{"id":1407,"date":"2017-06-07T04:03:48","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T04:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/07\/ill-be-watching-terrible-teen-dramas-until-i\/"},"modified":"2024-12-30T20:06:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T20:06:21","slug":"ill-be-watching-terrible-teen-dramas-until-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/07\/ill-be-watching-terrible-teen-dramas-until-i\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ll Be Watching (Terrible) Teen Dramas Until I Die"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the days of my early youth, before high school, I didn\u2019t care for stories about kids in high school. There will always be a series of shows for preteens about all the drama and excitement that the last 4 years of school brings. Shows like \u201cThat\u2019s So Raven\u201d, \u201cDrake & Josh\u201d, \u201cBoy Meets World\u201d, or others found on Disney, Nickelodeon, or Broadcast Primetime. And while I had plenty of fun watching \u201cBoy Meets World\u201d over the years, it had little to do with the show and more to do with a combination of hormones and Topanga. Maybe it\u2019s because they weren\u2019t \u201cserious\u201d or \u201creal\u201d, but other more serious dramas like \u201cMy So Called Life\u201d felt just as empty despite dealing with real issues on a regular basis. And then, in my junior year, the mock heard round the world was sounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWelcome to the O.C., bitch!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When \u201cThe O.C.\u201d aired, I finally realized what I was looking for in teen drama; complete fantasy. And not the mish-mashed, based-on-a-true-story masquerading as gritty realism like \u201cDangerous Minds\u201d, but 100% flash-in-the-pan teen fantasy that cuts right into the heart of a soap opera, leaving the tired husk behind. One that gives all the kids full-fledged adult agency with the fallback of having parents to protect them and a very minor amount of school to deal with, despite going to some elite institution and being an honor student. No work, all play. Twenty-five year old actors in the role of fifteen year old kids. \u201cBeverly Hills 90210\u201d, but with some real spice, where the consequences are made out to be monumental until they actually happen and somehow the inevitable courtroom appearance ends with a mistrial and the person who all the kids \u201caccidentally\u201d murdered deserved it in the end. Or maybe they didn\u2019t, but the kids move on anyway, brooding only when the story requires it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\tFrom there, I graduated to \u201cGossip Girl\u201d, a show whose cell phones were always 3 years removed from the present but still somehow captured the imaginations of tweens, teens, and \u201cadults\u201d. The show somewhat centers around a mechanic in which the entire upper-east side\u2019s elite teens flock to a single website for all of their upper-east side gossip. Which basically implies these elite teen\u2019s lives are so exclusive, even their internet usage is. It was Facebook and Instagram wrapped up in a gossip rag that actually determined how these people lived their lives. Back in 2007,  there was no single website, social media, or app, that made up your entire social atmosphere. But in Gossip Girl, it was like the site could eat up all the oxygen in the room and doom you to a social death. It was pure fantasy. WAS. Today it almost seems Nostradamic, but in a much more small, silly way. I loved it then and I love it now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then the age of vampires and werewolves was ushered in, and teen shows flocked to a more supernatural fantasy. \u201cTeen Wolf\u201d and \u201cVampire Diaries\u201d drew in big numbers, but for me, it was the wrong end of fantasy. My inner teen went into hibernation until, like a lightning bolt striking my heart, from the depths of ancient comics rose \u201cRiverdale\u201d. The show would take a simple, slice-of-life americana icon \u201cArchie\u201d and breath every ounce of modern teen melodrama throughout its very old skin. In its very first episode, it took every surprise from every long running teen series and plotted a course for insanity. We get the new girl in town arch, the father is an incarcerated businessman arch, the mother moves back to her hometown arch, the teen having sex with a teacher arch, the divorced parents arch, the incestual twin arch, the teen prodigy arch, the overbearing parent arch, the sibling with a nervous breakdown arch, the childhood love arch, the character narrating the story as an author framing device arch, and most importantly the murdered teen whodunit arch. I perfect storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, after the release of \u201cGotham\u201d, I should have seen \u201cRiverdale\u201d coming. I am now thirty years old and still emotionally involving myself in the world of fake adult teenagers. My connection to these shows always boils down to a single question. \u201cWhy?\u201d Why do they do any of this? Who are these people? In what universe do people parent in this disconnected yet oddly involved way? Why am I watching this? Because I was forged in the fire of Rumiko Takahashi and Clamp? Because Doug Funnie never got the girl? Because Clarissa never did explain it all? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?! I don\u2019t know. I love it. And if I die tomorrow, the title of this article would ring true. Cheers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The O.C, Gossip Girl, and Riverdale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1681,1688,1692],"tags":[1213,319,1218,1219,1222,608,1212,1214,1216,1210,1215,1217,1015,1220,1221,1211],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-personal-stories","category-television-articles","tag-archie","tag-articles","tag-blaire-waldorf","tag-chuck-bass","tag-cw","tag-drama","tag-gossip-girl","tag-jughead","tag-marrisa","tag-riverdale","tag-ryan-atwood","tag-serena-van-der-woodsen","tag-teen","tag-teen-drama","tag-the-cw","tag-the-oc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2291,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions\/2291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avoutput.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}