What tween/teen show tropes piss you off?

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FablePaint's avatar
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What kind of tropes appear in kid's shows about teenage life (grammar school through pre-college/university) that you feel are inaccurate or need to disappear? The kinds of things that make it obvious whoever is writing grew up in the 80s or earlier and don't reflect what today's teens face?
For me, I always found it pretty weird that shows where the cast is 9 or 10 have characters obsessed with dating or the school dance. I was playing Pokemon at that age. I don't think I gave boys so much as a passing thought and the whole concept of dating was just an amorphous idea. Only when I was about 14 did relationships with the opposite sex mean anything more than "someone has a crush".
The other thing that bothered me was the freedom of motion the kids in these shows had. Never had to deal with helicopter parents shepherding them from activity to activity in preparation for college applications years down the line. There's no after-school programs they must attend. No extracurriculars (unless we're talking about school groups with strangely absent teacher attendants). That always was a big fixture of my life, but nothing I watched as a kid reflected that.
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lantairvlea's avatar
I agree on the relationship thing. I went through a brief "going out" thing with a boy in Jr. High, but decided that it really wasn't what I wanted/should be doing and put the thought of such things out of my head. I didn't plan on dating until after college (though did manage to find my husband second year, it figures you find him when you're not actually looking) and enjoyed many just plain friendships with guys without worrying about broken hearts or jealousy.

I also don't remember sex and drugs being rampant, but I also ran with a different crowd in a class of over 800. Even the "social outcasts" ran in groups.