My teenager came home crying for the umpteenth night in a row. She hates school. What to do? She starts GCSE’s next year…Can I home educate her? I can’t do maths or science. I could probably hire a tutor for those. And all the other subjects she’s interested in…like conspiracy theories (can you get a job in that?), philosophy, and…hairdressing. Well it’s a trade isn’t it?
Won’t send her to a sink comp. Trouble is it’s isolating for an only child not to be at school.
She and her Wimbledon friend are addicted to Bebo, a social networking site for the younger crowd. Narcissism and self-exhibition are rife, they spend hours taking photo’s of themselves. One of the self-portrait fashions is to wear dust-masks, which is frankly quite S&M. But this is a fashion started in Japan, home of the Harajuku kids, and it is common to wear dust masks to prevent catching colds on the crowded streets and trains. Her Wimbledon friend is ‘Bebo famous‘ and knows many of the Bridgend suicides… There are also ‘beauty groups’ where you either get invited or you ask to join… you put your picture up and say “join?’ and then they either choose you or not. Some of the beauty groups are only for Bebo-famous people, the 15 most known girls such as Doogle, MikkiMurder, TechnoStar, KandehTragic, KittyConi, Piratehooker. They wear tons of makeup and often only show one eye. You must have dyed hair and be emo, scene kid, metalface (loads of piercings). These people have fan groups. One of my teenager’s friends who comes from a ‘BCBG‘ conventional French family, well her user name is Yourawhore. Wonder what her parents would make of that!
One of the main rules is that you can’t spell anything normally… gay becomes ghey, for instance
Dear ML,
Just reading your blog… my very good friend is a phd in maths, lectures at the LSE and also privately tutors all ages and levels in the subject… I know she would love to tutor your daughter if she ever needed any help in the subject..
xcx
As someone from this age group back then and was somewhat “Bebo famous”, I would love to know how your daughter is doing now. I hope she is thriving in life and well.
Reading “narcissism and self-exhibitionism is rife, they spend hours taking photos of themselves” made me laugh, you are right, and I wanted to know how you feel about social media now as it is far, far worse 😭
I hope you are well and thank you for taking so much interest in your daughter’s life and what she was doing online. A lot of our parents didn’t care at all! Lots of love x
she’s doing super well as a political journalist