Face it: You’re not a teen anymore. And sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what all these teens are talking about. What makes these teens tick? We have the right to know. 

#FollowATeen is a group project for the adult Twitter community – founded by journalist David Thorpe in 2011 and reignited today by request of BuzzFeed Sr. Editor Katie Notopoulos – to help us all better understand teen lyfe in 2013. You can participate by finding a teen, following that teen and reporting your findings back to the the grown ups. Maybe your teen doesn’t like school? Maybe your teen is tired of drama? Maybe your teen loves emojis? Share it with the group. The raw data embedded in a teen’s twitter feed is worth more than any survey or newspaper trend piece. And if we pool our knowledge together, we can all feel that much more comfortable when a group of teens stands near us on the subway. “I understand you,” you’ll think to yourself as they scream “RATCHET!” at each other at the top of your lungs. “I get it.”

Just don’t interact with your teen. Let them go about their lives unburdened by the knowledge that their tendencies are being documented so that they might be better understood by olds.

If you’re having trouble finding a teen, try searching “lol dad” or “yolo school”.

Correction: Previously this article credited Katie Notopoulos with founding the #FollowATeen movement. We regret any irreperable damage this error may have caused to David Thorpe’s personal brand.

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Michael Kolberg is The Sprawl Editor at Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter for jokes @mikeykolberg.

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