Tabitha Soren

The channel of Madonna and "Yo! MTV Raps" transformed itself this week into a 90-minute oasis of sober reflection about the future when Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the all-but-crowned Democratic presidential nominee, listened to the worries of some 200 young people and then tried to persuade them that he is their man. Sure, there were the requisite moments of frivolity during MTV's "Facing the Future With Bill Clinton."

They're the scourge of post-modern America. They are sometimes called "temporary sociopaths," "super predators" and "menaces" in the press. They are a major campaign issue, with both presidential candidates stumping in some way to deal with this national problem. They are . . . our children. "Currently," writes Gore Vidal in the October issue of GQ, "everyone hates (when not raping or corrupting on the Internet) teenagers."

On Feb. 11, 1963, poet Sylvia Plath, then 30, put her head in a gas oven and achieved literary immortality. Poet Ted Hughes, who had left Plath for another woman, soon found himself struggling for his life with his dead wife's biographers. One after another, they still come, wanting to define Hughes as they examine his years with Plath. But Hughes, England's poet laureate, would really, really, really rather define himself.

It can break your heart to write a letter to a celebrity you adore--and not get a response. Did you touch them in some way? Did they appreciate the information you passed on? Did they ignore the sentiments you slaved over in your note? Or did they even see it? Ah, the 32-cent question. Fan mail is a thorny issue for stars. And how to deal with this consequence of fame varies widely, depending on the recipient.

Jack Noseworthy, wearing bulky black boots and a ripped green army jacket with sleeves hanging past his hands, storms after Lisa Dean Ryan inside the faded gold lobby of the Belasco Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. She looks like a waif, with her dark hair chopped short and her belly bare under the peace flower emblazoned on her cutoff T-shirt. The two actors are shooting the new half-hour TV series "Dead at 21," MTV's first foray into action-adventure that might best be described as grunge on the run. They are playing Ed and Maria, two tattered 20-year-olds who are framed for murder and must stay one step ahead of a mad-dog federal agent while searching desperately for the doctor who implanted a computer chip in Ed's skull when he was born as part of a 1970s government plot to create super-smart human beings.

In the end, two impressions are strongest. One is speed, of everything beamed now via outer space into our living rooms live --images of Tian An Men Square, Kuwait City, fires, riots, O.J.--images like wallpaper, some revelatory and many meaningless. The other is fear. Journalists, once rooted in their profession's standards and financial might, worry that technology has eclipsed both.

Robbery, car chases and factory fires are out; Bosnia, street violence, AIDS and sexual harassment are in. So are jump-rope contests and the Roach Olympics. In syndication, on MTV, Nickelodeon and on public television, news shows targeting children and young adults offer a unique window on the world. What the view is from that window varies with each show and the philosophy behind it. "NICK NEWS W/5" Saturdays, 1 p.m.

The Mummy. The Wolf Man. Dracula. Frankenstein. Them! Norman. Carrie. The Alien. The Aliens. Jason. Freddy. . . . Oprah. So maybe they don't make bogymen like they used to, but there's no shortage of frightfulness. Do you ever feel like you've grown and Stephen King hasn't, but for some reason, reading Entertainment Weekly makes you want to leave the night light on?

For some 38 million Americans, July 16, 1990, will live forever in infamy. On that sorry day, Time magazine, in a 4,528-word cover story, christened an unsuspecting generation by torturing the name of a failed TV show about baby boomer angst. Thus were the twentysomethings-a.k.a. Generation X, Baby Busters, Posties-launched into Their Own Private Media Event. Although twentysomethings profess to have had it with press overkill, there is something to be said for exposure.

When the mass blitz hit two weeks ago, popping the message onto the computer screen of every student at Dartmouth College, the brothers of Alpha Delta paid particular attention. After all, the e-mail-announced event would be at their fraternity house.