Image is everything

Nae Nae still meets up with me at his brother's house. During the week he lives in a trailer park with his brother Daniel and his mom. His mom works two jobs and is hardly around. When she is, she smokes pot to relax and goes to sleep.

Nae Nae - "Yea i could say going to my brother's is an escape from my real life. I hope that I could live with him one day."

I have tried on several occasions to get Nae Nae to open up a little about his home life. Honestly, he hopes for the week to go by fast. He goes to school and comes home. He does like to hang out with neighborhood kids. His "gangsta friends." But they are really not in a gang, but he hangs out with them because he can relate with them. At school he hangs out with a completely different clique of friends. At school he has a bunch of friends that are gothic. Which makes me think that gothic groups are usually emotionally closed individuals and rarely verbally express themselves. Their clothing says it all. Perhaps Nae Nae relates to this group because he does not want to express who he is at home while in school?

Lost my other Informant

Jason, my other informant refuses to return my phone calls. He quickly lost interest in talking to me. I do believe it is because he lives an hour and half away and we hardly see one another.

I met up with Nae Nae this past weekend and found out that there is two girls he likes. That very night he took Heather out to the movies. And the other girl, Natasha, he plans to take her to the school dance. Nae Nae is a letter hesitant to talk about girls with me because he feels like it "brings down his rough image." So he continues to talk about how him and his friends are looking to buying the new Grand Theft Auto for his Playstation.

I learned something new about Nae Nae this past weekend, image is very important in a teenagers life. He is very protective of what he says or does.

March 2nd 2008

The very next morning I came to visit Nae Nae to talk to him. When I came downstairs to the basement where his favorite space is, I found him passed out asleep in recliner in front of the tv still holding the xbox controller. I found it so funny I had to take a picture.

Please let me know if you can't see the pictures. There are supposed to be two.






Take notice to the background garbage of beer bottles and take out food.

Nae Nae playing Halo - March 1, 2008

As he is sitting on a chair designed for video gamers he is playing with one of his older friends Josh 25. Nae Nae is 14 years old and he comes to his brothers house every weekend to stay. This is Nae Nae’s star place. He sits in front of a flat screen TV with hundreds of video games. His favorite game is Halo.

Nae Nae is officially one of the guys and he “kicks ass” against anyone who plays him. He is one of the top players in the Halo world. I am sitting on the couch behind him where he normally sleeps when he stays with his brother. You could say that this house is a get away from his normal space. Nae Nae has confessed to me that his main space is a trailer that he stays in with his mother and other brother.

I am recording all of Nae Nae’s actions as he plays Halo. He is not aware of my presence because he has not taken his eyes of the TV in the last 5 hours. It is 3:16 p.m. March 1, 2008. Right now he is taking a break eating a bag of chips. He is wearing baggy jeans and a blue and white stripe hat around his curly dark hair. Around his neck he is wearing a long silver chain with lettering at the end of it that I cannot read from this distance.

As he is talking to Josh he is telling him about one of friends being surprised about the awesome set up he has with his xbox at his brother’s house.


Nae Nae jumps up from his seat everytime he defeats a character in the game, his words of choice during this session is:

“Dude”
“Oh my Godddd”
“Suck on that dude, suck on that!”
“F**king retarded”
“Dammit man”
“Take that son!”


Nae Nae uses curse words freely in this area. I don’t know if he acts like this in front his mother or around others, but it seems like this is his true self when he is hanging out here.

Nae Nae is wearing an ear piece where he can communicate with other Halo players. He makes fun of them as he plays saying things like, “I f**ked your mother last night biotchhhhh” Although I find it rather funny, it still fascinates me how close of friends he is with his brothers roommates. They are all 10-12 years older than him and he acts just like them. Nae Nae right now as he is playing, teaches Josh some awesome moves to use when playing Halo.

Whenever he does mess up in the game he is very dramatic about it….”What the hell!!! Come on!!!” As he tosses the controller on the ground and then quickly goes to pick it up and continues playing.

I look around at Nae Nae’s space and there are beer cans and garbage from take out everywhere. The house his brother lives in is very nice however the basement is definitely the area that is used for boys to be boys. There is a separate room right off the other where Nae Nae’s brother (Kevin) and roommates smoke….and I don’t mean just cigarettes.

Nae Nae does have a bed of his own at his brothers house, but he prefers to sleep on the couch in the basement where the TV is.
His friends do drink and smoke in front of Nae Nae and although his brother is responsible enough to be sure that Nae Nae will never drink or do any drugs, I feel like this will one day influence him to do so. Nae Nae definitely does look up to his brother hence why he spends all his weekends here.

I haven’t sat down yet to talk to my informant face to face. I felt the need to observe him first. Watching him play Halo was a perfect look into his adolescent world. He plays xbox about 10 hours a day when he is with his brother. All the roommates play against him. When he is here he escapes his other world. The other world of poverty. His brother works and helps pay for some of his moms bills. Having Nae Nae here is a way of helping Nae Nae have some kind of entertainment.

When observing the space alone, there are take out boxes of Chinese food and pizza everywhere. There are beer bottles and empty cigarette boxes all over the floor. In this space Nae Nae feels comfortable and free to be himself.

Yay!

I found two informants! FINALLY! Sorry it has taken too long. Most parents thought it was a sketchy idea.

Unfortunately, my two informants are males. I couldn't find a girl, but I guess it will do considering that most of the class has girl informants so we will definitely see the difference when reading each others posts.

I am not sure if we are supposed to give out names or not, but we will stick to first name bases only. My first informant is 14 years old. His name is Nathaniel but goes by the name Nae Nae. He is from Delaware, I know that is quite a hike from here, but I am down there pretty much every weekend so it works out. So far he is a normal adolescent who loves to play halo. He spends most of his weekend's with his brother at his place. Although his brother is into smoking weed, Nae Nae understands the effects it has on people and is not at all interested in trying it. He is very intelligent, more so than the average kid. One of the best in class actually. So far this is what I have got from him.

As for my other informant, his name is Jason and he is from New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is a friend of the family. I've known him since he was 5. I am not close with him at all and although he comes over for the occasional family get togethers we hardly speak. I do know his history. He is known for being violent and having ADD. He is 15 years old and coming into new life experiences as a high school teenager. He's into playstation and music. He needs to have all the up to date technology or he is not considered "cool" in school. When I last spoke with him he was looking into getting a new cell phone. His current phone (only a couple months old) wasn't popular anymore. His dad died when he was a baby so he lives with his mother and sister. His mom doesn't have much money but, with his demanding behavior he seems to get what he wants.

With the two informants, I hope to find mental differences in their adolescent behaviors. I know Jason has a lot of problems but, I want to see how that will effect his adolescent culture. My two informants are both close in age and both are in high school, they are both from two different states so perhaps we will see if cultures are different between New Jersey and Delaware.

First Post

I haven't posted at all last week because of the loss of one of my good friends and roommate Gina Durham. I canceled all my classes last week to attend the funeral and the viewing. Its been a rough week but I will definitely be in class tomorrow.

I will miss her so much...



As for our project. I am working with a classmate and friend, Gina Mcguire. We did decide that we will try to work with girl scouts. A group of adolescents will sure help with our observations on adolescent culture. I am sorry Gina that I haven't talked to you at all last week. I hope you are feeling better. I haven't gotten any further than that so I will update more later.