I have done my best to ignore C.J. Person. I have an outstanding invitation from him to be a friend on Facebook. I have been, for a long time, deeply skeptical of kid conservatives who decide they want to be conservative leaders among the demographic who cannot vote.

I remember speaking at an event in Georgia with Jonathan Krohn, who would grow up to be a liberal writer. He actually insisted on me putting some app on my phone to swap contact information. It was one of those moments when you realize you’re getting old because the kid is telling you how to use your iPhone. His speech was a lot of conservative platitude, much like it was at CPAC. But the blue-haired, pinch your cheeks crowd fell all over themselves until Krohn became a liberal.

Conservatives of a certain age are always trying to embrace youth of some sort. They fall for it every time. Enter C.J. Pearson who never gave the speeches Krohn gave, but who tried to convince people he was blocked by the Obama White House on twitter. He craved attention and hucksters used him for their own ends as he used others it seems. The Obama twitter block, supposed death threats, switching between Paul and Cruz, etc. etc. etc. — it was a steady stream of social media fails.

Seems like his parents might have wanted to watch their son on social media a bit more. It was all too good to be true as it always is. C.J. Pearson went from being a conservative on twitter to rejecting conservatism before most people even knew who he was and all before he had even turned fourteen. At the same time he was running for some Young Republicans position of some sort and now is backing Bernie Sanders, though some are casting doubt on even that. But CJ Pearson has announced it on twitter.

Here’s the thing C.J. — I know you are reading this because you can’t help yourself. You want attention and thought politics would get it for you. You got attention for a while from one group, but when that flamed out you threw them under the bus and are now getting attention from the opposite group. At this rate no one will take you seriously before you hit sixteen.

It is not a healthy thing, I think, for most kids to be obsessed about politics. Having an interest in politics is not bad, but making it your focus as a kid, when you cannot even vote, distracts you from things like having fun and relating to people your own age — most of whom are not into politics.

Likewise, core believes at that age are more a reflection of your parents’ politics or your rebellion against your parents’ politics. You don’t have a world view. You’re a kid who hasn’t even been into the world. You are still evolving and will continue to evolve. You’ll get a job, pay taxes, go to school, understand things better and then realize one day you do have a comprehensive world view that is your own and not a reflection of your relationship with your parents or anyone else. It will be yours. It will be a world view that puts you as a fulcrum point between liberty and equality, shaping whether you tilt conservative or liberal.

That does not happen at thirteen.

So stop embarrassing yourself, shut up, and go live life. Pay attention to politics, but also pay attention to movies, sports, girls, your parents, your preacher, and your surroundings. Come back when you are eighteen, your voice has deepened, and you’ve passed your final growth spurt. Because about the time you stop growing externally, that’s when you really start growing internally. Your body takes the intellectual nutrition you are consuming now as a kid and grows it into the man you will be. Social media attention is not intellectual nutrition.

Right now you are a kid. If you want fame on social media that bad right now, the man you grow into is going to be twisted up with shallow roots. You’re going to get blown over in a breeze. So get off social media and go play.