clipped from: roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com   

Teenage Fads, Forever Young

Hugging has become a greeting of choice among high school students all over the country. Who knew? Fashion and music, of course, have always seemed to spread instantaneously. How is it that teenage rituals and behavior — even small social gestures — can develop and spread so quickly without the grown-ups noticing until that behavior is everywhere?

Anastasia Goodstein is the founder and editor in chief of Ypulse, a blog for and about American tweens, teenagers and early 20-somethings. She is the author of “Totally Wired: What Teens & Tweens Are Really Doing Online.”

As a Gen Xer who grew up in the 1980s, I can tell you TV, especially MTV, played a huge role in creating the rituals, music and fashion that make up youth culture, whether it was the mainstreaming of hip-hop through early programs like “Yo! MTV Raps,” Madonna’s rubber bracelets or Wham!’s “Choose Life” T-shirts.
Movies were influential as well
remember the
Flashdance” sweatshirt?