The Guardian: ‘Mogging’ is suddenly everywhere. Is that a problem?. “This word for outdoing or outshining others originated in the manosphere, but is now thoroughly mainstream. Why is it so popular – and should we be worried about slang that arises from toxic subcultures?”

Hampshire Police warned against statement during Henry Nowak trial over misinformation

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hampshire-police-statement-henry-nowak-37259379

Teenagers At War: Ages of Soldiers Throughout History

While stereotype of ancient and medieval soldiers are the big, burly bearded men swinging massive weapons, in reality, soldiers could be quite young.

Few datapoints:

• Tombstones at Chester indicate that soldiers could be quite young when joining Roman legions. Two legionaires had been only fourteen when they had joined.
• Legally, minimum age for joining Roman legions was 17 years. As noted above however, this was not always respected.
• Edward, Prince of Wales, was sixteen years old when he commanded part of English army at Crecy.

And of course, training could begin even earlier than that. Spartan boys were wrenched from home at age of seven. It should be noted that, Spartan society being what it was, Spartan agoge involved a lot of indoctrination; young Spartiates were only judged to be battle-ready at age of 20. This was likely due to excessive weight of the hoplite equipment.

Medieval pages were sent from home to serve at another aristocrat’s home at age of seven. In return for their service, they received education and military training. They mainly performed minor auxilliary roles such as dressing and arming their lord, but in the event of the siege they were expected to help in defense by using crossbow – a weapon that even a child could handle. Otherwise however they did not fight, and it was considered bad form to target pages in battle.

When he reached age of fourteen however, page would become a squire. And squires, in addition to performing the same auxilliary duties as pages, were also expected to fight. As noted earlier, Edward, Prince of Wales, fought at Crecy when he was 16 years old. And on 12 October 1347, he was one of the first inductees into the newly established Order of the Garter, meant to honor the participants of warfare in France. He was also by far the youngest.

Of course, this doesn’t mean majority of soldiers were teenagers. Most of the medieval soldiers were professionals who served for life, and there were no hard age limits. Excavation of 32 bodies from the Battle of Towtown in 1461 showed they were on average 29,2 years old. Out of 32 corpses, only 11 were between 16 and 25 years of age. Even the “Children’s Crusade” of 1212 wasn’t really done by “children” – rather, the terms puer, puella, puelle seem to be used to indicate that they were poor. Indeed, Marbach annalist claims that they were adults and married “children”, and puer was indeed often used in the Middle Ages to denote an agricultural laborer or wage-earner.

Ottomans kidnapped Christian boys aged 7 – 18 from the families as a form of “blood tax”, devshirme. Upon capture, children were dressed in red so they could be recognized in an event of escape. They would then be circumcised and converted to Islam. As Sultan’s personal slaves, they were trained for a life of service, to fight and die for their master.

During Age of Sail, British Royal Navy used “powder monkeys”. These were young boys recruited or press-ganged to service cannons on warships. Their job was to carry gunpowder from the magazine in the ship’s hold to gun crews. It was a dangerous job, as guns would regularly dismount and maim crewmembers, and could also explode.

Drummer boys were also frequent on the battlefield through centuries, often also serving as unit mascots. This was true throughout the Age of Sail, but drummer boys got popularized through French Revolution and later American Civil War. The youngest recruit to be killed in the American Civil War was in fact the 13-years old Charles King. Before that, during the American War of Independence, average age of British soldiers was some 21,6 years, and 24 years during the Napoleonic Wars.

And even as the society began to frown upon intentionally employing children on the battlefield, it still happened. Children as young as 12 and 13 lied about their age to fight for Britain in the First World War. Approximately 250 000 British soldiers in the First World War were under the legal age of 19. The youngest recognised soldier was 12-year-old Sidney Lewis, who fought in the battle of the Somme. Overall, average age of soldiers killed in the war was 27 – but more 19 year olds were killed than any other age group, and the youngest soldiers killed was 16. In tota, two 16 year olds and seven 17 year olds were killed.

Things got worse when ideology got involved. Both Nazis and Yugoslav Partisans recruited and sent to fight children as young as 10 years of age. For this reason, perhaps, Croatia still has 1 680 people receiving pension of Croatian Armed Forces (1941 – 1945) and 4 500 individuals receiving pension for participation in the Croatian Partisan movement (1941 – 1945). And of course, Hitler sent Hitler’s Youth to fight the final battle of the war.

How looksmaxxing trend is affecting young men
By Joseph Baronio, Michelle Wakim, and Nicholas Maher

While it's a bit of fun for some, the social media trend known as looksmaxxing can have major impacts on young men's physical and mental health.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-07/looksmaxxing-social-media-trend-impact-on-young-men/106765048

#SocialMedia #Men #Beauty #Teenagers #Health #MentalHealth #JosephBaronio #MichelleWakim # #NicholasMaher

Carol Vorderman on why Mirror's Pride of Britain is needed 'more than ever'

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/carol-vorderman-mirrors-pride-britain-37254341

New York Times: ‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School. This link goes to a gift article. “Again and again, the world’s leading social media companies have targeted students, even as complaints have mounted that they are hurting teenagers’ mental health and academic performance, according to a New York Times review of internal documents that lay […]

Mashable: Survey: Teens regularly see harmful content, messages on Snapchat. “Teens on Snapchat frequently encounter unwanted or dangerous content on the platform, according to a new survey. A third of the poll’s 1,016 respondents said they’d seen or received unsafe content or messages in the past week. More than half said they’d had at least one such experience in the past year.”

Sharron Davies calls for more swimming on TV following spate of UK water tragedies

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sharron-davies-tv-swimming-plea-37250957

British schoolboy sanctioned by the Kremlin says he ‘won’t be intimidated’ by Putin

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/british-schoolboy-sanctioned-by-kremlin-37250846

'I felt like an outsider my whole life - everything changed when I won the Booker Prize'

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/douglas-stuart-john-of-john-37247946