Youth

In 1904 Stanley Hall wrote Adolescence in 2 volumes in 1904, in this text he puts forward a theory known as the ‘Storm & Stress Model’, despite being written over 100 years ago it is still relevant to modern youth stereotyping in music magazines. In short, Hall argues the following: 

 “ Adolescence is inherently a time of storm & stress when all young people go through some degree of emotional and behavioural upheaval, before establishing a more stable equilibrium at adulthood." Hall also argued that:
1. The common mood of teenagers is a state of depression.
2. Criminal activity increases between the ages of 12 & 24.
3. Young people are extreme and need excitement; “Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in; sex, drink or drugs.”

Even though not all youths are; depressed, drug, sex addicted criminals, these over the top stereotypes still sell music magazines to youth audiences because they can make a music magazine look; edgy, rebellious, anti-establishment and exciting. In other words, youths who feel they are rebellious will think the magazine represents them and youths who are not rebellious themselves may still find reading about rebellious people more interesting than reading about straight A students who dress and behave like they are on Songs of Praise. 

Bill Osgerby argues that the portrayal of ‘youth’ in the media has not really altered much in the last 100 years (interestingly repeat patterns occur e.g. 1980s hooliganism and the recent riots) and is by-en-large pessimistic; “We do not have to search too hard to find negative representations of youth in postwar Britain. Crime, violence and sexual licence have been recurring themes in the media’s treatment of youth culture, the degeneracy of the youth depiction as indicative of a steady disintegration of the UK’s social fabric” (Osgerby, 1998).
However, Osgerby goes onto argue that; “The portrayal of youth is not entirely pessimistic,” he argues that “Mixed metaphors” appear when analysing the representation of youth. He claims; “Dual stereotyping of youth,” creates these mixed metaphors that Dick Hebdige (1988) termed; “Youth as fun,” and “Youth as trouble maker.”

In the 05:00 skins extract it supports Stanley Halls’ theory as the character ‘tony’ is obsessed with sex as his bed cover has naked people on them. He also stares (eyeliner match) at his older neighbour get dressed across the street but it disrupts his theory as he has a very tidy room and is awake before his alarm goes off, he does support the theory more by rebelling against his dad so his sister (who supports Stanley’s theory) can sneak back in the house as she has clearly been out all night. his dad shouts and swears at him yet he remains calm still which disrupts Stanley's theory but later supports it when he leaves the house and starts swearing down the phone at his friend.