Once upon a time – in August, in fact – I proposed putting together a list of teenagers blogging progressively.
I didn’t find many, but I was impressed by the variety. These are blogs by teenagers from a number of different countries, of different genders, identifying as trans and cis, with various sexual orientations, claiming different ability statuses, of different backgrounds, blogging their lives and books and activism and analysis. Not only do these bloggers write some great stuff, but when you’re next asked where all those politically apathetic teenagers are, you can point here.
Speaking of which, before I give you the list I want to have a brief discussion about where all those teenagers are. The lack of teenagers around progressive political spaces doesn’t speak to apathy. I know that’s not the case because I’ve been fortunate enough to keep company with some amazing politically-conscious teens. I might not always agree with the politics involved – have I ever known some conservative teenagers – but I admire the spirit behind it all, the passion about the world, regardless. Teenagers have, in fact, been some of the most driven, informed, effective activists I’ve known.
Here’s what I think the lack of teens in progressive spaces points to. Teens are, well, few in number. Our voices are discounted because we’re not taken very seriously by older people – and those younger than us are termed cute and then put out of mind. We’re in spaces of our own, doing work quite without the influence (interference, oftentimes!) of older people; not being in older people-centred spaces doesn’t mean we’re not around. We’re invisible; the meme of the selfish teen is so strong that our presence is regularly ignored. That is, we might actually be around, but we go unacknowledged or unrecognised as teens by those who don’t think anyone under twenty would be (as “anonymous” media like the Internet can illustrate perfectly). We’re also in positions of social vulnerability, often lacking the resources and knowledge to connect with fellow activists or to realise our potential as activists.
And I think it is just amazing that people who are so belittled, who lack much social clout and who are regularly invisibilised go on and do such good work in the world anyway.
I don’t doubt that the blogs listed below are only a fraction of those floating around the Internet. I’m pretty sure that there are those who, as I did for a time, decided that not making their teenagerhood explicit would afford them more respect. And one of the reasons it took me so long to collect these is that I don’t see many blogs by teens get linked around the progressive ‘sphere very much (or in the blogosphere in general, for that matter).
So, here you go. Please support these bloggers by clicking through and commenting if you’re so inclined.
Adventures of the TV Addict, the Wannabe Writer, and the Should-Be Famous by T.R Xands
All Girl Army, a group blog
Barbara’s Angels by Fiona Lowenstein
Charlotte’s Blog
Dorianisms by Dorian
fbomb, a group blog
genderkid
HellOnHairyLegs
Leaper’s Journal by Shiyiya
Outside the Dawn is Breaking
Reading in Color by Ari
stars wheel in purple by Avendya
The Ranting Teenager
The Trouble Is…
Warning: Caustic Contents by Labyrinth
Women’s Glib, a group blog
Hmm. I’m going to be nineteen for, let me see, a little under four months. Will you come back to this list then and remove me? A lot of what you say isn’t true for me, and I know you were speaking in generalities, but I’d just like to note that I’m pretty active in spaces dominated by older people (including running one), am quite open about my age, and have never experienced anything other than graciousness and respect from older bloggers on the basis of my age. Melissa McEwan comes to mind as someone who has been exceptionally wonderful in that respect. I’m also a little puzzled by your assertion that we do work without the influence of older people. Surely our work is influenced by many, and as a numbers game most of them will be older…?
I do agree that youth is a really important aspect of a young person’s life and, consequently, their work. One reason why people in the blogosphere know my age is that I couldn’t talk about my life without it.
But I see the grouping of teenagers as not matching up with my reality, I guess. I feel like I have a lot more in common with a 20 year old than I do with a 15 year old. I have a lot of power to marginalize younger teenagers. But I will still be a “young” feminist blogger in four months.
I know I’m rambling on your blog. The fact of the matter is, I want to clarify that I don’t agree with or share the listed experiences in this post. I thought it was important, since my name is up there and all. I am a teenage blogger, for a little while longer, and in other aspects of my life doors are closed to me because of my youth, but I do not see myself as a marginalized teenage blogger.
PS: I’m sorry the top post on my blog right now doesn’t show off my maturity. ^_^ Slightly bad timing!
You will most likely have to remind me, but sure, I’ll remove you then – or now if you’d prefer – if you like. :)
I guess influence wasn’t quite the right word, I meant that sometimes teens do work in youth-run orgs; I’m not just talking about blogs here.
As you said, there are generalisations here; they don’t match up with my lived experience, either, but on what I’ve heard from younger folk in, well, general. These are all experiences that a lot of people have, as I’m sure you’re aware. Yeah, age is an interesting one, you don’t automatically gain power/lose at a particular age or anything – well, legal powers one does. It’s artificial.
