Cult Culture: Top 5 Whippersnappers

As if you didn’t feel bad enough already about the lack of progress in your life up to this point, here are some incredible people whose achievements trivialise your pride in getting to that 9am on a post-Moonies hangover…(and most of them can legitimately still call themselves teenagers…) 

 1. Lorde

Age: 17

The UK music scene is not unfamiliar with young emerging artists – remember Birdy, who rose to prominence in 2011, was only 14 at the time. Now in 2013, New Zealand teenager Lorde (real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor) is taking over the world with her album Pure Heroine, and rolling out hit after hit.

What’s even more impressive about this girl is she isn’t afraid to speak her mind. Lorde has publicly criticised other young female artists, calling Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus ‘mental’ and writing Taylor Swift off as being too perfect. No comment as of yet from Miss Swift, but there may or may not be a revenge song in the works…

 2. Nick d’Aloisio

Age: 18

How many of you have had that ‘throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air-wishing-you-could-do-a-Zuckerberg’ kind of feeling?

At 18, Nick d’Aloisio is one of the youngest self-made millionaires in the world. 2 years ago, he created Summly, an app that summarises news stories in just a few sentences, and sold it to Yahoo! for £30 million. Summly counts Stephen Fry and Ashton Kutcher as fans (and investors).

3. Chloe Moretz

Age: 16

We are used to Hollywood spewing out young actresses. Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Saoirse Ronan… the list goes on. In fact, in the new film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, Hailee Steinfeld is actually the age Juliet was supposed to be – 13 or 14!

However, what sets Chloe Moretz apart is her confidence and her sense of being ‘grounded’, as they say in showbiz. You may have seen her in Kick-Ass as Hit-Girl, as Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s sister in (500) Days of Summer and now as Carrie in the new film adaption of Stephen King’s novel about a girl who possesses the power of telekinesis.

Despite all this success, Chloe frequently talks in interviews about getting into trouble with her mum, doing chores around the house and getting her phone confiscated, like any normal teenager. Plus, she has expressed no desires to cut off her hair, take off her clothes and straddle a wrecking ball. Kudos!

4. Malala Yousafzai

Age: 16

Malala’s story is amazing and has received an incredible response from people all over the world. When she was only 11, the BBC published her blog which dealt with her activism for the rights of women in her native Pakistan.

She has overcome astronomical hardships: writing her blog under a pseudonym, receiving death threats when her identity was revealed, and an assassination attempt on her life last year. Yousafzai has endured and is now the youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Madiba would be proud.

5. Veronica Roth

Age: 25

Ah! Finally, someone who has found success over the age of 20. There is hope for us all yet!

She may be older than some of the people on this list, but her success is too prominent to ignore. For those of you who didn’t know, Roth is the author of the Divergent series, a dystopian young adult trilogy about a divided society.

Now before you write this off as a Hunger Games rip-off, know that the last book in the series, Allegiant, was released in October of this year and sold five copies for every one copy of the final Hunger Games.

What’s really amazing about this success story is that Roth wrote the first book during the Christmas holidays of her final year at university and by graduation, she had already sold off the movie rights. For the rest of us, Christmas is a time to polish off mince pies, not New York Times Bestselling books.

Look out for the movie which will be released in March 2014, starring Shailene Woodley…