New World of YouTube Fan Fiction - Questions and Choices for Teenagers and Parents

New World of YouTube Fan Fiction - Questions and Choices 

for Teenagers and Parents

"The culture of fandoms is relatively new. Not being a fan of someone per se, but today it's easier to feel connected to a celebrity or creator. Back then they were just celebrities so they may not understand how we feel as though we know them." Helena…teen creative writer on Wattpad…connected at 12 years

 

Have you heard of Wattpad on YouTube, a special community where 13 year old teens can set up an account, write and read stories by some of their favorite stars? Does it matter if internet safety experts have concerns about X-rated, dark, violent, sexual or offensive content with recommendations “you’ll also like this.” 

Psychologists explain teens can be fixated with popular celebrities and favorite online stars; made to feel special by belonging and consuming anything and everything. This new special YouTuber hero (heroine) talks directly to the camera, up close and personal, with effective eye-contact to give the feeling of authentic friendship.

Have you heard of this new term called  a parasocial relationship between fans and YouTubers, where they feel a particularly strong sense of allegiance through their vlogs?

"In a parasocial relationship, the audience comes to feel that the personality is a friend and they experience the person as if they were in a reciprocal relationship, rather than a one-sided one … this experience is amplified in social media where influencers respond to comments and fans, increasing the illusion of friendship."  Pamela Rutledge (media psychologist)

So what happens if Fan Fiction can have adult themes or turn dark or inappropriate with nude references to  the “biggest horny boy ever met,”  or violence, homophobia and even suicide?  

Is the adolescent brain assaulted again by content it is not emotionally mature enough to understand?  Or worse yet, grow neuronal pathways that this is normal behavior or culturally appropriate.

Smut warnings exist; screenshots are shared to Instagram for more viewers. There are no age restrictions on the majority of fan fiction sites. Even Wattpad notes that “problems can also arise if the fantastic online world starts to get in the way of their real offline life.”

One teen writer thinks fan fiction is something older people just don't understand like teenagers do or value “fandom.” She admits there is certainly mature adult themes that can get pretty dark sometimes; but she reads the descriptions first and knows what she is getting into. She is glad to be part of it.  Good for her … easier said than done.

My teacher's heart breaks. I loved to teach creative writing to my students. There were formal rules to write many different kinds of paragraphs from descriptive to expository with many outlines to structure from least to most important with a comprehensive conclusion. Novel studies further outlined the importance of settings and plot for a suspenseful mood to paint the main character and add conflict to the antagonist. 

But, today, by reading this one article, I had to add some new dictionary vocabulary to this social media revolution:

Wattpad, internet safety expert, media psychologist, parasocial relationship, online Fan Fiction, fandom, YouTubers, adultification. (I knew what a vlog is.)

Once again, what I call the Social Media Medusa Manipulator extends her domain into creative writing for teens with or without positive intentions … right or wrong answers ... leaving the choice to a teenager to make a logical choice during an emotional transition of time.

Once again, do parents have to worry … or not? Where do children go if something upsets them beyond their years? Definitely, the responsibility lies  with the parents to control these safety settings, sometimes harder to do with moving targets and fly-by-night influencers.

"There's nothing more important than having an open dialogue with your child about what and who they are engaging with online. Having regular, honest, and open conversations with your child is the best way to stay in tune."

Carolyn Bunting, the CEO of Internet Matters, an organization dedicated to keeping children safe online.

This is the reality of our Internet Revolution where the average child owns their first smartphone at 10.3 years and can open  accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Kik and Snapchat.

Are parents somewhat complicit in allowing their kids exposure to content that generation ago would be off limits?  

Is the stage set for early adultification making the right time for marketers to take advantage of adolescent social rites of passage? 

So many questions. What do you think? What are the problems? What are the solutions? I believe more than tactics are required to stop this social media  infiltration with a different mindset for teenagers.

Sincerely,

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

833 471 4661 (please leave a message for the best time to talk)

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com

PS: I welcome podcast interviews. See previous blogs.

Excerpt: Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand - a timely tale of social media struggles, regrets and survival with superpower tool.

"Imagine, you are just 14 years old, yet your brain is wired for positive feedback which gets a dopamine spike with every click, every buzz, to keep the story fresh and wanting more.  How could it be any other way? Your habit of posing and posting becomes like an itch, somebody else's itch, but you got to keep scratching it, painful as it may be at times, because sometimes you get the word LIKE.

And here's the true tragedy. Many young people who inhabit their smart phones will refuse to face any other truth beyond their existence on their smart phones because it becomes the core of their experience. Think about that. Mass media will never apologize for what it is doing because it makes money. Cosmetics and fashion are expensive. Sex sells whether you are 14 or 40. Did you know plastic surgeries have increased by nearly 100% in the last few years?"

Read the full article: YouTuber Fan Fiction Teens Exposure to Violent Sexual Content 

Two Big Picture Questions and Teacher’s Answers that Matter for Parents and Teen Girls on Social Media

Two Big Picture Questions and Teacher’s Answers for Parents that Matter for Teen Girls on Social Media

"No teen girl should be like an insect nymph getting sustenance from the environment dominated by a Giant Clown Face. What kind of organism would destroy its youth society through mind control before reaching the adult stage? What kind of adulthood would result?"

