Possible topics for my podcast

After investigating and talking to other teenagers, I'm still not sure about which aspect of adolescence I want to deal with in my podcast. I would like something that is both personal, interesting and somewhat important in my opinion. Here are the ideas I have so far:

• Being a teenager abroad vs. living in your home country
  
• Peer pressure and "fitting in"
  
• Pressure of academic achievement
• Self-esteem during adolescence
  
• Hobbies and activities of teenagers
  
• Relationships between siblings
  
• What is and what isn't "socially acceptable"
  
• Dealing with violence as a teenager
  
• Teenage stereotypes
  
• Authority issues with parents

Not only does my topic need to be interesting, it also needs to be broad and precise enough that I can talk about it for a little while. After coming up with a few ideas, I asked some of my friends which topics they thought were the best ones. The answers were quite varied, and everyone seemed to have different interests. Sonya and Suugii both thought peer pressure was interesting, while Elise and Sonya both agree the hobbies and activities of teenagers was another topic they would like to hear a podcast about. Elise and Suugii also liked self esteem during adolescence. The other answers were very varied.

One topic that everyone I asked (Suugii, Ha Young, Sonya and Elise) seemed to find interesting was teenage stereotypes. I thought about this topic and looked it up a little more on the internet, to see what others thought. What I found was that many websites categorized teenagers into the jocks, nerds, goths, emos or preppy categories on a joking tone. The truth is, though, that stereotypes in school are not so much of a joking matter and can have a rather important impact on teenagers' lives. If you have good grades at school, you're automatically considered a "nerd" with all the attributed characteristics that come with this: know-it-all, uncool, no fun, smart...Likewise, if you're good at sports, you become a "jock": you must definitely be good looking, not very bright, a little superficial and pretty popular.

These stereotypes are used by both teenagers and parents in their everyday life. The categories can be even wider: based on the fact you are in your teen years, adults and other adolescents assume you are interested in dating, pressured by your peers and prone to talk back to your parents. I think stereotypes in teenagers is a podcast topic that could be explored in many different ways and would interest many teenagers and adults alike.

Poole, Steve. "Stereotyping Teenagers." Search Warp. 22 Mar 2006. 01 Dec 2009 <"http://searchwarp.com/swa50570.htm">

"Teenage stereotypes." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Nov 2009, 04:20 UTC. 1 Dec 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Teenage_stereotypes&oldid=325920057>.