Everybody Back To MyPlace For A Skins Party!

Who am I to talk though, right? Nobody, in a way, because if you find a way of escaping it you're in a monority of cave-dwelling British, on a remote beach with no signal and no reason to worry about the law of owning a TV License. All the generations do it now, and as time has passed old-age now often seems to involve living as though you were still 16, so no point blaming all the bad stuff on the kids.

There's a habit though, a cycle that's hard to break that we're in right now moreso than ever, and it goes like this...

Go to work, get paid too little, get too tired, come home, switch on telly, absorb money making ideas with regards property improvement or development (popular for the last decade at least; cheap TV to make), disappear into the lives of celebrities who are famous for being famous, get entranced by the bright colours / fast-edited images / pumping "choons", then descend into a world where fantasy and reality collide to such an extent nobody can quite untangle it all. The cost of living is rising and nobody can afford to buy a house even if married and earning a huge salary, kids feel little connection to the adult aspect of living in their communities, which is a step in the other direction to the usual inability to see adulthood as a phase of the same life.... It's funny, and yet so disturbing at the same time, because we're making it harder for ourselves.

Why do I say all this then? Well, the latest fantastic story to hit the news is of the teenage girl with parents away on holiday. She either placed an open message on her MySpace page, or it was hacked (depending on whom you believe right now) and 200 kids turned up. Taking inspiration from Channel 4's recent teen drama 'Skins', a show that seems to isolate itself so much from the generations that their habit of wild parties has become a phenomenon amongst real teens.

That's cool, bad behaviour has always existed, and we've always taken inspiration from TV for as long as it's been around, and our lives inevitably bleed back into over time. This party cost £20k worth of damage, lots of looting, and one urine-soaked wedding dress... plus one teen-in-hiding (but on the cover of the local paper!), a potential disowning of said child by parents (who returned on tuesday to quite a suprise after their sunny holiday) and lots of media coverage. Like Charlie Brooker said recently on Screen Wipe, I would hate to be a teenager these days... look at the inspiration TV presents to you - it is, as he has also stated about 'Hollyoaks' (a Soap for teens) like being in Logans Run because everyone is so damn young.

Skins Official Channel 4 Subsite.
Skins Uncut Trailer at YouTube; not safe for work, perhaps.
"Web Party Family May Move Home" Story at BBC News.
Pre-Order Skins Series One on R2 UK DVD at Amazon.co.uk for September 3rd 2007 Release.