Nickelodeon killed my speech!

For my first post, I figured I'd start with something light and flaky. So for my very first mental danish, I want to discuss something I noticed in the dialect of my generation.

I realised the other day that a strange phenomena has occured. It deals with the dialects of people my age and most people within a range of +/- 3 years (So, for people with little to no maths, that gives us a range of seven years). I realised that the people within this range say the word "like" more than those outside of this bubble. Why? How did it get limited to that group? I realised it had to be something to do with how we were raised. So what exactly did most of the kids in this range have in common? Then it struck me.

Nickelodeon was big dog when we were kids. Many, if not most, of the kids in this range watched at least one show. Even though this is considered the "golden age," many of the shows were considerably low budget and handled by smaller crews than many shows now-a-days. Thus, the shows were a bit more personal and the writers' lives had direct influence on the work. Here's where we find an answer. Nickelodeon studios had two headquarters: one in Orlando and one in California. It's a well known fact that "coast/beach dialect" has it's own spin on various things, such as the prescence of the word "like." Specifically in California, where there exists many delicious dialects such as the wonderfully intellectual "Valley Girl" and the hard-working, goal driven "Surfer Bum." Writers for Nickelodeon shows were constantly exposed to these dialects in their children and the world around them. This translated into their writing. They created teens based off the teens they observed, and this includes the dialect. Thus, Nickelodeon characters had itchy trigger fingers with the word "like." Being that many of us in the age range I listed were in a prime stage of language development, we adopted this word into or own dialects, and have thus built a beautiful and terrible relationship with that word. Like, I don't even know what life would be like without it! Like, it would be bogus, dude.

Does that, like, feel better? Good.
First Post! Woo!