२१ फेब्रुवारी, २०२४

"What teenagers today are offered... is a hyperactive landscape of so-called aesthetics... including everything from the infamous cottagecore to, these days, prep."

"These are more like cultural atmospheres, performed mainly online, with names and looks and hashtags, an easy visual pablum.... They have much content but little context — a lot to look at but a very thin relationship to any 'real life' anything.... On one end, even a distinctly in-the-world subculture (like, say, grunge) can be reduced to a vibe packet of anodyne references (cigarettes, grimy things); on the other, a mere mood tone can be elevated to something offered as lifestyle (there are girls who enjoy the color red and a certain Euro effortlessness, and they are called Tomato Girls, while others who prefer white are called Vanilla Girls). If two dozen things on a Pinterest page feel as if they go together, chances are someone, even just as a lark or experiment, is calling it an aesthetic.... Kids are not failing by wanting to be cottagecore or meatcore or this new preppy. It’s the culture available to them that is failing.... Kids... need more, deserve more...."

Writes Mireille Silcoff, in "Teen Subcultures Are Fading. Pity the Poor Kids. Gorgeous, abundant visuals are just pale imitations of what young people used to have: an actual scene" (NYT)(free access link).

२९ टिप्पण्या:

Jake म्हणाले...

Kids today.

mikee म्हणाले...

Build your kid a potato cannon and send them out to play in the woods unsupervised with their friends. They will be better adults for it.

rehajm म्हणाले...

was far less confusing to me than the fact that people were calling this store — an all-white box exploding with smiley-face sweatshirts, tie-dyed fuzzy bathrobes and a generally berserk neon beachiness — preppy.

Haha- me, too...that store? Barf. Out...

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"Kids... need more, deserve more"

Like, married parents, siblings, families?

Paddy O म्हणाले...

How is this different from teen subcultures from anytime in the last century? I think the writer overvalued the cultural sophistication of previous teens. I mean sure Gidget was a sublime exploration of the complex intersections of the mid century emerging adult within a cold war milieu, cleverly superimposed within the archetypal liminal coastline environ. But was that an exception to mere aesthetic opportunism or a sign the boomers really were more okay than today's vapidesque youth?

Or maybe the truth is that in rich countries there will always be flappers who flap and elders who accuse the flap of being an empty lifestyle.

My 6x great grandma was quoted in an Los Angeles newspaper article how shallow and incapable the flappers were compared to her tree chopping farm making Civil War generation. And those flappers gave birth to the Greatest Generation, so maybe worth just skips a generation every so often.

The GGs had the boomers and the boomers had the Xers so that trend checks out.

Temujin म्हणाले...

The kids are going to grow up cursing anyone born before 2014.

rehajm म्हणाले...

Full disclosure- In the 80s I went off to one of the preppier New England campuses with a J. Crew suitcase full of rugbys and blue striped oxfords while my good friend from high school ran off to be a Warhol validated club kid...which may cloud my judgment here but I believe the woman has a valid point. We aren't witnessing any evolution of youthful subcultures but rather a veneer of participation in retro nostalgia as its own thing. I see vacant and vapid. It feels like the kids are missing out...

Is it because the bombardment of liberal propaganda stunted progress, or even 'progress'?

Jupiter म्हणाले...

A good case can be made that the development of "youth subcultures" was where Western Civ began to lose contact with the rails. For most of civilized history, young humans came of age within the adult culture. Wishing to achieve higher status in that culture, they set about learning to be adults. Separating them from the culture, in "schools", did not alter this desire, as long as the schools were run by competent adults. But competent adults can easily find better things to do than run schools, and a lot of seriously non-competent adults have taken their place. They either pursue their own objectives while the school environment goes to Hell, or worse, seek to corrupt and debauch the children trusted to their care.

The schools are Hell-holes. Don't send your kids to Hell. Home-school. It's easier than they want you to think.

Birches म्हणाले...

Most kids always just learned the scene with the look. They didn't actually participate.

Lilly, a dog म्हणाले...

Althousecommentercore: Trump sneakers and a tin foil hat.

Birches म्हणाले...

My teenagers participate in a sub culture that went unmentioned in the NYT: anime. It's definitely a thing but not something a 12 year old in Park Slope is seeing on social media.

Narr म्हणाले...

In the context of no context.

In high school I was of the smoking tree subculture. Good times, but no longer available to youngsters apparently.

Sad.



PM म्हणाले...

"I just don't understand these kids today," said adults forever.

ambisinistral म्हणाले...

Gen Xers are silly. All they ever do is bitch about every other generational cohort while never considering their own. Usually, by the time the reach their age, they start realizing that kids are kids, teens are teens, young adults are young adults, etc. Every generational cohort goes through those phases.

As for the article, since when do middle-aged goobers define a youth culture?

ambisinistral म्हणाले...

Gen Xers are silly. All they ever do is bitch about every other generational cohort while never considering their own. Usually, by the time the reach their age, they start realizing that kids are kids, teens are teens, young adults are young adults, etc. Every generational cohort goes through those phases.

As for the article, since when do middle-aged goobers define a youth culture?

