This past weekend, I had the opportunity to join a group of young students middle and high school aged at the south side community center. Working with the organization LFDS, I hoped to listen to these girls and hear what type of mentorship and support they could offer. However the he business talk quickly became a discussion of culture and how a simple 10 years has managed to make my understanding of culture vastly different.

The new Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why came up. And every young girl in that room had watch the series in entirety. Part of me wasn’t surprised. In my opinion, parents today have little to no control over the type of content their children consume. Today, youth have incredible access to information, but extremely crude content. From an endless streaming for R rated movies to violent and misogynist porn. I grew up with little supervision over my media continent. But that was the age were the internet wasn’t at my figure tips with smart devices. It was the TV that exposed me to difficult topics, whether my parents knew it or not.

• My first understanding of sex was some Lifetime movie…
• My first encounter with love was in Cory and Topanga in Boy Meets World…
• My first understanding of sarcasm was from Rory and Lorelei in  Gilmore Girls…
• My first understanding of Black America was the Huxtables from Cosby Show…
• And the list goes on….

While I know that my introduction to these ideas weren’t complete, they have still shaped the my interactions with the world. And to some extent, my understanding of the previous topics are disillusioned and not fully accurate.  I wonder how different my understanding of suicide would be, if I this Netflix series was “my first”?