8% of Nothin’ Is Still Nothin’

The modern teen (modernus lazyassus¹) seen here earning his (haha!) income

I’m not sure if this actually means anything, given that, as near as I can tell, most teens these days don’t actually have jobs but, rather, derive all of their (haha!) income from a parasitic relationship with their parents (sorta like that thing that crawls in your ear from Star Trek II only, instead of just going driving you insane, they also steal your car keys and wallet instead of ‘demeaning’ themselves with a job at McDonalds²):

New research from investment firm Piper Jaffray found that videogame spending accounts for eight per cent of US teenagers’ budgets, up from three per cent six years ago.

The company’s Taking Stock With Teens survey, which aims to determine purchasing behaviour and brand preferences among teens, suggested that teens represent 35 per cent of total US game players.

So, really, what it boils down to is that their parents spend some smaller percent of their income on games, so why not cut out the middle man and just say so?³ ()

It’s probably because the parents are so cowed/owned/worried that their poor darlings might break a nail and/or muss up their hair, that the teens are doing the majority of the household spending anyway (“Give me an iPod! Give me a car! Never give me the opportunity to fail because then I might have low self-esteem thus equipping me for a life of misery in the cold, harsh, light of reality!”), so it’s de facto their (haha!) income.

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1 From the Greek for “I’m owed because you gave birth to me!”
2 KoG kinda goes on about related topics here but you’ll have to skip around to find the good ones.
3 Could also be because “People Spend ‘X’ Amount of Their Income on Games” isn’t nearly as exciting as what hip teens are doing…I mean, besides not working…which makes it harder to sell their ‘research’ to clients.