Nancy Jo Sales, writing for Vanity Fair:
“On Tumblr there’s ‘The Rich Kids of Instagram,’ which is these kids trying to show off their wealth, and it’s so not O.K., it’s revolting, but it still makes me feel bad about myself—kind of like I’m not part of it.”
She said there was a term for this, FOMO—fear of missing out.
She told me about parties where girls “literally wear nothing” and kids take Molly, MDMA. “The ‘in’ thing for girls to do is to really just go nuts at parties, just go insane. They feel like the more they drink and the crazier they act, the more guys will come to them.” Crazy how? “Dancing around, flashing their boobs.”
Attention-seeking, insecure, and manipulative adolescents will always be attention-seeking, insecure, and manipulative.
The fact that they can now use digital media to transmit their attention-seeking, manipulative insecurities only makes it easier for the rest of us to see it.
It doesn’t make bullying and manipulation OK, but we’re fooling ourselves if we think these are new problems caused by new media.
Same old problems, still sadly unsolved.