Comments on: What are teenagers looking at online?

Question: What are teenagers looking at online?

EnormousTalkingOnion — Thu, 04 May 2006 10:59:31 -0800

What websites are all the cool kids looking at these days?

I'm trying to put together a list of the most popular websites targeted at teenagers (for my work). I know the no-brainers like MySpace, but I'm particularly interested in portal/content sites, like how iVillage is for women, or something like MSN's portal page but more youth-oriented. What sites are all the rage among teenagers at the moment?

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:01:29 -0800

Facebook.com

By: knave

knave — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:06:10 -0800

Ebaum's World

By: borkingchikapa

borkingchikapa — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:07:16 -0800

I think you need to take into account that teenagers don't really read that much, so content-oriented sites like Metafilter, even geared towards more relevant topics, aren't all that popular. Bite-sized social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace are much more popular - I'm in college, and the only thing anyone ever does on their laptops in class is AIM, email and facebook.

By: borkingchikapa

borkingchikapa — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:07:46 -0800

On preview, stuff like Ebaum's World too.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:09:42 -0800

this is going to depend HEAVILY on what kind of teenagers you're looking at. the above mentioned facebook is excellent, but that's a very specific set of teens. there are also a very specific set of teens that frequent the somethingawful.com forums. and cruel.com. and stileproject.com and break.com, but none of them shows an overwhelming majority of teens of all types. if there is a site that does that besides myspace, I don't know what it is.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:10:27 -0800

oh, and of COURSE the worldofwarcraft forums. and livejournal.

By: moonshine

moonshine — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:11:58 -0800

There's neopets.com that's probably geared towards the tweens and extremely young teens. I'm not exactly sure how "cool" it is, though.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:16:42 -0800

i have the weird feeling that the cool kids aren't looking at websites ... just a hunch ... 2 or 3 years ago, i wouldn't have said this

By: interrobang

interrobang — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:18:15 -0800

There are a lot of stupid videos of stupid teenagers doing stupid things on youtube.

By: patr1ck

patr1ck — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:20:01 -0800

Oh No They Didn't.

[via my teenage sister]

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:26:42 -0800

Fark. I know it is popular with the 16yo set for "naked drunk female driver" stories and the like. Though mostly that set just reads the linked stories and doesn't post or read comments. (except for looking at Photoshop threads).

The comment posters seem to be older to much much older.

By: nimsey lou

nimsey lou — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:35:25 -0800

the students in my classes are usually playing flash games, looking at youtube, Some look at digg.com, others check their email, or websites that have to do with what they are interested in (ie disc golf). We have an internet filter so my answers my be off.

By: itchie

itchie — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:44:32 -0800

I've been reading Metafilter since I was about 14 or 15 years old (I'm now 21), but I'm not sure if it's considered "cool" these days for the younger crowds.

That said, my addition to the list would probably be Forumopolis.com.

By: i_am_a_Jedi

i_am_a_Jedi — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:47:42 -0800

Fark

Digg

College Humor

By: patphelan

patphelan — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:57:48 -0800

BEBO
every kid in Ireland going nuts on this

By: Number27

Number27 — Thu, 04 May 2006 12:03:32 -0800

YouTube and any other video delivery website.

By: box

box — Thu, 04 May 2006 12:17:15 -0800

YTMND.

And, at least at my public library branch, blackplanet.com, which seems to be fairly comparable to MySpace, except targeted at a smaller segment of the population.

By: elvissa

elvissa — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:24:39 -0800

pinkisthenewblog.com (for celebrity gossip)

By: fvox13

fvox13 — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:42:42 -0800

http://www.fark.com
http://www.b0g.org
http://www.entensity.net
http://www.somethingawful.com
http://www.collegehumor.com
http://www.thesmokinggun.com
http://video.google.com
http://www.ebaumsworld.com
http://www.homestarrunner.com

By: djgh

djgh — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:48:45 -0800

Kontraband

By: martinX's bellbottoms

martinX's bellbottoms — Thu, 04 May 2006 14:01:50 -0800

imdb

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Thu, 04 May 2006 14:21:19 -0800

ESPN.com.

By: bubukaba

bubukaba — Thu, 04 May 2006 15:26:09 -0800

I definitely have to agree with shmegegge that this question depends very, very heavily on the population of teenager's you're looking at.

Websites like Facebook, MySpace, and LiveJournal have relatively broad followings among all "types" of teenagers (and also among people who aren't teenagers), and reference websites like imdb are used by pretty much everyone, teen and adult alike - but otherwise things are pretty varied.

There are lots of teenagers who don't use the internet for much more than social networking and flash videos, but there are also many who read Metafilter, read news websites and blogs, and obsessively research things on Wikipedia for fun (that's certainly what I used the internet for all through highschool).

I think that the kids who read websites "targeted at teenagers" are probably the same ones who read Seventeen and Maxim on paper - in other words, not the same kids who are reading Harper's and the New Yorker, of whom there is a smaller, but certainly a significant number. And you can bet that those kids aren't big fans of collegehumor.com.

I'm tired and I feel like what I just wrote is probably a little bit incoherent, but you probably get the idea.

By: holloway

holloway — Thu, 04 May 2006 15:29:10 -0800

http://forums.somethingawful.com

By: Suparnova

Suparnova — Thu, 04 May 2006 15:55:20 -0800

www.addictinggames.com
And various other flash sites, especially including (I'm mighty surprised it hasn't been mentioned previously, but hey, being 13 gives me a jump on your granthers): Newgrounds.com

Being an internet nerd also kinda means I'm not one of "the cool kids". I rarely get to talk about internet related stuff, but when I do it usually involves fads like homestarrunner or myspace or ebaumsworld. Most of the cool kids don't stay one place for long, however.

By: EnormousTalkingOnion

EnormousTalkingOnion — Thu, 04 May 2006 16:39:16 -0800

Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions so far. I guess I should have clarified a little more. I'm pretty familiar with the big meme sites, video sites, social networking sites, I'm looking more for a more content-driven site, whereas most of the biggies are very user-driven. Hence the iVillage example - I'm trying to find sites that have editorial oversight, where the content isn't user-contributed, so more like online magazines (but not the online versions of print magazines), that are for a teenage audience. Does that make sense?

By: divabat

divabat — Thu, 04 May 2006 17:36:12 -0800

ETO: As far as online magazines go, teens tend to make their own. There are thousands of communities on LiveJournal that are magazine-like (for example, the earlier-mentioned ONTD), and just as much that are self-hosted and self-managed.

Many teens nowadays (at least in 2003ish, I don't know if there's been a drastic change) create their own websites - personal, fansites, portfolios, etc - and some of them are very content-driven. You might want to check out Glitter and follow the links.

By: bubukaba

bubukaba — Thu, 04 May 2006 18:47:10 -0800

The quizes and things (I don't remember if they had articles) at The Spark used to be very popular, though it doesn't seem to exist anymore. The only online magazine I can think of that any people I knew in high school read is Pitchfork, which isn't exactly pitched to teenagers in particular.

The teenagers who don't focus exclusively on flash games, social networking, and AIM (and the ones who don't usually aren't the cool kids) read the same content-driven sites that adults do according to what they're interested in.

By: limeonaire

limeonaire — Thu, 04 May 2006 20:19:38 -0800

Chatropolis was big when I was in junior high...but that was about eight years ago.