You can ramble as much as you like here! I don’t see myself as a marginalised teenage blogger either, I just see that, as you said, age influences various aspects of one’s life and how people relate to one. As a politically conscious person and as a writer – not specifically a blogger – I’ve been through some not so nice things on account of my age, and so have lots of other people. I’m really happy that you, however, have had good experiences in the blogosphere! We don’t all have one monolithic experience after all! :)
ETA: I’m wondering what you mean here: ‘I want to clarify that I don’t agree with or share the listed experiences in this post’. I don’t know how it’s possible to agree or not agree with someone else’s experiences. Could you clarify?
Awesome list, Chally. Until you started talking a lot about the experience of being a teenager and how your words started being treated differently once you outed yourself as one, I never thought about it much at all. I appreciate you talking about your experiences as frankly as you have. Certainly it’s been part of the reason I’ve started talking on my tumblr (less so right now, but still) about the way we dismiss and denigrate teen girl experiences.
I mean, really – what’ the worse thing to be? A teen girl who likes teen girl things! Or so pop culture keeps telling me.
I have a few random thoughts to add here. (I’m in my late thirties, BTW.)
I’m involved in some activist projects, and we’re organizing a lot of people in their early twenties. I am awestruck about the level of knowledge younger people have about intersectionality – I think the blogosphere has a lot to do with it, and also various organizing workshops plus workshops that go on at the large protests (like the recent one protesting the Olympics). (This is something teens living with their parents would not generally be able to go and do – hence the invisibility you described.) It’s not just the level of knowledge, but also a general political savvy.
This is new. I’ve been doing various organizing since the early nineties, and back then it seemed like the number of people without a clue far outnumbered the clueful people. I left a number of organizations out of frustration. But that’s changing, and the change is coming from the under-thirty set.
So that’s folks in their early twenties. But I also know of some awesome teen organizing going on – in Seattle, there’s a youth group, run by youth, doing great work. Here it is:
http://www.sypp.org/
“ETA: I’m wondering what you mean here: ‘I want to clarify that I don’t agree with or share the listed experiences in this post’. I don’t know how it’s possible to agree or not agree with someone else’s experiences. Could you clarify?”
I tried parallel structure and it didn’t work. ;;
[I don't] (1) agree with [or] (2) share the listed experiences in [this post].
Cheers Anna and Kristin!
I’m still not understanding, quixotess; do you mean that for some of the experiences, you don’t share them but you acknowledge that they are experiences that people have, and for others you don’t agree that they are experiences that people have? That’s how I’m reading it but that doesn’t seem like something you’d say. Could you also tell me if you would prefer me to take you off the list now or later?
Aww man, okay. I mean that I don’t agree with the post, and I don’t share the experiences in the post. I’m okay with being on the list for now as long as that’s clear.
Okay. Well, the post is concerned with a list of bloggers who are in their teens who blog on progressive issues; I genuinely don’t understand what there is to disagree with there apart from, well, making the list at all which I’m sure you don’t mean.
So I suppose you mean where I talk about those experiences you don’t share? Again, I’m not sure how’s it’s possible to disagree with other people’s lived experiences as listed in this post. These are experiences people actually have, you can’t just disagree with events in people’s lives anymore than you can disagree with apples. Apples exist, you may not eat them yourself, but they’re around. For instance, you mentioned the blogosphere; here’s an example of age-based discrimination I’ve experienced as a blogger. Now, I indisputably received that email, and my personal experience was one of being belittled. If another person came up to me and said, ‘oh, that wasn’t a belittling experience,’ that’s their perspective, one which doesn’t make my negative experience of receiving the email any less valid; they cannot disagree with my personal experience of it because my own experience is not something another person can, well, experience.
So, there are teenagers who are told they’re apathetic, that they’re not contributing, that they’ll grow out of their opinions and so on all the time. I don’t see how that’s up for being agreed with or disagreed with, it’s just what those people report on what has happened in their lives.
Do you see what I mean? I get the feeling there’s something else going on here I don’t understand.
ETA: I thought of another thing. Do you mean that you don’t agree with grouping together teenagers at all?
Thanks for this list! I’ll definitely check these out =) I’m 25 this month- I wrote a lot as a teenager but blogs weren’t huge like they are now. I remember being belittled and discriminated against because of my age as a teen. People just don’t think you have anything to say. So I mostly kept my thoughts to myself. I’m glad you don’t ;-D
Thanks for the Women’s Glib shoutout!
Thank you so much. Someone needs to say this every now and then.
I love hellonhairylegs. I’m not really a teenager anymore (I turn 21 in October) but knowing that there are intelligent young womyn out there who are going to grow up stickin’ it to the man gives me great hope for humanity! I just wish I was half as switched on as these young womyn are at their age.
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Have you heard of “A Time Will Come”?
You might be interested in reading it – since it’s another blog with a teenaged author.
http://generationyidealism.blogspot.com/
I keep meaning to post a thank you for linking me, so thank you.