This trend of kids aggressively swerving their bikes in front of oncoming traffic or pedestrians is weird and extremely dangerous. Like how did this become a thing?
It’s adrenaline/epinephrin! She had to be saved from sepsis and she talks about how being a patient changed how she works as a doctor. She’s literally a gem.
Playing chicken has been around a lot longer than the internet and "clout" have been around. It's just a stupid game that stupid kids play because they're being stupid
Whether or not the think they’ll be them, that’s the media they consume.
People are now inundated with media normalizing insanely reckless behavior, and it’s incredibly common. This influences perception of social norms. It’s not just the desire to gain clout, it’s that this type of behavior is culturally condoned.
Sometimes I like to take my daughters for a treat at a local spot if they are not in summer camp that day and the amount of kids (ages 7-13 ish) I see just roaming the streets unsupervised (linking up at McDonald’s, flying through crosswalks without looking either way, etc) has blown my mind this summer. Like the OP said I’d guess 80% are not wearing helmets. I actually get excited for the one kid in the group of 7 who is actually wearing a helmet.
My theory is that regular life has become so safe, and divorced from physical consequences, that seeking danger has become a thing. Like humans are wired to deal with a certain amount of danger and that needs an outlet. Posting it on the internet proves it happened and sends a social signal.
We also, as as society, do not have much in the way of standardized rites of passage. Graduating from high school isn't exactly an arduous feat that signals manhood. It's a participation trophy. Lacking socially accepted rites, young men seek out individual risky activities to set themself apart and demonstrate courage. In some areas, joining the military or even doing jail time can be viewed as such a rite.
I've read that giving birth is the closest thing to a rite of passage for women, at least in some US subcultures.
In America, detentions, suspensions, and expulsions from school are no longer a thing. "Parents" are more concerned with the clout of having a child and not the actual difficult part of raising them so they never enforce rules at home.
A lot of these shitheads first encounter with consequences will either be when the laws of physics apply, and if not, in front of the judge.
If you're willing to handwave past the importance of the "danger" aspect, women (in menstruation) do sort of have a "rite of passage" baked in to adolescence.
Or at least I, in perimenopause, feel like waking up one day to discover that you're going to be in pain/bleeding up to a quarter of the next 40 years and you're just going to have to get on with it served as a pretty solid "welcome to being a woman".
I see your point and claim no expertise on the female condition -- and maybe I'm wrong to use the words "rite of passage".
But as a biological function, it takes no action, agency, or personal initiative for it to naturally happen. It's not a elective test of skill in the sense I'm trying to address. Or to put it another way, no one goes looking for that to prove themselves. I'm talking about elective danger-seeking behaviors, mostly by young men, to gain acceptance or social status.
I would be interested to hear about elective behaviors young women engage in to gain acceptance, in-group status or social status, especially those that are predominately female.
I would be interested to hear about elective behaviors young women engage in to gain acceptance,
Honestly I feel like aside from various groups that isolated ladies (or at least separated them from men), there really aren't the same things for women.
Like we don't just have a big hormonal shift around puberty. We do mark the maiden->mother transition by growing boobs and body hair et al too, but then the hormone shifts keep happening every single month until mother->crone at menopause when the cycles we've come to depend on abandon us and we have to figure it out all over again lol.
Guys don't have a "reproductive phase of your life is over" transition at "middle age" either, because they don't experience it the same way women do.
Edit: I forgot to include the fact that I think it not being elective is actually notable. You don't have to go out of your way to find a way to involve pain and blood in a ritual because nature did it for us.
I'm sure there are a lot of factors but one huge one is being ignored for some reason. SARS2 infections (especially repeat) can cross the blood brain barrier and lead to damage that's impacting risk assessment abilities, increased aggression, decreased empathy and increased risk of dementia. That's on top of being a vascular disease...
I've been wondering about this since 2020. I hope someone's doing some studies on whether the increase in irrational behaviors we've been seeing for the past six years has any correlation with repeated Covid infections.
And for anything that can’t be explained by the infections themselves, it can likely be explained by the lockdowns. The current tweens and teens spent a massive chunk of their formative years in social isolation because of lockdowns. That’s got to have a massive effect on a developing brain.
There were never “lockdowns”. People just chose to stay indoors and never learned to avoid a virus with a proper mask. Instead it was quick - back to ignorance even though we cleaned the world’s air I two weeks… and learned nothing.
