"I'm 17" Ted Talk by Kate Simonds - Media Journal #2

Boldly taking center stage, Kate Simonds, a seventeen year old girl, opens her Ted Talk stating her age and asking the audience rhetorical questions as to why she would be qualified to give such Ted Talk. Such questions were asked like, “did she accidently make a breakthrough for cancer?” or “did she accidently make millions investing in a start up company when she was fifteen?”, while both options are intriguing they are both false. Kate Simonds, while being an impressive seventeen year old, is conducting this Ted Talk purely based on spreading the message to appreciate teenager’s minds and ideas as worthy as adults’ ideas.  Stating that the only reason she was worthy of getting the audience’s attention is because they were most likely all under the assumption that she was a child genius of some sort and follows with mentioning that the only qualification for being a Ted speaker is having an idea, an idea the speaker finds worth spreading. Delving into her speech, Kate Simonds emphasizes the destruction of young creative minds simply by adult’s shutting them down and belittling any ideas that come from a younger age group. While Simonds notes that spreading the acceptance of ideas to five year olds may be a bit extreme, she believes that listening to younger, newer, and fresher ideas from young adults may be benefiting for both the teenager and the adult.

Targeting the adults in the audience, Simonds expresses that the only reason they respect her for being seventeen is because she is on the stage; whereas, if she were in any other setting and to voice some sort of opinion on a subject, she would most likely be told her opinion was “naive”, “unknowing”, or outright “wrong”. As mentioned earlier, Simonds boldly took center stage during her introduction of the Ted Talk and remains plainly in the middle of the stage throughout her entire speech. This brilliant technique, as she even tells the audience, is to keep the attention solely on her without any distractions. Many speakers of the Ted Talk series, will be found with powerpoints of some sort or photos or even examples up on a screen; however, by Simonds demanding the attention to remain on her and the words she was speaking, she enables the audience to focus clearly on what she was indeed saying.

I found this Ted Talk rather inspiring, since I too am seventeen years old. While I am a college student and surrounded by adults as my peers and obviously professors, the minute my age is thrown into conversation, I am either labeled as some “young genius” or my opinions are shunned furthermore. Finding that younger minds are in fact usually dismissed or ignored, her Ted Talk is rather relatable to such age groups. However, showing this video and sharing this video on my social media has also attracted a bit of attention. Many adults find Simonds words to be simply wrong because the mind is not fully developed until the age 21, and that is a fact, therefore, younger minds should be dismissed because they are not always sure of what they are saying. Similarly, many adults made fun of Simonds speech even in the comment section of YouTube, saying she talked “kiddish” or her ideas were not fully developed because she was not. However, while I find both these sort of statements as ignorant and naive, they are understandable. Adults tend to feel superior because they usually have more experience and knowledge about certain topics because they have had more time to research into them. Regardless, as Simonds stated, there are some thirteen year olds that can be more mature than adults even if the same could be true vice versa.

The primary message of this Ted Talk is to spread the message that younger minds can be just as valuable, important, and productive as adult minds. While it is true that young adults will have to work harder to gain the respect from adults, it should not be an impossible aspect just simply because of an age. Precisely as Simonds said, “I don’t think that I should have to be a high school millionaire or to have cured an epidemic to be worth listening to”; just as adults are interested and intrigued by thoughts, ideas and possibilities, so are teenagers. Any idea should be respected regardless of the age; it should be the thought behind that idea that matters rather than the age of the idea holder.