Kids These Days
I wrote this on the train a few weeks ago, and certain computer explosions have kept me from posting the finished version. I'm not sure whether to be mortified of this post or not, but when in doubt, take the risk. Also I'm pretty sure none of the links work.
So for the next week or so you'll be able to read a NYT Magazine article about kids in NYC and LA who realize how cool they are, and find ways to sell it. I find this abhorrent and I don't mind saying so, and I finally figured out what exactly rubs me the wrong way. These kids are attempting to reject authority, and all they're doing is buying into some other authority. Here's a quote:
What, exactly, did that culture or lifestyle consist of — aside from buying products that represent it?Bobby did his best to clue me in. “It’s just the idea of trying to be rebellious,” he said. “Or trying to be a little bit anti, questioning government or your parents. Trying to do something different.”
Fair enough; I don't give two shits what some kid is doing. But here's the hypocrisy: the kids are still slaves to authority. So you're no longer listening to your parents. So what? So you're no longer listening to corporate marketers. Fantastic. But the thrust of this article is the fevered chase to find, hype and sell the next cool thing, which, by definition, means you're still obsessed with what other people think. Maybe it's better for the people in this article who are the ones creating and selling the authority on what's cool and what's not, but it's still no different than the system bought into by anyone else in the world. Well, that's not true: these people have different T-shirts.
So this is the first time i've ever seriously thought, "kids these days," which I admit is both troubling and sad. But this has never been about what I think is hip. If you want to be cool, be yourself. If you think you can sell it, more power to you. But if you're defining cool, instead of listening to what everyone else thinks, you're just getting a higher position in the same game. Here's a choice quote:
“We were the first generation, and only one, to enjoy sneaker consumption on our own terms,” Bobbito Garcia declares in his book about sneaker-hunting in the 1970’s and 80’s, “Where’d You Get Those?"
You want to be original? Then why are you wearing the same kind of shoes as literally everyone else? How about you stop wearing sneakers? If I wanted to reject society, I would move to Greece or India or somewhere and spend the rest of my life on the beach. Now that's beating the system. If you're still walking around St. Mark's Place trying to impress people, you're still a tool of the system. Even if you're the influencer, that just means you're at the front of the same line. Congratulations.
Comments
So this is the first time i've ever seriously thought, "kids these days," which I admit is both troubling and sad. But this has never been about what I think is hip. If you want to be cool, be yourself. If you think you can sell it, more power to you. But if you're defining cool, instead of listening to what everyone else thinks, you're just getting a higher position in the same game.
I work at mid-sized university in Texas and I also just turned 33, which places me a full decade-plus-some ahead of most of the students. I only started to say "kids these days" to myself about two years ago, but I do find myself saying it more and more.
The thing that gets me, something which I think is tangetally related to what you blog about in this post, is the "we want to be taken seriously" meme that radiates from high school aged kids and younger college undergrads these days.
On one level, I do see a whole lot of encouraging signs of people getting involved in politics and becoming active citizens at younger ages than I remember in my peers at the same age.
At the same time, I sense that there's a general sense of entitlement in these same age groups that was missing in mine; they feel that they should just be able to show up, make no sacrifices and be taken seriously, yet when things don't end up all nice and neat like they often do in the real world, their thin, media-manicured sense of self is injured and they pout, pick up their toys and go home.
So there you go; I've just shook my rhetorical cane at the whipper snappers for being on my lawn.
To bring this back to your post, I suggest Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool to folks who are interested in the dynamics behind what Frank calls "the rise of hip consumerism".
Posted by: Betamax Guillotine
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August 30, 2006 5:16 PM