It's the new rock 'n roll. It's the new rap. It's the new GANGSTA rap. It's...it's...it's...THE INTERNET.
Lord, what are these kids up to today? Darn kids. Facebook. MySpace. Why, in my day, we had BOOKS. We had magazines. We had TV. (We had pot, too. But that's another story - or was it another "Frontline" documentary way back when?)
I like "Frontline." Who doesn't? It's so wholesome and earnest and well-meaning and intelligent. But when "Frontline" gets its dentures into a story that's so old and so overworked and so tiresome - kids and the Internet - then it feels like mold growing over a rock. That's tonight's well-intentioned and brain-numbing "Growing up Online" (9 p.m.) The whole affair is threaded with angst and dread, and every time an adult (i.e., someone over 30) comes on the screen, you want to weep for them BECAUSE THEY ARE SO SQUARE. "I wonder where they'll [those darned Internet kids] go next - the hang-out where we aren't watching, because they'll find it," says one fogey. "We almost have to be entertainers," says a befuddled fogeyish history teacher. "Kids are overstimulated," says another (yup, fogey.)
"Frontline" trots out the horror stories - kids who are stalked, or kids who create trampy online profiles, or the one tragic kid who kills himself because of a "vicious cyberbullying campaign." These are terrible things - THAT's certainly a terrible thing - but "Frontline" has trouble, real trouble, figuring out whether this stuff is the exception or the norm, or whether there's a growth curve somewhere in this manufactured matrix of fear and loathing. "It's clear that the Internet has become a new weapon in the arsenal [of bullies]," per the show, "[and] one that's not going away." Okay. Whatever.
In the end, what "Frontline" may have stumbled upon is one of the oldest stories in the world - how most teens want as little to do with their parents as possible, and how that's been the case since before the Middle Ages, and how the Internet has simply been the latest device which has enabled this impulse. So be it. Kids will be kids. And "Frontline" will be "Frontline."
Bottomline: The distinguished mag tells an ancient story with a newish twist, in a predictable oldish way, while adding the usual mainstream media dash of panic and fear. Dullsville.