If you haven’t already, read this interesting smidgen of social analysis by Adam Sternberg in New York Magazine. His subject: the novel nature of genX’s ongoing immaturity. He writes:
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. Itââ¬â¢s not about a fad but about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. Itââ¬â¢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. Itââ¬â¢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.
The victims here are, of course, today’s teenagers, who surely suffer from a generational identity crisis:
This cascade of pioneering immaturity is no longer a case of a generationââ¬â¢s being stuck in its own youth. This generation is now, if you happen to be under 25, more interested in being stuck in your youth.
Sternberg chooses the short but unevocative “grups” to name this emergent social group, but I prefer the more intuitive “yupsters” or “yindies.” Check it out. After all, if you used to read this blog, there’s a 75% or so chance that this article is about you.
Hat tip: The Roth Brothers
If you are one of the three or four stalwart Gryphon fans who still drop by, you might like to see my October 16th Business Week article, titled “Better Teachers: A Lesson Plan,” which is now available online.
Tom Delay just opined on CNN, “This country is still right-of-center.” Er, right of the center of what?