This article explores stories told by five young men, ages 17-19, about how they conceptualize reality through their electronic media choices. In studies on young people and the media, there is a rich and popular conservative tradition of seeing those deemed deviant as deeply and negatively influenced by the media. These individuals are assumed to have a fragile conscience that will permit them to be attracted to and act out socially unacceptable behaviors seen in the media. Deviance is understood in terms of social location, including race, gender, social class, and educational attainment. This essay challenges that tradition by asking how these boys understand and from their media choices. draw directly from their stories told by youth of color from the inner-city South Bronx, New York. How do they articulate their viewing/listening positions and of reality when it is often people like them who are depicted as criminals and perpetuators of socially unacceptable behaviors in the media? Instead of seeking out or reacting against violent media, they choose and make meaning from media that help them conceptualize family, friendship, community, and career choice. Keywords: urban youth, media studies, youth culture, boy culture, media education Sean1 stands over 6-feet tall, is broad shouldered, long limbed, wears diamond studs in his ears and his hair is in fuzzy cornrows, crisscrossing his scalp and resting at the nape of his neck. Sean swims in his clothes: oversized leather jacket, knee-length jersey, jeans pooled into hi-top sneakers. While it is almost impossible to see his body, this is standard dress for Sean. He owns nothing that fits. When ask him why everything he wears is too big, he responds, I gotta be than life. Sean's desire to be than life counters his current compromised social position. At age 18, Sean, an African-American boy from the South Bronx, is perched on the borderline of adulthood. His skin color, general physical appearance and geographic location contribute to assumptions made by police and others that he is a drug dealer. He is not. He works part-time at an ice cream shop. He has a tight circle of best friends, whom he refers to as his brothers, and they are all in similar precarious economic, academic, and social positions. While they support each others' desire to be larger than life, the world they occupy restricts such growth. Nevertheless, Sean and his friends search for social cues to inform them on the world outside their environment. One major way in which they understand and of the world is through their media choices. How do Sean and his friends-young men living on the mainstream's fringes-make of their world through their media choices? What can be learned about boy culture and media culture through the stories told by boys in the borderland of adulthood? The popular, conservative research on young people frames them as negatively influenced by the media, the catch-all explanation for society's ills (Murray, 1993; Pipher, 1994; Pollack, 1998; Postman, 1982/1994, 1985; Sanders, 1994; Singer, 1993). In contrast to this position, inquire how these young men of color frame their identity work, articulate their audience positions and of reality. This inquiry provides inroads for deeper understanding of how they position themselves. draw directly from the stories told individually and in conversation with Sean, Mitri, Nate, Ques, and D-Dot, five young men of color from the South Bronx, how to better understand their self-described social positions. These young men seek out and from media that help them conceptualize family, friendship, community and career choice. Their conversations on television shows The Simpsons and Making the Band II and rap artists Eminem and 50 Cent reveal their understandings and desires for family, community, compassion, and trust. …