Aggie म्हणाले...

I was listening to an article on the radio yesterday, driving. The journalist was relating a study that has found that today's teens are interacting much less than they were just a few years ago, and the difference is profound - they're time spent face-to-face with peers and even others is about half what it was. That's a big difference when kids are at that hormonal age, where uncertainty and under-confidence is something that must be cured with contact. It has made today's kids anxious and even more withdrawn, apparently. I have kids in the neighborhood that I interact with - picking up at summer camp while their parents are at work, and so forth - and I think there's some truth to this.

There will always be a generation gap. But parents today have to go the extra mile to make sure their kids are having the right amount of time away from 'things video', away from computer games, away from the harmful insular electronics that pervade the modern age. Summer camps, church groups, sports. Get involved!

mccullough म्हणाले...

This article is by a Cannuck.

There is no Gen-X in Canada.

Get your facts straight, Boomer.



NorthOfTheOneOhOne म्हणाले...

Birches said...

Most kids always just learned the scene with the look.

This is true. "The Scene" is usually a NYC/LA/London thing that most kids don't have access to.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

Birches said...Most kids always just learned the scene with the look. They didn't actually participate.

I was a mod. Thin ties and jackets, fake British accent to go with all the British invasion pop I listened to. It was decades later when I found out the real mods were racist thugs, a close cousin to skinheads. To me it was just a sound and a look. There was no philosophy behind it, no deeper culture.

Earnest Prole म्हणाले...

Should it surprise anyone our kids are a mirror image of ourselves? “The forms of art as life seem exhausted; the stages of development have been run through. Institutions function painfully. Repetition and frustration are the intolerable result. Boredom and fatigue are the great historical forces.”

Mikey NTH म्हणाले...

My brother has teen girls. One is artistic and athletic, the other interested in earning money and metal concerts. I just try to keep my gifts relevant and otherwise stay out of the way.

Steph म्हणाले...

That’s what kids are constantly told-it’s all identify-skin color, gender, R, D, label label label. So yes they have to constantly pick a label.
But she does sound like an old fuddy duddy.

rehajm म्हणाले...

When you’re at ground zero you don’t recognize it as a subculture, you’re just doing what you do. The identity is really more for history to reflect upon. Perhaps history will recognize their subculture was one where they gave their own take on subcultures via social media?

J Scott म्हणाले...

Steph, what's sad is that underneath all the enthusiasm and noise and craziness about adapting labels today as identity, at the root, at the core, was the idea to be able leave all labels behind, to allow people to develop a personal identity without the intrusion of the outside culture reaching in and stamping you as a "thing". Instead we got the 101 version of this.

You can see it in all these clumsy attempts to evade labels by creating news ones like, fluid or asexual or non-conforming. But non-conforming in exactly the same way as everyone else.

This orthodox heterodoxy.

Njall म्हणाले...

Oh, how miserably young people behave nowadays!

Wherever I go, no one is happy
Dancing, laughing, singing are all superseded by worry
….
Look at the hats women wear these days!
And stylish gentlemen dress like farm laborers!

Disturbing dispatches have arrived from Rome….

- Walter von der Vogelweide (c. 1170-1230)

Njall म्हणाले...

Another golden oldie about complaining:

I hate to be out traveling late
I hate to see a woman among poets
I hate depression in a pub
I hate a homestead without cheer

I hate a good man with a bad wife
I hate a prince who is depressed
I hate drink that is weak yet dear
I hate a noble lacking aplomb


I hate waiting long for a boat
I hate meanness about food
I hate a woman fast and lewd
I hate a hound that hunts no deer

I hate going to Ireland in the west
Since Brian and Conn are no more
I hate a widow who is no fun
I hate a man whose spirits are low

I hate an old hag in an evil mood
With a tongue too ready to scold
I seem unable to put into words
Everything that I hate

- anonymous, Scottish Gaelic, 15th century

Njall म्हणाले...

Another golden oldie about complaining:

I hate to be out traveling late
I hate to see a woman among poets
I hate depression in a pub
I hate a homestead without cheer

I hate a good man with a bad wife
I hate a prince who is depressed
I hate drink that is weak yet dear
I hate a noble lacking aplomb


I hate waiting long for a boat
I hate meanness about food
I hate a woman fast and lewd
I hate a hound that hunts no deer

I hate going to Ireland in the west
Since Brian and Conn are no more
I hate a widow who is no fun
I hate a man whose spirits are low

I hate an old hag in an evil mood
With a tongue too ready to scold
I seem unable to put into words
Everything that I hate

- anonymous, Scottish Gaelic, 15th century

stlcdr म्हणाले...

It’s so easy, as time has gone by, to not fail. You can me a useless lump of stone and still get into Harvard.

Parents have always, until recently, put boundaries in place for kids which they constantly push - it’s the nature of kids and young adults. It appears there are no boundaries today. Failure is not an option, simply because…it’s not an option, chosen or otherwise.

Steph म्हणाले...

JScott yes you said it much better than I. I’m 58 with a 14 year old. Navigating today’s world and trying to raise a good human is interesting.