WHOOPS: Teenagers are jealous of the teen moms in the TV shows they watch. “It doesn’t matter if they cry in every episode. It doesn’t matter if they spend the entire time complaining about how they don’t have a life and people think they’re whores. It doesn’t matter if they’re constantly on drugs; actually, for the kids who have discovered that some drugs are a lot of fun, it would be a bonus. When you aim a camera at them and let them gain sympathy and compassion and relevance through highly-rated media, then you have just elevated them to a position of greater influence over other people’s points of view on the world than 99% of the US population. That, more than the content of the shows, is what the kids in the study were responding to. Of course the teen moms are getting paid and becoming famous.”