Excerpt from Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand

On a recent podcast show for parents I was asked a pointed question upfront:

What is the one thing about you that would make parents want to listen to you?  

The answer was simple, drawn from a long background of pride and achievement.  I am a  teacher, now retired, with 24 years of teaching experience. I am a disciplined teacher with total faith in the teaching principles such as asking questions, analyzing content, making a decision with multiple viewpoints. 

Good teaching results in good learning such as comprehension, association, critical and creative thinking. My main job as an educator was to show the Big Picture of any unit study … how all the parts fit together to make any system function as a whole.

However, we are now faced with a new unprecedented unit of study…it’s new, only 20 years old, it’s a technological revolution affecting humanity. Social media has absorbed our communication systems for better or for worse. 

As adults, with wisdom, we can try to cope and handle the changes. But what about teenagers, especially teen girls, how do they find their way without rules, discipline or foresight? How do their adolescent brains know what is right or wrong, dangerous or doable without consequences? What viewpoint do they have to see the Big Picture of how social media has impacted their normal social rites of passage and potential?

And so, I wrote this short e-book with a Big Picture. A teen girl narrates her story of making some bad choices about Selfies and drugs pointing to a symbol of the Social Media Circus impacting an adolescent brain in a dream. She keeps asking, “Is it my fault?”  Her grannie helps to explain the transition of time as experiences with symbols in the sand and the power of choice made in reference to a timeline with 3 essential questions. 

My deep fear is that young teen girls can find too much sustenance on Social Media which can metamorphose into adult lifestyles that defy cultural norms.

The second important question was: what is the most important message you can give to parents? Such an important answer deserved two parts:

First, there is an image in the story that shocked me even to think about it where symbols can mean so much more than words. One of the main characters is a symbol of the Social Media Clown Face … a huge, amorphous, hatch-tagged, cell-phone slinging organism that appears again and again. Another real symbol is the damselfly that represents the fragility of life and self-survival skills of even the smallest being.

In the last chapter, the two symbols meet. The teen girl relates to the damselfly nymphs that survive in their underwater environment with their special appendages for many years only to emerge as adults, to mate, lay eggs and die within weeks. The shocking image shows a nymph with a teenager’s profile finding nourishment and sustenance from this huge Social Media Clown face. The words ring loud and clear:

   Yes, perhaps, like a nymph, I, too, have struggled with my adolescent brain. However, my food supply was scavenged from a giant clown face imposing sexualized Selfies, trying to molt me into grand media impositions, a classification where I never belonged. It never gave me the strength or confidence as a child to metamorphose into a strong capable adult.

As a society, we need to take a closer look at this Big Picture and what matters to our youth as they transition into adulthood to build a sustainable culture.   

Second, parents always ask for advice about better ways to communicate with teenagers in competition with social media. There is much advice to be found on the internet. My best message, however, is to spend as much time as possible with your teenager doing anything that doesn’t involve a cell phone in your hand … making dinner, playing a game, helping a community project, building a  sandcastle.  Since learning is based so much on experience and repetition to form new pathways in the brain, it  is so important to replace ONLINE time with OFFLINE time together. It might even be fun enough to do again and again.  

The heavy-duty social media wavelength is here to stay in sickness and in health. What we all need is the key to better choices to value our personal timeline as our most valuable commodity. This is the theme of the story called Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand.

Ask yourself the same question: what is the one thing that would make people want to listen to you?

Questions and comments are always important. For more podcast questions check this blog. What other questions would you ask this teacher? Challenge her experience because she is the first to admit she has never posted a Selfie! 

 Sincerely,

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

833 471 4661

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com 

Excerpt: "I idly trace a square shape in the slightly damp sand.  Yes, I can call this yesterday … can't relive it but learn from it.  Fill it up so many bad choices, so many regrets without the context of present and future. I was so young to be powered by a rash and brash developing brain. I am now so much better informed about new vocabulary and protection in our changing society.

.

Then, something different, I trace a long deep line in the sand and mark off a short section near the beginning. This is my total lifeline and this very short segment shows my teenage years. Six short years can make a profound difference on a long lifeline, that's for sure.

Now I draw a heavier more rippled line above my lifeline. This, I think, is the internet's social media timeline.  It is powerful and here to stay forever; but I will not allow its size and influence to affect this small section of my life called teen years. I will not fall into a hole created by the Media monster."

 

Seven Parents' Solutions to Wasting Time by Teenagers on Social Media and More About Mindset

Seven Parents’ Solutions to Wasting Time by Teenagers on Social Media and More about Mindset

It is conventional wisdom that Steve Jobs put a ‘dent in the universe’. No, he didn’t. Steve Jobs, in my view, spat on the universe. People who get up every morning, get their kids dressed, get them to school and who have an irrational passion for their kids well being, dent the universe. The world needs more homes with engaged parents, not a better f•ckin phone. Scott Galloway ‘the four’:

I received this comment from a parent who read my ebook TeenGirl Faces Time in the Sand.

