I want to make a point here.

[quietprofanity]

[Poll #1382507]

Feel free to explain your answers in the comments. Also, you can't be like, "But I don't want to give up my driver's license and ability to drink in bars." I mean, DUH. But let's answer the question here, right?

Comments

[47nite.livejournal.com]

The make or break qualifier, for me, is whether or not I'm allowed to retain the experience I've gained in the last 10 years, while being physically 17. :<

I'd rather not be 17 again if only because I was an idiot then. And had I to do it over without the experience, I'd be an idiot again. ¦3

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

Since we're going with the movie rules and not the "Doctor Heidegger's Experiment" rules, yes, you get to keep your experience.

[47nite.livejournal.com]

Wellll, in that case, sure~ ♫

Not that it should be relevant, but I'm currently getting my ass handed to me, art-wise by my friend who's 9 years my junior (I think she's a prodigy). XD Wish I could have built up my resumé at a much earlier time. [/pettiness?]

(Also, just because I have overthought this matter on my own many MANY times while making the drive home from school at night, the "being 17 in my era (and retaining my experience)" option would be off-putting because, um, my very first thought would be "Shouldn't I immediately go warn the US Government of an impending terrorist attack on American soil?" Followed by trying to stop every other natural disaster and human blunder for the next couple of years...

...in other words: say 'hi' to Cassandra for me in the mental ward, will ya? :\)

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

"Shouldn't I immediately go warn the US Government of an impending terrorist attack on American soil?" Followed by trying to stop every other natural disaster and human blunder for the next couple of years...

Clearly, this is an advantage of the Zac Efron movie ...

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I turned 17 in 1996, and I'd much rather be 17 then than now because it would probably be really depressing to be a teenager nowadays. The mid-90s were much more optimistic.

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

I actually think I got saddled with one of the most depressing times to be a teenager. (Sophomore year was the Columbine massacre and senior year was 9/11.) But it was MY TIME, damn it!

[orangesparks.livejournal.com]

Technology, yo. I'd have seen so many more movies and discovered so much more music if the amazingly fast internet piracy we have today had been then.

[orangesparks.livejournal.com]

*been available then.

...and complete sentences, too.

[sandoz-iscariot.livejournal.com]

2003 was pretty lame. I'd be 17 today.

[imayb1.livejournal.com]

Assuming I have a choice, I would not wish to be 17 again. Blech.

[quietprofanity.livejournal.com]

NO CHEATING, YOU CHEATER!

Dude, no one wants to be 17 again, f'reals.

[imayb1.livejournal.com]

Okay, okay. "Now" has cooler gadgets than then.

[imayb1.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that several people mention and dislike "now's" social climate for teens. Really, I don't see it as too different.

In some ways, there's much more social acceptance and support now. "Then" there was a full-blown AIDS scare and... my god, sex was just NO! and admitting to any deviance was... well, it was bad and it went way beyond ridicule. It was particularly bad in places like the small town I lived in.

Looking back, I'll take today's social and technical advances over the past.

[i-am-your-spy.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The internet is better than it was in the 90s, but when I compare my teenage life to that of my kids (granted, there are all sorts of other differences: class, geography, ethnicity, and so on), I definitely had it better. I was afforded far more freedom and treated much more like an adult, and I'm pretty sure I had a better education.

[mojocat.livejournal.com]

17 was literally the best year of my life. I'm 31 and I still haven't even come close to having a year as good as 1997 was. Plus that's when I made the retarded decision to drop out of high school so I could get my own apt away from my folks. That decision singlehandedly ruined the next 10 years of my life financially and put me in the position I'm in now, where I'm 31 and only beginning to train for a career.

I'd hate to be 17 now. It was tough enough being an awkward fatty when there was no Myspace or Facebook for people to mock you on, and from what I see in my cousins, girls I would consider "in costume as prostitutes" are now considered demure, so my army-pants-and-tori-tshirts dily uniform wouldve made me look like some kind of Mormon.

[sasha-bee.livejournal.com]

Now, because with my 36-year-old brain in the body of a 17 year old I could get ahead of the curve on technology.

[htbthomas.livejournal.com]

That's a hard question for me, 'cause I could have gone either way. I had a fun year when I was 17, but I am too bound by technology to want to go bad to pre-internet days. Is that sad?