April 5, 2007 by A.S. Van Dorston

“He owns eleven pairs of sneakers, hasnt worn anything but jeans in a year, and wont shut up about the latest Death Cab for Cutie CD. But he is no kid. He is among the ascendant breed of grown-up who has redefined adulthood as we once knew it and killed off the generation gap”.

* Also known as yupster (yuppie hipster), yindie (yuppie indie), and alterna-yuppie. Our preferred term, grup, is taken from an episode of Star Trek(keep reading) in which Captain Kirk et al. land on a planet of children who rule the world, with no adults in sight. The kids call Kirk and the crew grups, which they eventually figure out is a contraction of grown-ups. It turns out that all the grown-ups had died from a virus that greatly slows the aging process and kills anybody who grows up.”

In Adam Sternbergh’s New York Magazine story on “the ascendant breed of grown-ups who are redefining adulthood,” he makes a big deal out of the simple fact that the generation that grew up with punk and indie rock never decided to outgrow listening to new music. Hence the so-called dwindling generation gap. This supposedly represents “a seismic shift in intergenerational relationships.”

Oh look, the clue train is rolling in, and it has some messages for Adam and his stunted view of the world skewed by his idea that a small percentage of affluent, hip, narcissistic, hyperconsumer fashion victims in Manhattan and Brooklyn are somehow representative of Americans, or even humanity.

First of all, there has always been adults who stayed current with culture, be it art, literature, poetry, film or music. They’ve always been a relative minority, and they still are. Throughout the 20th century, some were categorized as bohemians, beats, hippies, anarcho-punks, avant-garde artists, etc. But they could have just as well been iconoclastic individuals in Kansas or Kentucky who diverged from the norm. The few people who realize that giving up new music is like never reading another new book or seeing a new movie. Personally I think it makes as much sense as giving up sex, eating or breathing. The actual increase in the percentage of people who stay tapped into youth culture nowadays hardly represents a seismic shift. Sure, there’s more people into new music now than in the 70s and 80s, when punk and indie shows would more often than not have less than 20 people in the audience. But these people hardly represent a mass movement or paradigm shift. When I go outside on a weekday, I don’t see throngs of grups. I still see a sea of suits.

Secondly, very few of these “grups” are affluent enough to afford $600 jeans, especially when they’re raising children. Typically, this New York article takes time out to plug a “very hot, hip fashion label” run by Rogan Gregory, who designs jeans that are so distressed and tattered, they’re likely to fall apart within a month. The article gives the impression that grups “want the world to know [they] can afford the very best in tattered jeans.” Funny, the people I know would be mortified at the idea. They might as well just wear a sign on the ass, “Fashion Victim Lemming.” The article winds up by crowing how noble the grups are for quitting their hamster wheel jobs and creating their own destiny by being autonomous and self-employed. They can somehow do this and still afford their posh lofts, babies as fashion-accessories, not to mention health insurance and $600 tattered jeans. Surprise surprise, a New York publication is once again holding up a handful of smug trust-fund babies and crediting them with a trend.

This is so far from reality it’s not even funny. It’s offensive to the people who do value culture, but can barely make ends meet, or at the very least cannot afford to live frivolously. This is why New York magazine and the New Yorkers behind it can suck my indie-rockin’, non-profit workin’ balls.

Posted in: Rants