“You can’t even go to the mall no more without a parent. You can’t go to the movies no more — they’re asking for a parent and stuff like that,” said Ahmir Peterson, 16, a student at Kenwood Academy High School. “There used to be teen jobs, but those jobs are taken by adults. As a teenager, you are fighting against grown adults with real work experiences that have been working all their life. Everybody is fighting for a living. So it’s way harder.”

I imagine in the next few years and decades we're going to get a lot of writing -- both of the moral panic and the academic varieties -- about these so-called "teen takeovers". The way these kids themselves talk about them is wildly thoughtful, and I think any story that comes out in the next few years that does not include actual talking to kids involved will be a failure.

It is a material and sociological phenomenon that I believe is linked to our decaying cities, our COVID recovery policies, and the material downturn of the USA. All of these things are material, and these kids are reacting to it -- albeit in the chaotic, disjointed way that children often do.