Are you aware of this wildly disturbing new trend where teens (anywhere from 10-16) post YouTube videos of themselves asking people to comment on whether or not they are pretty or ugly? Because I recently caught wind of the situation via an NPR segment (side note: I’m much worldlier now that I spend 2 hours a day in a car!), and I absolutely cannot get over it.

Here’s one of the first pieces that broke the “trend” from Jezebel, another piece on the issue from the HuffPo, and the NPR coverage I listened to yesterday afternoon.

Apparently it’s as simple as this: a teen girl (or guy, but in most cases girl) uses her laptop webcam to record a short video in which she asks members of the YouTube audience (so, the world) to comment on her looks. “Am I pretty?” she may say, “Because people at school say I’m pretty, but I just want to know for real if I’m really pretty.” Or she may say, “Am I fat and ugly? My brother says I’m fat, and some kids at school tell me I’m ugly, so, you know, I just want to see if you all thing I’m really fat and ugly. I think I probably am, but I thought I’d ask to see for real.”

That second one is a real transcript from a real video of a real 11-year-old girl. (Note: I’ve decided not to post any of the videos here because I don’t want to promote them.)

Once the video is posted, the comments start rolling in…by the thousands. In the case of one specific video sighted in the Jezebel article, “responses ranged from the cruel (“your forehead scares me”) to blunt (“just get bangs”) to wise, at least for YouTube. (“youre not ugly, society is.”)” Those are among the most tame I’ve read in my limited YouTube scanning. Many of the comments are absolutely brutal and contain physical as well as character commentary (from, “you’re a dog!” to “what kind of dumb bitch asks this??”).

I don’t think I need to point this out, but for sake of clarity on my position: THIS IS A MASSIVE PROBLEM.

I don’t know where to begin with the state of teens these days (you know you’re old when…) – their need for approval, their focus on appearance, the insanely public nature of their lives. During that NPR call-in show, one expert explained that today’s teens place far more importance on what the general public thinks of them than family or close friends. I’m not surprised. These kids grew up in an age where celebrity is something that can achieved by anyone who can enough people to follow their every action. They don’t see anything wrong with opening themselves up to compliment or criticism from complete strangers.

Some of that is a given. I myself publish a blog and keep an updated Twitter account. I get the fact that these are the times we live in, but that doesn’t mean we can’t protect and prepare young people to deal with the brand new world.

My very first question when things like this happen is always, how did no one in the life of this child (because teens are children) know this was going on? The answer is that most teens have their own laptops in their own rooms, which are not monitored. Unfortunately that’s not a problem for me to solve.

What I/we all can do I this: talk to the teenager(s) in our life about this whole situation – a cousin, a sister, a student, a friend of the family, I don’t care. If you don’t know any teenagers, talk to adults you know who have teenaged children. SO much can be done by just addressing the trend/issue in an open conversation.

Kids are bound to do experimental things, and with the Internet at arm’s reach, those options have expanded a thousand fold. It’s our job (yes, even us 28-year-olds with no kids on the horizon for some time) to make sure they understand what they’re doing and, most importantly, why they’re doing it.

End rant.

Next week we return to topics more along the lines of how hungover I get these days.