Disgusted....

So, I came across an article shared by my sweetie about a new trend among teens and tweens on youtube. The trend is to post a video beseeching the world wide web to answer honestly if they are pretty/handsome or not.

And before I would allow myself to formulate an opinion, I checked out some of these videos as well as some articles written up about it. I was disgusted...period.

And while I understand the need to be accepted, and to know how others view you; I find that subjecting yourself to the "masses" in such a way is masochistic at best and don't even get me started on the "at worst" side of it.

With the rise in teen suicides due to bullying -both of heterosexual teens and of homosexual teens- I wonder where the logic is in this.

Don't kids know that people are killing themselves over what some ass-hat may think or say, and yet they are going to subject themselves to this kind of thing WILLINGLY. Pardon me when I say, "What the FUCK!!!".

Is this what technology has bred? Have we become so desperate for instant answers and instant gratification that we do these hateful and hurtful things to ourselves?

I mean hell, I get how much it sucks to be picked on in school. I understand how much it hurts to even once be told you are anything but pretty, anything but awesome, and anything but cool. And I understand it on a small scale of the kids I was enrolled in junior high and high school with....I can't even fathom having the whole world nipping at my ankles and jabbing at me with unveiled insults.

I so don't understand the need for teens to do this. This is beyond insanity. And part of me is going where are their parents, why are they not "parenting". How are these kids even allowed to create an account on youtube and make such videos undetected by their parents?

I mean I could blame the parents, but really I think society has created this, media has created this.

And now, we all must sit back and watch.

Hell, some of us are probably sitting back and ENJOYING watching this like some new best-selling reality television show...because after all isn't that what this is?

It is the need for instant answers, the infatuation with all things "reality" based, that we mindlessly tune into on our TV sets that has bred this.

And these kids are now the victims of pop culture.

I won't be surprised to see the teen suicide rates jump dramatically at this infux of "Am I pretty" videos. And sadly, I will have to say, we as a society will all be to blame.

We ALL will have these beautiful children's blood on our hands.

And because of that, my heart breaks.

Nothing I can say will convince these kids that they are beautiful beyond measure, nothing I could write will undo all the damage that has already been done. Because the reality of it is, that if they would go THIS far, they already believe they are everything shy of "perfect".

Gawds, what have we as a society done??