A study conducted by researchers at the University of Luxembourg has confirmed that the teenagers over there are indeed laughing at your expense.
Dr. Karl Gudshushyn, the scholar who led the study, says that he and his colleagues have long suspected you of being the cause of teens’ fits of joyous howls.
“Now we are certain,” he said. “And I can’t say I’m surprised, I mean, just look at yourself.”
For months, Gudshushyn’s team fanned out across Luxembourg-ville and observed you on public transport and in shops and restaurants, all the while you unwittingly caused young people in the immediate vicinity to snort, chortle and guffaw. In many cases, the teens slapped each other on the back and said you were the funniest thing they had ever seen, and in at least two cases entire groups of teenagers peed themselves.
Goda Banis, a PhD student from Lithuania who frequently observed you eating lunch alone at the Auchan commercial center, says the biggest reason they are laughing at you, which accounted for 32 percent of the cases, is your shoes.
“Which makes sense, because they look like disco-infused clogs designed by a colorblind toddler,” she said.
The researchers claim that one-fifth of the time you prompt teenagers to fits of laughter is because one of them has unfavorably compared your face to that of a certain farm animal. In nine percent of the cases, one or more members of the group has compared the way you walk to a duck suffering from hemorrhoids.
Surprising to the researchers was that in fewer than one percent of the cases the teenagers are laughing because they see through your facade of being a mature, composed adult when actually your mind is a wild battlefield where hundreds of neuroses and insecurities battle each other for dominance.
“The fragility of your psyche is pretty clear to us, but, oddly enough, teens seem only vaguely aware of it,” Gudshushyn said.
