Latest news with #youthCulture
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Can Embracing Punk Save Gen Z — and Our Flailing Country?
The writer and performer John Cameron Mitchell has a message for members of Generation Z: Stop playing it safe and embrace punk. Mitchell, who wrote 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' sits down with Opinion's deputy editorial director of culture, Carl Swanson, to talk about what he learned touring around the country and talking with college students about rebellion. Below is a transcript of an episode of 'The Opinions.' We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Please note: parts of this conversation contain strong language. Carl Swanson: My name is Carl Swanson, and I'm the deputy editorial director for culture at Times Opinion. We are only four months into the second Trump administration, so it's too early to say what the cultural response will be, but it's not too early to ask the question: What should the response be from art, music and from youth culture? The actor, writer and director John Cameron Mitchell recently wrote an essay for us with an answer to that question: 'Today's Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
ABC News
22-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Fewer teens are drinking alcohol as social media, schools warn of danger
For a long time, drinking has been seen as a rite of passage for young Australians. "I feel like everyone's probably had a drink before they turned 18," says Mikaela, 15. "But, obviously, you know, because we're Australian, it's kind of normalised." Lissama and Atipa, who are both 18, agree that drinking is a characteristic of Australian culture. "Especially when people from other countries think about Australian culture, you think, 'Oh no, crack open a beer,'" Lissama says. "Pub culture and, like, just whenever you go out to find people you have drinks," Atipa says. A growing number of teens are questioning this ritual and the drinking habits of young people have started to shift. In 2001, 70 per cent of young people in Australia, aged between 14 and 17, had consumed alcohol in the past 12 months, according to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (2022–2023). But in the past few years, this has dropped to about three in 10 young people, a downward trend that has been seen worldwide, particularly in wealthier countries like Sweden and the UK. Mikaela says she has noticed this change among her friends. "There has been … less influence towards that kind of stuff [alcohol] in my personal group of people," she says. "I think it's because we do have lots of talks in school about this. "We're more educated on the dangers towards it." Craig Martin from the Alcohol and Drug Foundation says there are several factors at play here, but the biggest one is education. "People are … seeing their parents and maybe their grandparents who have consumed alcohol and [are] just thinking, 'Look it's not good for your health.'" Mr Martin says better education about the health risks of alcohol, as well as its relationship with violence, poor decision-making and mental health, has played a huge part in changing teen drinking habits. "We know that if someone does start drinking under the age of 18, they are more likely to develop alcohol dependence or become an alcoholic. "They are also more likely to experience other health and mental health issues." Alex, 14, agrees that consistent messaging at school has a lot to do with this downward trend. "I'm being told, 'Don't drink. It's poison, it is basically a drug,'" he says. "So, I think it's just more awareness, and we're getting told constantly, 'Don't do it.'" Ian Hickie from the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney says there's no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption for people under the age of 18, even if they're drinking at home under parental supervision. "When you're young, particularly between 12 and 25, your brain is growing and developing," Professor Hickie says. He says drinking alcohol as a teenager impacts the front part of the brain, which is the area that drives decision-making and behavioural regulation. "Things that teenagers do, particularly binge drinking – [having] high levels of alcohol suddenly – do damage the development of the frontal parts of the brain, and those cabling systems." None of this is news to young people. "When you are young, your decision-making isn't great already, so then drinking kind of adds on top of that, you make even more silly decisions," Atipa says. "Obviously it [drinking alcohol] is going to mess up some important functions in the brain and it will probably affect their future," Victor, 19 says. Experts say better education in schools has been crucial in reducing rates of underage drinking, but social media has also played a role. Gen Z influencers and content makers are sharing their experiences of being "sober curious" – exploring what life is like with reduced or no alcohol consumption – and documenting the physical and mental health benefits that come with it. Although new language and attitudes help challenge the norms of alcohol consumption, the old habits of Australian drinking culture die hard. For Jamie, 20, and Victor and Eden, both 19, this is predominantly linked to another hallmark of Aussie culture: sport. "Mainly at sporting events there's a lot of people drinking," Victor says. "There's probably a bit of a media presence as well, promoting alcohol sometimes in sports betting ads," Jamie says. "The goal should be zero per cent of under 18s consuming alcohol, and we're far from that," Mr Martin says. For now, Australia without a prominent drinking culture is hard to imagine for young people like Alex. "It always is at barbies, everything," Alex says. "It's just there, there's always alcohol around. It's never going to be going away anytime soon."
Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
On board the pimped-out buses driving Kenya's new language
Commuters travelling into central Nairobi from the eastern neighbourhood of Umoja pile on to a bus splashed liberally with Canadian red and white flags, medical-masked nuns with machine guns on the side and a gangster Pope Francis bringing up the rear. 'Am I extra or are you just basic?' the Pope's likeness asks passengers. Inside, a flat-screen TV shows American hip-hop videos, music blaring through speakers as riders sit in plush leather seats. Manyangas, as these wild, unregulated and ubiquitous buses are known, are cool in a way that London double-deckers never could be. The manyanga holds court over youth culture in Kenya, and conductors — or 'dondas' as they would say — are its kings. These stylish young transit wardens with silver-capped teeth and
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Government wants migrants fluent in English – pity the rest of us can barely speak it
It was an almost tear-jerking culture clash. I was on the train reading Raising Hare and, if you can read and know others enamoured of this skillset, I beg that you do the same. It's the most beautifully written story about a woman who, during the pandemic, adopts and shelters a leveret and how the animal changes her life and her understanding of nature. While a couple of seats away were some young men, joshing and discussing films. Or rather playing jarring videos from TikTok or some such and yelling things like, 'Oh my days, you gotta see dis, bruv'. And then some exclamatory swearing, which was the least offensive, harking back as it does to the romance of Latin and its evolution with English and, possibly, German and ancient French. The youth, I noted, were white, although they spoke in this strange faux Jamaican patois. If you want a great example of this, or rather an excruciating insight into this most gruesome affectation, look up someone on Instagram who goes by the name of 'hkvibing'. Watch as he takes viewers on a tour of his accommodation at Soho Farmhouse. He's a middle-class boy, clad, of course, in a hoodie, walking around the exclusive and chic confines of a private club in Oxfordshire often emitting a noise that sounds like 'aye', which I believe derives from the words 'all right'. 'It's sort of like Cotswold vibes,' he says. ''Here's where you put your wellies out and s--t, not gonna lie.' A highlight is when he presents the bath, or as he puts it: 'C'mon bubble baff ting'. God help us if his old English teacher, from, no doubt, a very expensive private school ever sees this. They would, as you will, despair and feel the need to seek out this chap and then whack him as hard as possible over the head with a heavy collected works of Shakespeare. Because 'hkvibing' and his ilk are doing their level best to destroy the language of English as we know it. Armed with that fatal weapon of the mobile phone, they will not countenance the idea of reading a book and would swerve any possibility of the cultural and mental enrichment that might follow. The language of these 'bruvs' with its cornerstones of 'should of' and 'kind of' and laced with that major, speech-defect of a word, 'like', and with 'yeahs' not 'yesses' and 'nahs' not 'nos' seems all the more painful as we commemorate VE day. Watch the extraordinary documentary Britain and the Blitz on Netflix and you'll weep as you see the way we dressed 80 years ago. You'll appreciate the successful descent we have made into full slobbery in fashion and tongue. And while I'm not suggesting BBC presenters revert to wearing black tie when they're reading the news, our national broadcaster doesn't exactly set an example. Take the charming Amol Rajan, presenter on BBC's Today programme, clad in his t-shirt and never missing an opportunity to deftly dodge a consonant. I'm still recovering from the time he interviewed the then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, setting out the stall for the ensuing interview and asked him, 'Are you cool with that?' or maybe it was 'wiv dat'. At least he didn't add the proverbial 'innit'. The sum total of this ignorance-promoting, culture-crucifying abuse of the English language being the statistic that nearly a fifth of adults in England have literacy levels that fall below those expected of an 11-year-old. And what is the Government's latest plan regarding the English language? To ensure that people have a clear grasp of the language to the equivalent of an A-level. That is if they're migrants. A white paper to be published next week, designed to tackle record levels of net migration, posits that to integrate into society, those who apply for a UK work visa must be able to produce clear, well-structured and detailed texts on complex subjects and speak English 'flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes'. Which, given our declining standards, mean they absolutely will not fit into society, as they'll stand out among the six and a half million English adults who are functionally illiterate. All