Room with a view. dive into the den of teenagers, forbidden to parents, but exposed on the nets

It’s a trend that’s blowing up the TikTok charts and has teenage girls going crazy over it. With more than 643.4 million views, the “aesthetic” room is gaining such popularity on the Chinese social network that it is like a phenomenon. Above all, this term reveals the modern obsession of the young generation. the sacralization of the bedroom, this house to invest and decorate inside the house.

Derived from an ancient Greek word originally meaning the study of what is beautiful, pleasing, and meaningful, “aesthetics” is the fine art of harmonizing colors, patterns, and objects to create a visually appealing, relaxing space. In the den of teenagers, especially young girls, the “aesthetic” bedroom is therefore decorated with a lot of ambient lights (LED strips or twinkling garlands), a touch of plants, like fake climbing vines hanging on the walls and especially with a lot of collages (photos, posters, drawings or vinyl records) sometimes attached to the ceiling.

The bedroom as the center of the universe

“In the age of social networks, insisting on these visual codes is a way of appropriating one’s intimate space, investing in age as well,” explains Elsa Ramos, sociologist of family and youth, professor at Paris Cite University. For most teenagers, especially girls, the bedroom is the most important physical space in their lives, like a decompression chamber where they embrace their own rhythm, not their family’s. It’s a place where they build their identity, establish their individuality.”

In the age of social networks, insisting on these visual codes is a way of appropriating one’s intimate space, investing in one’s age as well.

Elsa Ramos, family and youth sociologist

Singing and dancing in front of your mirror, spending hours trying on makeup and manicures, trying on and retrying clothes, repeatedly reviewing the furniture placement, talking for hours with your friends in physics or video… For young girls, the bedroom represents the center of their universe, but also an important boudoir. , where they explore their creativity, their femininity, their image. Their goal. Find their style, their identity, their self.

Cinema mirror place

Long before Gen Z made it their favorite content creation studio, the teenage bedroom was already a pop culture destination, both practically and aesthetically. Sixteen Candles for Sam by John Hughes (1984), The Virgin Suicides of the queen bedroom stories Sofia Coppola (1999), Lolita regardless of meby Mark Waters (2004), or even lol Lisa Azuelos (2009), film, and esp teen movies, regularly brings us to this cultural microcosm that is the teenage bedroom. And it’s always fascinating to see how this play often provides more elements to define the social and time frame than the script or the characters. The same goes for series like Gossip girl, Euphoria , Sexual education And In the summer I became beautifulwhich depict the daily life and problems (often of the heart) of teenagers, exploring the extremely cinematic nature of this mirrored place.

This whole “bedroom culture” is not new, but it is reinvested today by stars, movies or series that celebrate its images. This is, for example, the case of American singer Olivia Rodrigo. In the photos accompanying the release of his new album Intestines (released in September), the pop star finds herself in a 1980s-style purple bedroom filled with many totems of teenage femininity. Before her, Taylor Swift, another idol of today’s youth, had already appeared sitting on a bed in a girly pink room, singing and asking herself a thousand questions about love in her music video. Lover (259 million views).

Autonomy instruction

“In modern history, the teenage bedroom is becoming more and more dominant,” notes Elsa Ramos. This is a compromise between the youth’s desire for privacy and their parents’ desire to protect them from the dangers of the streets that emerged in the early 1970s. Indeed, in 1970 from June 4, there was no more talk of paternal authority. , but parental authority. The law now includes the child’s right to speak, participate in elections that concern him, etc. It is at this point that imperative concepts of personal space and youth autonomy begin to emerge.

As early as 1977, American researchers Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber identified “teen bedroom culture” as a rich subculture worthy of study. They noted that adolescent girls were encouraged by society to spend their free time in their rooms, protected from danger and sexuality, while boys were more attached and invited to life outside the walls of the home. Later, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CIDE), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20, 1989, ratified the child’s right to individuality. “However, to be an individual, you need to have a private space, therefore a bedroom,” says the sociologist.

However, this culture Own room, the benefits of which Virginia Woolf already noted in her 1929 essay, is specific to our Western, individualistic society, but not in a selfish sense. In France, the USA, Denmark and almost all the countries of northern Europe, there is this idea of ​​separation as a condition of the construction of personality. “I had the opportunity to work on the bedroom issue in Brazil,” says sociologist Elsa Ramos. There, it is impossible to close the bedroom door to the rest of the family. It is a space that remains open to all, that we share like any other room in the house, unless we are very sick and looking for a few minutes of seclusion. And that is the difference from our western way of doing things. By admitting that their teen locks the door too often, parents risk missing out on mental health crises and issues.

Virtual window

It used to be enough to hang a sign on your bedroom door saying “No Trespassing” or “Knock before entering” or even “Danger of Death” to try to limit the intrusion of the main invaders: parents and (painful) siblings. and sisters. In the age of Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat, it only takes a simple click of a smartphone from a teenager to bring the rest of the world into their very private lair. This is the paradox of time. the room remains as much an ultra-locked sanctuary as it is a social media open space… Does this virtual window mark the end of this well-kept temple that is the teenage room?

What is shown can be perceived as intimacy, but in reality it is not.

Elsa Ramos, sociologist

“From the moment the backstage becomes the stage, it is inevitable to control the space and what we want to show ourselves,” replies Elsa Ramos. A kind of mastery of the facade and the face. Thus, what is shown can be perceived as intimacy, but in reality it is not. In this regard, there is a fact that really shocked me. It was 2001 and Loana had just won a reality TV show History of the Loft. After his release, he told the public: “You saw me under the gaze of cameras, 24 hours a day and seventy days a day, but you saw nothing of me.” Conclusion. if today all applications allow you to edit your selfie by changing facial features, for example, a teenager also controls the image of his room. Before posting it on social media, he may decide to tidy it up or frame it for the best angle. The art of non-parental control.