Hegemonic Teens vs. Subaltern Teens

Tim points us to a VERY interesting article by Danah Boyd titled, "Viewing American Class Divisions Through Facebook and MySpace." You can read the entire article here.

I'll repost part of the article:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

This is a very interesting article on many fronts. First of all, Danah draws some great conclusions from the data she has collected. Secondly, one could make a gigantic leap and assume that there are more followers of Jesus that utilize Facebook than MySpace. I know in the past few weeks that I have engaged with Facebook, a "mini-revolution" has exploded in the Christian community, especially among pastors, church staff and other bloggers.

I realize that Jesus came to "save" all of us, but don't we read in scripture that Jesus hung out with the "wrong" crowd most of the time? If that's the case, then isn't it safe to assume that Jesus would be hanging out on MySpace and not Facebook? This begs an important question: "Where should we be directing our thoughts and energy?"