November 19, 2004

TeenScene

Youth display signs of intelligent life

By Stephanie Foo
Times Intern

God help us: America’s teenagers are smarter than their elders. Before the election, I would never have thought it. I mean, the term “smart teen” to me was practically an oxymoron. I could talk about teens glued to the O.C. instead of CNN. I could blame my kind for Ashlee Simpson’s irrationally good record sales. I could even cite classic teen pastimes such as cow tipping, lighting farts and hijacking administrative golf carts.

But for confirmation of the potential stupidity of teenagers, I’m going to tell you a true story about history class last year. Generally I don’t peek at others’ tests, but when the student behind me passed hers up at the end of the period, I just couldn’t help it. And it was worth it. To the question, “What does A.D. stand for?” she had answered, “Ab Dominal.”

So you can see why I generally would not have trusted placing the fate of America in the hands of teens. When some teenagers started shouting about giving voting rights to 14 and 15 year olds, I shuddered. Images of annual cow tipping holidays and President Ashlee outlawing panty lines while lip syncing the national anthem flew through my brain.

But evidently I was mistaken! Back to the original point which I have trodden quite far away from—teens are a lot more intelligent than I gave them credit for. They’re smarter than any other age group in the entire nation—even the elderly, who know everything and therefore have developed secret brainwashing satellite technology to take control of museums, aquariums and movie theaters. This enables them to get huge discounts everywhere they go, especially Hometown Buffet!

I dare to say we are smarter than those geniuses because of the evidence I’ve recently found. “The Economist,” which I am assuming is a magazine that has something to do with the economy, printed a chart which listed the average IQs of the populations of all the states and which presidential candidate the state picked. IQs of 90-109 constitute average aptitude. Anything less is considered dullness, anything more intelligence.

The average IQs of the populations ranged from the smartest state, Connecticut with 113, to the dumbest state, Mississippi with 85. The 15 states with IQs over 100 all voted for Kerry. The 100s and 99s were divided up between the two candidates, but every state population with an IQ under 99 voted for Bush. Therefore, people who voted for Kerry are smarter than people who voted for Bush.

With this information in mind, we can look at the 2004 election statistics and see that the 18-29 year old demographic is the only one in which the majority voted for Kerry, 54 percent – 45 percent, according to CNN.com. People over 30 voted for Bush, 53 percent – 47 percent.

My wonderful mathematical calculations can conclude that since intellectuals vote for Kerry, and a whole bunch of teens voted for him, a whole bunch of teens must be intellectuals!

So now, I think I’m even proud of the youth of America. Not only did they show great sense in the election, but they also came out in record numbers this year…not miraculous numbers, but record ones: 17 percent of us voted (21 million strong!). Even if they did just vote because they were afraid they’d get shot by P.Diddy otherwise.

If we have bangin’ IQs now, imagine America 30 years later when we’re running it. Maybe we’ll actually be able to make the world a better place. Yeah, we sometimes do crazy stuff involving bodily fluids or cocoa puffs. We’re young, inexperienced and too green to know better…for now.

But what’s your excuse for watching Lifetime television, middle-aged women? And what’s yours for voting Nader, 30 – 44-year-olds? That was the only age group where Nader got a whole 1 percent of voters!

After all, students get discounts at the aquarium, too.