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You'd think that by now all this nonsense about that yobbish generation that we apparently belong to would have died down. I mean, it's been going since before I was a teenager, and I'm over halfway done with it now. I know that I, at least, am bored of it. The trouble is that new ones keep coming along - you know how it is, for every newly-turned twenty year old that's just hung up his hoodie there are seven barely-teen girls wondering why, exactly, they are throwing up in the mornings and craving peanut butter and pickle sandwiches - just when you think you've got rid of the last lot. I may still have four years left to enjoy the innocence that adolescence brings (and oh, how I shall miss mugging pensioners every Friday before drinking half a blue WKD and falling out of my shoes because we are hardcore and that's what we do) but I'm finding myself hard-pressed to disagree with some of the points of view about us teenagers.

It's always the same argument, isn't it? On one side there's the media and those irritable old ladies telling the world that if a teenager breathes near you it's a sure sign that they want to hit you with a brick and steal your ration-book, and on the other it's us lot. We always end up immediately on the defensive; how many of you here have had to write about some controversial issue for English language and ended up on the good old 'we are being unfairly stereotyped' fallback? God knows I've done it often enough. And why shouldn't we defend ourselves, when it is our good name being slandered due to the actions of a few undesirable individuals?

Well, quite frankly, it's because they're right. Ok, so the image of all teenagers as hoodie-wearing, chain-smoking loons is a little over the top. Personally I have not even worn a tracksuit since year 9 PE lessons, and that was with great reluctance. And yes, I've met some amazing, beautiful and wonderful people who are still in their teen years. Still, we have to face the facts, guys; our generation is utterly messed up. I have to say that I don't know very many adolescents that fit the media image of us. But it's not just the beating up helpless people with zimmer frames at the Post Office, or knocking back cheap cider that define 'messed up'. It's because we're convinced we are something that we aren't, and none of the stuff we think we are is positive. We're drug addicts, sex addicts, internet addicts, text addicts. We're misunderstood, depressed, black-hearted. We are all alone in this world because why does no one understand that we are special little snowflakes?

This is the trouble with the youth of today, in my opinion. Not the violence, the smoking, any of that, because it's just a side-effect of the main issue. It's because we're so inexplicably obsessed with exaggerating everything. It's not just 'I'm sad today'. It's 'I must go on antidepressants immediately because feeling sad = mental disorder'. It's not just 'I like the internet'. It's 'I'm so alone that the internet is the only one that understands my inner turmoil'. It's not 'I got giddy on two alcopops and some Haribo', it's a full-blown alcohol addiction.

For those of you with genuine issues that are reading this, then I apologise for seeming harsh. No offence is meant to those who are truly in need of antidepressants and such. Bad things happen to people, they need help dealing with it, that's part of life, go wild. This is aimed at those people - and yes, I fully include myself in this - who feel like without drama, we have nothing to give. We thrive on the make-believe trials and tribulations of our everyday lives, blowing everything out of proportion into a thunderstorm of miserable sulkiness and little sad faces in MySpace bulletins.

We are a nation of overdramatic, over-emotional wrecks. And if we would just sit up and realise we are being ridiculous then maybe we could sort it. But if we aren't tormented in our souls then how could anyone possibly want to know us?

But hey, at least with being the youth of today, we can shift all the blame onto videogames and artificial flavourings. Always a silver lining, isn't there?