the while, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson presides over managed chaos rather than actual teaching in so many British schools, where teachers are actively forbidden from administering discipline and if they do, they face the sack or, in the recent case of a Christian teacher, are booted out merely for refusing to use a male pronoun for an eight-year-old girl. And if there are establishments where English is well taught, in the private sector for example, Ms Phillipson's socialist instincts dictate that such heinous hotbeds of privilege be closed down. We who love the English language are now trapped between marketers who abuse our tongue and the plain or aspirationally ignorant. I wondered how to deal with the 'bruvvas' on the train. I could go over to them and ask, 'Hello chaps, I wonder if I might join your jolly book club?' But then, I thought, they might kick my head in, so, unable to concentrate on Chloe Dalton's sublime use of the English language I put my headphones in, revved up Netflix and watched an episode of Top Boy. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Government wants migrants fluent in English – pity the rest of us can barely speak it
It was an almost tear-jerking culture clash. I was on the train reading Raising Hare and, if you can read and know others enamoured of this skillset, I beg that you do the same. It's the most beautifully written story about a woman who, during the pandemic, adopts and shelters a leveret and how the animal changes her life and her understanding of nature. While a couple of seats away were some young men, joshing and discussing films. Or rather playing jarring videos from TikTok or some such and yelling things like, 'Oh my days, you gotta see dis, bruv'. And then some exclamatory swearing, which was the least offensive, harking back as it does to the romance of Latin and its evolution with English and, possibly, German and ancient French. The youth, I noted, were white, although they spoke in this strange faux Jamaican patois. If you want a great example of this, or rather an excruciating insight into this most gruesome affectation, look up someone on Instagram who goes by the name of 'hkvibing'. Watch as he takes viewers on a tour of his accommodation at Soho Farmhouse. He's a middle-class boy, clad, of course, in a hoodie, walking around the exclusive and chic confines of a private club in Oxfordshire often emitting a noise that sounds like 'aye', which I believe derives from the words 'all right'. 'It's sort of like Cotswold vibes,' he says. ''Here's where you put your wellies out and s--t, not gonna lie.' A highlight is when he presents the bath, or as he puts it: 'C'mon bubble baff ting'. God help us if his old English teacher, from, no doubt, a very expensive private school ever sees this. They would, as you will, despair and feel the need to seek out this chap and then whack him as hard as possible over the head with a heavy collected works of Shakespeare. Because 'hkvibing' and his ilk are doing their level best to destroy the language of English as we know it. Armed with that fatal weapon of the mobile phone, they will not countenance the idea of reading a book and would swerve any possibility of the cultural and mental enrichment that might follow. The language of these 'bruvs' with its cornerstones of 'should of' and 'kind of' and laced with that major, speech-defect of a word, 'like', and with 'yeahs' not 'yesses' and 'nahs' not 'nos' seems all the more painful as we commemorate VE day. Watch the extraordinary documentary Britain and the Blitz on Netflix and you'll weep as you see the way we dressed 80 years ago. You'll appreciate the successful descent we have made into full slobbery in fashion and tongue. And while I'm not suggesting BBC presenters revert to wearing black tie when they're reading the news, our national broadcaster doesn't exactly set an example. Take the charming Amol Rajan, presenter on BBC's Today programme, clad in his t-shirt and never missing an opportunity to deftly dodge a consonant. I'm still recovering from the time he interviewed the then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, setting out the stall for the ensuing interview and asked him, 'Are you cool with that?' or maybe it was 'wiv dat'. At least he didn't add the proverbial 'innit'. The sum total of this ignorance-promoting, culture-crucifying abuse of the English language being the statistic that nearly a fifth of adults in England have literacy levels that fall below those expected of an 11-year-old. And what is the Government's latest plan regarding the English language? To ensure that people have a clear grasp of the language to the equivalent of an A-level. That is if they're migrants. A white paper to be published next week, designed to tackle record levels of net migration, posits that to integrate into society, those who apply for a UK work visa must be able to produce clear, well-structured and detailed texts on complex subjects and speak English 'flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes'.
