My wife and I were watching television, while my millennial son was multi-tasking and doing his homework on the floor.  I know… in our world watching TV and doing homework were two diametrically opposed activities, but he’s top of his class… so something’s working.

Anyway, a ribald reference passed by on the tube and my son paused for a second, looked at us, made a hand gesture, and said “awkward turtle” while nodding knowingly.

Being a student of teen behavior, I had to know more.

Apparently, the awkward turtle (AT) symbology is a means for teens, already tremendously self-conscious, to express discomfort or embarrassment at something that’s hanging in the air.  Though it seems AT’s happen disproportionately around parents, I understand the symbol and phrase are widely used between teens as well.

Here’s the thing.  Different sources put the origins of the awkward turtle in different places – and I’ve even encountered it when focus grouping teens in some pretty out-of-the-way towns.  According to the Urban Dictionary (which has several references) the AT, “started in Bronxville, NY and spread quickly all around Westchester.”  However, I’ve traced its origins (in no particularly scientific way) through Facebook to the Director in Charge of Spreading Awkward Turtle, who as best I can figure was a high school student in Georgia.  Journalists at Cornell and Columbia, have even found this thing significant enough to write about.

Where it started is hardly the point.  The fact that a Facebook search finds over 500 results for AT and the first reference is a group with 28,000+ members, is the point.  It’s a tiny representation of the instant interconnectedness of one of our most important target audiences.  And, it’s a lesson in why we’ve got to get our hands dirty understanding this social networking stuff.