Piczo. Bebo. MySpace. Thirteen-year-old me loved curating pages, choosing songs and painstakingly refining my ‘top nine’ – there was an outcry in our friend group when one girl placed her MSN boyfriend above us. Like, how dare she? A little later, Facebook joined the ranks and we’d have cryptic conversations right there on the public wall, which over a decade later, leave me cringing when they pop up on the Memories feature.
Embarrassing comments are one thing, but what about when what we had to say as teens was a little more problematic? We put words and opinions out there for all the world to see, sometimes without truly understanding their gravity.
“Sometimes opinions can come from ignorance, immaturity and the environment you’re in at the time,” said Taran, 24.
Rosie, 26, added: “I am sure I said some things when I was a teenager that I absolutely in a million years wouldn’t say now, but that comes with age, worldliness and learning.”
Well, the world is listening to what we had to say then and what we have to say now. We are coming to a point where those who came of age as social media boomed are in their late 20s and early 30s. We are arguably under far more scrutiny, especially when it comes to being hirable than the generation before us, who started using these platforms as adults and can take more responsibility for the views they expressed.
Ironically, with this topic, I published a poll on Instagram Stories asking my peers what they thought about their social media use as teens. We reminisced about MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Friendster, HI5 and Facebook, and while the majority stated their posts were just cringy looking back, a few stated that they worried some of their comments back then could be considered offensive.
“There were some inappropriate statuses on MSN,” said Ian, 32.
Elle, 29, spoke about private conversations on the public Facebook wall, while another mentioned ‘rate my girls’ – where you’d ask others to rate your friends on their looks.
“We had ‘frapes’ – Facebook rapes – people getting into my Facebook and posting things without my knowing. Some of them were awful,” added Rosie. “I remember being embarrassed at the time, but everyone was doing it to everyone.”
Are private pages the way forward?
Last month, Alexi McCammond, 27, the newly hired editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, faced backlash, and eventually resigned, over anti-Asian tweets she had written aged 17. While 17 may be considered culpable in some countries, in the UK and US, she was a minor.
Although 85% of respondents answered no to whether we should be judged as adults on our teenage social media comments, many added a disclaimer, citing racism, homophobia and extremism as instances where it was okay to take into consideration as an adult.
Emily, 25, said: “If a post is homophobic or racist, it’s clear that what is being posted will cause offence [even it’s not intended for the whole world to see].”
Cat, 34, said: “I don’t believe we should judge others, but when we do, it is [often] when change hasn’t happened,” to which Taran added, “Certain things can be unlearned, but some things are part of someone’s character and don’t change.”
This month, a 22-year-old policeman was struck off for his alliance with a neo-Nazi group, which he joined aged 17. His association came to light due to his appearance in a 2017 promotional video, among other investigations. However, there are many instances of older people in positions of power – policemen, politicians, public figures – who have held these despicable opinions, but worked their way up as there was no public forum in which they expressed these views.
Should our past be so defining of our future? Does this provide an unfair disadvantage to young people today, or is it a good thing that we can start weeding out these behaviours as new generations fulfil these roles?
“I feel like the choices we make bring us to where we are today,” mused Nur, 27.
Image from brendangahan.com
Maria, 26, commented that in retrospect, she didn’t think [social media] was a safe space for teenagers. However, in 2021, social media has become part and parcel of daily life, but perhaps teens a lot more clued up than we were at its conception. We didn’t really see how things would develop over the next 15 years.
“I’m smart with what I post and know that once you post something, it stays on the internet forever,” said Renée, 14.
“[In fact], we see social media as the new way to make money. [Rather than] talk about being ‘influencers’, we use social media to brand ourselves.”
Renée is right. Countless young people have used social media to their advantage, building careers through exposure and smart branding. TV personality Molly-Mae Hague is currently worth over £2 million (April 2021), having become a brand ambassador and launching her own tanning company, while rapper KSI used his YouTube hobby to gain momentum and catapult him into a successful music career.
Perhaps there isn’t a clear answer for us millennials; this is just another round to job interviews and character judgements that come with the day and age. Generation X had their own stumbling blocks to work against, and Gen Z will probably have something we’ve not even dreamt up yet.