Teen Nation: How the Kids Took Over Pop Culture

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Even so, past teen booms have always eventually dried up. Will the Hannah Montana age soon go the way of the Hanson years? Or are we in the middle of a larger market shift that will leave adult pop culture adrift in an ocean of future Gossip Girls and High School Musicals? For better or worse, the evidence seems to support the latter. Demographics — and changing marketing — suggest there will be plenty more to come, even after the stars of High School Musical leave the Disney Channel behind to become the next Justin Timberlakes and Shia LaBeoufs. Unlike in the past, this eruption isn't just a few huge hits: It's being fueled by a new and fast-growing teen-entertainment industry with a pipeline that assures fading stars will be replaced by fresh new ones. ''Because these kids have access to so much, I don't think the idea of it being a good time to be a teen is going to change,'' Iconoculture's Robinson says. ''If Disney is on a down end, Nickelodeon will be on an up end, or some other thing will pop up to take their attention. They've got so many baskets to go to that I don't foresee a drought again.''

That's good news for people who love teen entertainment — including those who make it. Five years ago, 7th Heaven creator Brenda Hampton couldn't find a home for her show about a funny, pregnant teen with a messy love life. She sold the script to Fox, but it languished in favor of a glitzier take on teendom called The O.C. She tried Lifetime, which asked for more emphasis on the adult characters before nixing the concept completely. Then last summer Hampton stumbled onto an episode of ABC Family's Greek, a lighthearted look at college life, full of drinking and sex. That network, she thought, was the channel for her — an avenue that simply wasn't available when she'd first conceived her Juno-like show. Now The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which premieres this summer, is shaping up to be ABC Family's next hit — with no less than '80s teen superstar Molly Ringwald set to star as a mom. ''Before, each network was tailoring [my show] toward themselves,'' Hampton says. ''When ABC Family read the scripts, they got them. That's the first time that's happened.'' Our inner 16-year-olds couldn't be more excited.

Additional reporting by Youyoung Lee, Adam Markovitz, and Tanner Stransky