I’m looking for some advice about setting some rules for my teen daughter crazy hours on social media. She doesn't seem able to want to talk anymore…Susan B

My first response is to share your concerns with a question: did your daughter also read the e-book?  A short story (54 pages) about one teen girl who made mistakes because of social media and found survival with a special superpower tool by which to respect her choices and timeline. I believe a change in personal mindset is necessary to find or believe in a more important value than living in a virtual world.

The biggest question is how can anyone control this technological digitized tide? Social media has flooded our society and cultural values. We have all been thrown into these radical changes and must learn to swim or sink. As adults, we have more maturity to handle the ebb and flow; and even then, we can make serious mistakes. 

However, as teenagers who are still developing their self-identity and social consciousness, their experiences can have long term consequences. How can we prevent a tragedy of a teen girl who makes a bad choice that can affect her potential for a lifetime? What kind of solution is personal and more permanent even beyond parental involvement?

But first, there are a few strategies that will help teens navigate social media:

1. Be a role model yourself by using less cell phones.
2. Keep dialogue open about ways to stay safe especially with new apps and websites. Ask questions about purpose and experiences.
3. Ask your teenager to keep a weekly or monthly  calendar to track and update activities. It’s a place to set personal goals and action plans.  As well, an online daily planner can keep track of assignments to be responsible for getting work done. Be sure the teen keeps the routine without constant reminders and no need to nag.
4. Of course, trying to tell teenagers what to do, doesn’t work well and may question their ability to “grow up” on their terms. But you can talk about why it is important to create a schedule with a list of priorities to use time wisely. Make specific times for video games or social media as well as for chores, homework and other responsibilities, including time for fun, too. Break big tasks into smaller ones.
5. Talk about how to resolve conflicts in time management based on values and commitments. Is a movie date more important  than a family dinner?
6. Set parental rules about your expectations as part of the teen’s list of priorities. Some rules will help to create healthy habits. Explain consequences when necessary. Don’t punish but reward better cell phone usage.
7. Off course, to take the cell phone away is like an amputation to a living social being which can create more angst, frustration or depression. But you can try to set limits on electronics. The daily planner with a self-written list of things to do, may limit the number of hours playing games, posing and texting.

As you can see, for both parent and teenager, with so much digital competition, specific time management is essential. A personal framework must be set up to plan, sets goals with action plans, to list priorities, note achievements and not to procrastinate.  Nobody wants high levels of stress trying to cope with information overload or be a lifelong procrastinator.

Bottom line: Nobody wants to waste time. So do you agree that wasting time is a negative value in our society? If so, what can we do to show that time is your most valuable resource…you can only play it forward inside a circle of Today, and once it turns into a block called Yesterday, it can’t be replayed. However, the blocks from the Past are the foundation for the Present which lead into the Future.

The strange paradox of time, in its infinity,  is that it can only be managed in a very small-time frame called today and today can be sparked by a tinier matter of choice.

But how can you explain this to a young teen age girl? The question is asked in the story: What if you had the power to see the future and how your actions today may affect tomorrow? Would you make the same choice?

As basic solutions, I believe we all agree that open communication and time management skills are important to keep teenagers safe from risky online exposure and wrong choices.  

However, as an educator, I think we need more. Teenagers need to develop a stronger mindset that their own time is as valuable, if not more valuable, than screen time playing in someone else’s reality. Their solution is personal, meaningful and more permanent.

A mindset is developed via a learning process and lesson plans. Read the next blog about understanding why a new TIME MINDSET is so important to deflect from wasting time on social media with specific lesson plans.

Sincerely,

Annemarie Berukoff

amarie10@gmail.com

833 471 4661

Excerpts from Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand:

"You're right, dear," Grannie said quietly. "I don’t know and I can't undo your past but there is a truth I know can help you from now on.

There's a strange magic begins to happen when you know that TIME controls a CHOICE and a HABIT, but HABIT is NOT THE SAME THING AS A CHOICE.  A choice can happen in an instant. A habit will follow you as heavy and long as you want.

But this choice is instant, like a match flame. Ignite a wrong choice; it can lead to bad habits … even burn out your foundation who you want to be. Or you can make the right choice which becomes a stepping stone towards better habits and future..."

"I am waiting for something big to happen, like in the movies, but Grannie continues,

"In fact, let me take a step back. People have a limit of 24 hours a day. We assume that the noise in our head is in the head of other people like us. But there has never been a society which is so overloaded with noises, sights, and egos through the use of Smart phones and the internet.

So, we think what others want us to think; make quick choices others want us to make, which turn into habits at the end controlled by others. And habits, like well used runways, in the brain, are the hardest chains to break once built. Like I read once, we become carbon copies of present culture. The younger ones are the most vulnerable trying to copy in the wink of an eye.

Remember a choice is not a decision. It is only the spark that begins a decision through multiple steps which may result in forming habits, but that is another discussion."