Workaholics and the Youth Culture

One show that is definitely popular right now for teenagers is Comedy Central's Workaholics. I would say the show targets my friends and I and other males ages 13-25. The premise of the show is that three guys, around the age of 23, dropped out of college and end up rooming together. They work at the telemarketing company "TelAmeriCorp" in Rancho Cucamonga. Adam, Blake, and Ders take a wide variety of drugs, talk sex, inflict physical pain to each other, and just hang out (which is often seen in any sitcom). I believe this show definitely reveals a change in the common assumptions of youth culture. Common television shows targeted for teenagers a few years ago included Zack and Cody, Drake and Josh, iCarly, and so on. They contained clean content and obviously targeted for teens considering that they aired on "TeenNick" or "TeenDisney." But the sitcoms aimed for teenagers today are much more foul and inappropriate than these shows. This shows the change in assumption about our youth culture that kids are going to talk about sex, take drugs, and choose poor decisions. In some respect, I think Workaholics is a reflection of our youth. It's a reflection because those who were creating television shows realized that their clean content was not precisely following youth culture. As a result, they had to change to something more accurate to attract the youth. However, the characters of the show are the common mook archetypes. I believe these mooks mold our teenage culture to become more mook-like themselves. Ever since watching shows that include mooks such as Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule and The Eric André Show, I have felt more inclined to act like them and attract attention like they do with their shows. So in a sense, the shows are both reflections of the youth and shape our youth.