Yeah, it wasn't a very good article to begin with. It seemed that the author was less interested in discovering a new trend than in getting the CREDIT for discovering a new trend.I'm in favor of oldsters (you know, people my age...) keeping current and all, but these folks were way more about style than substance. They seem like latter-day versions of the very same hiptsers who've always bugged me at clubs: those who are there for "the scene" and "to be seen" rather than out of any particular fondness for the music.
Of course, the author was probably looking for the most vapid and outlandish set of interviwees possible, a quest at which he seems largely to have succeeded.
--Previous Message--
: I have mixed feelings about both the
: trend and the article.
:
: On the one hand, so much of the
: whole institution of adulthood is
: just so much subservient bullshit
: designed to emotionally blackmail
: people into being a cog in the
: machine. As I once said to my
: exasperated sister who wondered
: why I refused to assimilate this
: way "Life is too short and
: precious a gift to waste it on
: acting grown up."
:
: On the other, so many of the
: things listed in the article as
: traits of that group are as
: shallow and consumerist as the
: establishment they purport to
: disdain. In many cases, it sounds
: as if many of those �grups,� far
: from living any true alternative,
: are just the other side of the
: same coin they claim to be an
: alternative to.
:
: And I have to say I just love the
: wittiness of the moniker �Dorian
: Graybeards.� It was worth reading
: the article just for that little
: gem alone.
:
: But the following made me yell
: �bullshit!:�
:
: "This, of course, is a
: seismic shift in intergenerational
: relationships. It means there is
: no fundamental generation gap
: anymore. This is unprecedented in
: human history. And it�s kind of
: weird."
:
: �Unprecedented in human history?�
: Really? Didn�t the term
: �generation gap� only first come
: about in the Sixties? Isn�t the
: whole concept of an adolescent
: phase of rebellion (and an
: associated generation gap)actually
: a fairly new one? I�m reasonably
: sure that, until, say, 100 or 120
: years ago, life spans were short
: enough and educational demands low
: enough that most people just went
: from childhood into marriage and
: family life. And the pace of
: progress was slow enough that the
: generations weren�t sufficiently
: different from each other.
:
: -- 43-year-old nose-ringed
: anarchist who has no idea what
: Death Cab for Cutie sounds like
: and wouldn�t be caught dead
: wearing $400 designer jeans.
:
:
