In Year 11 history class, under the tutelage of Ms Osborne, I learned about the screaming bobby-soxers of the 1940s. They were the ones who paved the way for the invention of a 50s phenomenon called “The Teenager”: a new generation of youngsters who were neither children nor proper adults. Prior to the advent of teenagers, I read, people of that age group were considered to be “mini adults” – they dressed like their parents, went where they parents went and watched what their parents watched, passing the years much as their parents before them had while awaiting the sweet embrace of death. Thank God then, my textbook communicated, for the 1950s!
In the 90s, a good forty years after I had been invented, I myself was a finally a teenager. I caught the tail end of Britpop, and the resurgence of black music as “popular” music. I wore Kickers shoes and turned the band of my regulation uniform skirt over to make it as short as possible. With friends, I rode on the top decks of London buses for hours after school, being obnoxiously and unnecessarily loud. I also watched a ridiculous amount of telly, not least one of the most influential TV teenage icons of my – and indeed any – generation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “High school as a horror movie” is apparently how its creator Joss Whedon pitched the show to the network – and a TV legend was born.
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