Because kids are stupid and don't have the experience and development to understand consequences? This isn't a new thing, by any means. It's just heavily documented now with everyone having a cell phone to record and post it.
I recently remembered when my friend and I would play our favorite game, which was waiting for a car to come down the road, then throwing a cheap toy like an action figure or a happy meal toy into the road hoping they would hit it. Then we would run out and grab it, assess the damage, and whoever's toy was more damaged was the winner.
Now as an adult I'm like "what the actual fuck? what an asshole thing to do, coulda blown their tire or made them swerve and wreck..." but as kids, cars are invincible machines that can just run over anything without issue.
we got children ripping down public roads and sidewalks at 20+ mph with no safety gear and zero fucks given
sure u might have flattened a tire with what u did, but i might flatten the whole fuckin' kid with how they're acting out there. shit is not a "kids will be kids" situation, that's crazy talk imo
When my kids were in jr high in the aughts kids would push each other into the road. Yes, into oncoming traffic. School was letting out so the cars were crawling but still.
A tire going slowly can still crush a skull if a kid fell on the wrong spot
That had to put cops up and down the road and start contacting parents before it finally stopped.
Some kid (tween or early teenager) popped a wheelie like right off the side of the road with traffic going by. I said "what a fucking dumbass", and I don't know if they saw me and read my lips and got pissy, but they intentionally swerved into the road in front of me, and then started slowing down while popping another wheelie.
Like, leaving aside what jackass nonsense that is, why the fuck would they want to bring a bike to a car fight? If I were an asshole, I could have intentionally stamped the gas and knocked their shit over and hurt them, and then just said when they intentionally swerved into the road in front of me, that I tried to stamp on the breaks and my foot slipped off and hit the gas (which I've always found it weird how the pedals are designed so that sort of thing is possible). Given how the dash would have captured them making a blatant and intentional effort to swerve right in front of me, I would have gotten in no trouble.
Obviously I didn't do that because I'm not a piece of shit, but why would they even take that chance?
Well, I was in a suburban nothing neighborhood and wanted to do a cool trick. I was 12 years old, broke my nose and jaw, and that was not a great idea. I know better now.
Edit that the power went out in a giant thunderstorm, the generators came on, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
Vote me as president. My one promise is to legalize beating the crap out of people harassing you for a video. It will not be an affirmative defense, the harasser has to prove they weren't harassing you for a video.
moved in to a new house, girl across the street had her bf over, maybe 14yo?
I go turn onto my street and as i slow to pull into my driveway he just fucking jumps out.
He wasnt pushed, he didnt drop a ball in the road he was grabbing, he didnt even have his phone out (nor did she). He just fucking jumped right in front of me.
i scared the poor kid shitless when i didnt slow down after he landed (since i was already literally 5ft from my driveway...) then pulled into my driveway. i told him to go be stupid somewhere else, and surprisingly, i havent seen him since lmao. I can only dream that the girl wised up.
Technically it has been a thing for a long time, it was just isolated before. Now everyone is able to see it and be in on it. Previously you had to be specifically involved with groups of people in which this would get you positive attention, but now anyone can find those groups and individuals online just by posting it publicly.
For instance, in at least the 90s and early 2000s, I remember some kids used to play chicken by sitting or laying down in the street as well as the same with bikes, scooters, etc.. Usually it was a competition between members of the group though, to see who lasts the longest before moving. Now that same sense of competition and acknowledgement can be fulfilled online.
They have banned even golf carts in my parents neighborhood driven by kids. HOA requires someone with a license to drive them or the owner gets a fine.
My dad said there was soooo much push back from parents that were upset that THEY would be punished if their kid broke the rules. Insanity.
The rule got through though. One of the few times I've had to say "Good for the HOA."
This isn't new. When I was a kid in the mid 2000s, there was a "chicken chicken" trend of lying on the road and having a car drive as close as possible to you before you either get out of the way, or the car notices and stops or swerves.
Kids are just stupid and probe to peer influence. Social media has magnified it.
It's been a thing for as long as bikes have been forced to share a road with cars, so a couple generations. I knew kids that did it 30 years ago. It's not new
Attention seeking, their parents have taught them they only get attention when acting out, they keep pushing the limits until they get the attention they want
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u/LalafellDisaster Jul 19 '26
This trend of kids aggressively swerving their bikes in front of oncoming traffic or pedestrians is weird and extremely dangerous. Like how did this become a thing?