The Infantilization of the Postmodern Adult and the Figure of Kidult | Jacopo BERNARDINI
Abstract: Being young today is no longer a transitory stage, but rather a choice of life, well established and brutally promoted by the media system. While the classic paradigms of adulthood and maturation could interpret such infantile behavior as a symptom of deviance, such behavior has become a model to follow, an ideal of fun and being carefree, present in a wide variety of contexts of society. The contemporary adult follows a sort of thoughtful immaturity, a conscious escape from the responsibilities of an anachronistic model of life. If an ideal of maturity remains, it does not find behavioral compensations in a society where childish attitudes and adolescent life models are constantly promoted by the media and tolerated by institutions.
Keywords: Adulthood; kidult; Infantilization; adult; youthful; immaturity; postmodern; postmodernity.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/po/2014.0502.03
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