The effects of rappers on adolescences
Albert Gremmel
The minds of young teenagers are easily manipulated by what they see and portray as cool. They often see these rappers as cool and want to be like them so they can become popular too. This would be fine if the behaviors that they want to copy from rappers were not so dangerous and illegal such as drug use, violence, theft, and gangs. The image that rappers are portraying to kids corrupts their mind and changes what they view as right and wrong.
Drugs are often the subject that these artists promote the use of them in their music and actions. When young kids hear the lyrics talking about using drugs or see rappers doing drugs in music videos or on instagram it changes what they perceive about drug use. All they see is how cool rappers look and how much fun it seems like they are having. It does not occur to them how many dangers go along with using drugs like shorter life expectancy, addiction, and brain damage. I personally have noticed that since rappers have gained popularity over the past couple years the correlation between drug use and who people idolize with my friends. This has affected their grades and changed them from being athletes to drug addicts.
A lot of rappers are violent and promote violence with guns in their music. If you look on the instagram of nearly every rapper you will find lots of pictures of them with guns. These guns that they have are almost never legally obtained. When kids are seeing all these pictures and hearing about how you need a gun in rap songs it makes them think they really do need a gun. The problem is they have no way of getting this gun legally so they get it the only way they can and that is off the street. Once they get a gun they feel safe and invincible which leads them into dangerous situations like confrontations with violent people they normally would have run away from. They now think that the other person will back down because they have a gun, but they don’t and these kids wind up getting hurt or hurting someone else. Another scenario that happens when they get a gun is are playing with it or showing it off to their friends and it accidently goes off and now they just shot themselves or their friend. This results in a trip to jail or the hospital which could have been totally avoided.
Another bad thing encouraged by rappers is theft. Most young kids are brought up in households were their parents taught them not to steal things, but these same kids start thinking it is ok to take what they want when they hear lyrics telling them to steal. The perception of right and wrong is being changed from what is being promoted in the music and actions of rappers. These young kids who want to be just like their idol try to steal things from store but since they are not a master criminal they wind up getting caught and being punished. The punishment could just be a warning, probation, or even jail time. The decision that they made so they could become more like their favorite artist has just changed their future and jaded what they think of law enforcement.
Rappers are often part of a gang and promote this with tattoos and songs. These artist make being in a gang seem very appealing to the younger generation. This makes youth blind to the realities of gang life. Which from a quick glance it is hard to blame them since gangs offer protection, camaraderie, and popularity. The negatives, however, far out way these positives. The first negative would be that joining a gang often entails some form of initiation. This could be anything from pledging to the gang, getting a tattoo, getting beaten up, or even having to kill somebody. Once accepted it does not get much better one will often be forced into illegal behavior such as running drugs, fights with rival gangs, and stealing. The negatives of this lifestyle are not what are initially shown to these kids. When they realize the
