Gruppies?
Posted by: David Bunch
If you are a 20 or 30 something (and based on our reader demographics that is about 90% of you) then this article by Adam Sternbergh at New York Magazine is a must read.
The basic premise is that we now have a group of "adults" in their late 20s, 30s, and even 40s who are not trying to relive their youth, they are trying to live the youth of the current young generation.
But at night and on weekends, I still want to be "hip". I find myself sliding into form fitting t-shirts and blue jeans, accented by either Chuck Taylors or flip flops.
Another example is music. I'm totally into the music of today (for me I'm primarily talking Christian music here, i.e. Relient K, Switchfoot, etc. I understand that the Christianity part of these bands is debatable). But my 14 year old niece seems rather annoyed at times that we listen to the same kind of music.
So while I don't feel that I have an identity crisis, I can still relate to what Sternbergh is saying. I also felt somewhat vindicated in knowing that there are others out there like me.
Since I teach a high school boys Sunday school class, I decided to take the matter to them. I was interested in knowing how it makes them feel to know that their Sunday school teacher and possibly other adults in their life were infringing on their youth. Their responses were amazing, if not brilliant for their insight beyond their years. In summary, their were two main points.
1. The music of the 30s and 40s was so different from the 50s and 60s which was in turn so different from the 70s and 80s that it created a chasm of difference between teenagers and their parents. Neither could relate to the other's tastes. But now, since the 80s, music has been more or less, on balance, about the same. Sure the styles have varied, but it's all been of a certain type cast. Its the era of the band. Its the era of living vicariously thru the band.
and
2. The music that teens these days are listening to is from the 80s or at least sounds like the 80s. So the 30 somethings aren't trying to steal from today's teen scene, they are just going back and picking up what they already know! This also goes for a lot of the current fashion trends. This is brilliant, and it's a point that Sternbergh misses.
So after thanking my class for condoning my often immature 29 years, I dismissed class and went home to change into my flip flops.
As Sternbergh says, it's not about relinquishing our responsibilities as adults, it's about exploring our possibilities.
If you are a 20 or 30 something (and based on our reader demographics that is about 90% of you) then this article by Adam Sternbergh at New York Magazine is a must read.
The basic premise is that we now have a group of "adults" in their late 20s, 30s, and even 40s who are not trying to relive their youth, they are trying to live the youth of the current young generation.
This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year- old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. It’s not about a fad but about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. It’s about the hedge-fund guy in Park Slope with the chunky square glasses, brown rock T-shirt, slight paunch, expensive jeans, Puma sneakers, and shoulder-slung messenger bag,with two kids squirming over his lap like itchy chimps at the Tea Lounge on Sunday morning. It’s about the mom in the low-slung Sevens and ankle boots and vaguely Berlin-art-scene blouse with the $800 stroller and the TV-screen-size Olsen-twins sunglasses perched on her head walking through Bryant Park listening to Death Cab for Cutie on her Nano.
It’s more interesting as evidence of the slow erosion of the long-held idea that in some fundamental way, you cross through a portal when you become an adult, a portal inscribed with the biblical imperative “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: But when I became a man, I put away childish things.” This cohort is not interested in putting away childish things. They are a generation or two of affluent, urban adults who are now happily sailing through their thirties and forties, and even fifties, clad in beat-up sneakers and cashmere hoodies, content that they can enjoy all the good parts of being a grown-up (a real paycheck, a family, the warm touch of cashmere) with none of the bad parts (Dockers, management seminars, indentured servitude at the local Gymboree).In a way, this is me. For example, by day I am an insurance professional. We have "business casual" but that's basically dress slacks and pinpoint long sleeves. I do wear the occasional tie. A few meetings a quarter require suits.
But at night and on weekends, I still want to be "hip". I find myself sliding into form fitting t-shirts and blue jeans, accented by either Chuck Taylors or flip flops.
Another example is music. I'm totally into the music of today (for me I'm primarily talking Christian music here, i.e. Relient K, Switchfoot, etc. I understand that the Christianity part of these bands is debatable). But my 14 year old niece seems rather annoyed at times that we listen to the same kind of music.
So while I don't feel that I have an identity crisis, I can still relate to what Sternbergh is saying. I also felt somewhat vindicated in knowing that there are others out there like me.
Since I teach a high school boys Sunday school class, I decided to take the matter to them. I was interested in knowing how it makes them feel to know that their Sunday school teacher and possibly other adults in their life were infringing on their youth. Their responses were amazing, if not brilliant for their insight beyond their years. In summary, their were two main points.
1. The music of the 30s and 40s was so different from the 50s and 60s which was in turn so different from the 70s and 80s that it created a chasm of difference between teenagers and their parents. Neither could relate to the other's tastes. But now, since the 80s, music has been more or less, on balance, about the same. Sure the styles have varied, but it's all been of a certain type cast. Its the era of the band. Its the era of living vicariously thru the band.
and
2. The music that teens these days are listening to is from the 80s or at least sounds like the 80s. So the 30 somethings aren't trying to steal from today's teen scene, they are just going back and picking up what they already know! This also goes for a lot of the current fashion trends. This is brilliant, and it's a point that Sternbergh misses.
So after thanking my class for condoning my often immature 29 years, I dismissed class and went home to change into my flip flops.
As Sternbergh says, it's not about relinquishing our responsibilities as adults, it's about exploring our possibilities.
It’s also about rejecting a hand-me-down model of adulthood that asks,or even necessitates, that you let go of everything you ever felt passionate about. It’s about reimagining adulthood as a period defined by promise, rather than compromise. And who can’t relate to that?
