Journal: News & Comment

Grups

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Adam Sternbergh's article in New York magazine, "Up With Grups," is interesting:

"It's about a brave new world whose citizens are radically rethinking what it means to be a grown-up and whether being a grown-up still requires, you know, actually growing up."

"In part, because how can their parents hate Interpol when they sound exactly like Joy Division? And in part, because how can their parents hate Bloc Party when their parents just downloaded Bloc Party and think it's awesome and totally better than the Bravery!"

"If you're 35 and wearing the same Converse All-Stars to work that you wore to junior high, are you an old guy sadly aping the Strokes? Or are the young guys simply copying you? Wait, how old are the Strokes, anyway?"

"One guy was telling me his son was really into Wilco. And I was telling him that's lame. Because Wilco is so over."

"How great for a child to see their parents loving what they're doing? It's a delicate balance to strike, but when you maintain that balance, its a great thing to teach your children—that they can look forward to doing something they love doing."

"The last time teenagers weren't expected to rebel, it was because they were heading off to work in the coal mines at age 13. Can we really expect to be cool parents and also raise cool kids? Is this youth big enough for the both of us?"

"Remember, the Grup of today is the slacker from 1990 who, fresh out of college, ran smack into the recession and maybe fiddled around with a riot-grrl band, then got a job at 25 for a Web-development company where she wore jeans to work and played Ping-Pong and stayed late and covered her desk in rare Japanese action figures. Now that woman is 35, a VP at a viral-marketing firm, still dressing down because everyone knows that the youth market is where it's at, yet is scared to death she's going to ossify into the same kind of corporate stooge she swore she'd never become. For a Grup, success isn't about how many employees you have but how much freedom you have to walk, or boogie-board, away."

"You see, it's not that Grups don't want to work; they just don't want to work for you."

In the end, Sternbergh posits, it's about "passion, and the fear of losing it."

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish editing the website for my open-plan, casual-dress, flexible-hours workplace so I can get home to my basement recording studio and make some more podcast soundtracks while my kids listen to the Tegan and Sara song I bought but they love.

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