Teenagers are stereotypically deemed as “rebellious” in popular culture, but in fact it is the exact opposite: they are incredibly conformist, utterly desperate to fit in a group, but that group tends to be against the culture of their parents. They are conformists to mimesis, the winds of fashion of their generation, which is why they are incredibly similar to one another, especially in a digital era where mimesis dominates conscious introspection and lived experience, the source of real individuality.
We could thus say that there are two directions that mimesis can spread in: vertically, i.e. between generations, and horizontally, within the same generation. Ideas and patterns tend to spread very quickly horizontally with the advent of the internet, but not so well vertically, and the gap between generations seems to get worse and worse as people have a greater ability to stay within their clique, without interacting with anyone else.
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2024-10-27