell you, that sure is an Emotion), enthusiastically participating in things.
She was in her forties.
Nobody but her children had spoken a word to her in Burmese since she left home.
People just want to be known. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
The kids on TikTok think that just because he was a classic country singer, Johnny Cash was conservative??? My babies he covered a Nine Inch Nails song in his seventies.
Classic country singers (the majority of which came from poor roots) were always talking about how much The Man sucked because they were taking money from poor rural folk. You’re gonna tell me that’s conservative?? Get outta here.
And somehow on the opposite side of the scale with the same exact opinion the conservative kids say “I like the old country music, because there’s no politics to it” Woodie Guthrie’s got a “this machine kills fascists” sticker on his guitar? You think there’s no politics in 9 to 5 or Folsom Prison Blues?!
For anyone confused there was a sudden and dramatic shift in the country music genre. It used to be a genre fixated on the experiences of people. Lived or common experiences that resonated with the common people. It was music that you listened to and it thrummed in tune to your soul because you had lived it yourself. And a lot of that was about ordinary people getting ground up in the gears of society.
The hyper patriotism, beer, and trucks chimera we have now didn’t show up until after 9/11 and the world is lesser for it
Allow me to post the entire lyrics to the Johnny Cash song “Man in Black”, released in nineteen goddamn seventy-one and written about why he always wore black onstage:
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the times
I wear the black for those who’ve never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me
Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black
I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men
And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin’ that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died
Believin’ that we all were on their side
Well, there’s things that never will be right, I know
And things need changin’ everywhere you go
But ‘til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white
Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything’s okay
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
'Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black
That right there is an anti-war, anti-bigot, anti-mass-incarceration, anti-war-on-drugs (Cash was an addict in various stages of recovery who was pissed as hell about how this country treats people with substance issues), eat-the-rich protest song. And it was arguably his signature song, his personal manifesto. Notice that even the Jesus reference, which today would be a signal that the song is about to drop some racist dogwhistles, segues immediately into a line about “the road to happiness through love and charity”. As in “Motherfucker, our shared god said love thy neighbor and care for the poor and the outsider, and we both know he didn’t fucking stutter.” He’s throwing shade at self-described Christians who use his religion as a cudgel to beat people with.
Johnny Cash wasn’t a conservative. I’m pretty sure if he were alive and in reasonably good health today, he’d knock Jason Aldean’s teeth out (or, failing that, write a song so devastatingly memetic about how much Aldean sucks that Aldean would never work in music again).
Johnny Cash was punk rock. He just happened to be punk rock in the body of a country singer.
Disabled people deserve government assistance and benefits. Even if they have incomes. Even if their spouses have incomes. Even if both they and their spouses have incomes.
Because being disabled is fucking expensive, even with affordable healthcare, even under the best circumstances and in the most accessible situations.
Copy and pasting from Reddit user Mike J Smith on the Reddit page for ublock origin, an adblocker extension:
Condensed Update for Newcomers:
YT is making a concerted anti-adblock push via a tattler script tied to a “3 strikes and you’re out” style warning message.
Each time you click on a video that WOULD have shown you ads, the tattler script detects that you blocked it and you’re given a warning popup. This can be X'ed out of quickly, it’s just a warning.
After 3 warnings on a given account, it no longer allows you to close the warning popup, thus acting as a soft block on that YT account until YT’s tattler script no longer detects ad-block running. As of right now, it does not lock your other Google services and it does not count as a traditional account ban.
To protect the new tattler script from our jamming efforts, YT is also updating it at least once a day and sometimes multiple times, basically trying to force us into a war of attrition in coding hours. This naturally has put a MASSIVE strain on the volunteer team and will probably result in extended outages on YT as they try to keep up. They are holding their own, but just barely.
None of the uBO team are paid for this, they are volunteers with day jobs. The success of their efforts will depend largely on what YouTube decides to do next, because fighting their legions of paid coders off indefinitely would be impossible. If YouTube wants to kill adblock forever with sheer force, it’s within their power - we are all hoping they’re just “shaking the tree” to see what falls out and they’ll stop once their accountants are satisfied.
The soft block is only tied to the individual account, not the IP. Thus, FreeTube still works fine and you can still view videos logged out. If you export your history, subs and playlists to Freetube, the only thing you’ve really lost is your ability to comment. I miss it, but not enough to give $20 a month to a pack of scavenging vultures.
So What Do I Do Now???
Look at the original post in the original thread, find the bold headline midway down that says “I followed the 4 steps, but I’m still experiencing issues”. Directly below that is a line that says “The latest fix for anti-adblock was made on [date] and currently corresponds to ID [xxxxxxx]”.
The ID refers to the version of YouTube’s tattler script that it is capable of defeating. Compare that number to the bottom line on this list: https://pastefy.app/G1Txv5su/raw. The listings look like: “https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/ea2534f4/jsbin/desktop_polymer_css_polymer_serving_disabled.vflset/desktop_polymer_css_polymer_serving_disabled.js”. The bolded portion is the ID number you want to compare it to.
If the numbers are the same, then the tattler has been temporarily neutralized by the volunteer team. Once you purge and update your caches, soft locked accounts will be open again and no warnings will be issued. Use it while you can. Don’t forget to purge & update or it won’t work.
If the numbers don’t match, the volunteer team hasn’t caught up yet and the tattler script is still active. You will still be warned and soft-blocked. Give them 4-5 hours to catch up.
I’d like to add I’ve found that if you’re on Firefox, this add on gets rid of the splash screen
I know Astarion is technically a chaotic goose but imagine if he was a cat. He would be that cat.
(I apologize to my OPM followers but I’m drooling over another fictional man right now, I’ll be back with OPM content very soon)
Stick it to Youtube on Mobile too! Here’s how.
I keep seeing SO MANY POSTS about how to tell Youtube to get fucked on Firefox. And that’s awesome.
But I found a workaround for those of us on mobile.
What you want is Youtube ReVanced (formerly Vanced. These people picked up where it left off). ReVanced is open source and patches in a SHIT TON of good stuff, including things you will normally see used frequently on Firefox.
Since I’ve started using this, mobile has worked like a dream.
Ads? Gone.
Sponsors? Not on mobile. We got SponsorBlock for that shit.
Picture-in-Picture issues (this isn’t relegated to JUST official music sources, but it is the most prevalent there. They want you to buy premium)? Fuck off. I don’t need your fucking service.
Aw crap, the phone timed out! No problem. it still plays in the background.
It patches in all the advantages of Premium… WITHOUT HAVING TO GIVE YOUTUBE ONE RED CENT.
And I fucking love it. And as compared to other useful apps from NON OFFICIAL SOURCES™ (aka Google Play won’t push this because it’s counterproductive to their greed), this one works just as well on non-rooted phones as it does on rooted phones.
(as mentioned IN the guide, you will need a fresh APK file for youtube because ReVanced Manager is gonna patch that. The guide has it linked but just in case you miss it, APK Mirror is your friend here:
Artist, Writer, Crafter of varying shades and hues. Also resident sassbucket.She/Her, affectionate tiger striped marshmallow.
Come for the insanity, stay to see my artworks and fic (both original and fan based [Multifandom - See also: Star Wars (Kylux), Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Tolkien (Angbang), Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Undertale, Original works, and more.
Crossovers happen. You might have to get used to that :3.]
Of course there will be other stuff of interest and importance.
