Sidewalk Life

Youth Culture is Dead

Adbusters Magazine declares an end to youth culture in Hipster: The Dead end of Western Civilization

"An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society."

"An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over."

Modern Celebrity

According to the NY Times, Tila Tequila is famous for no reason other than that's the way celebrity works today.   Here's a caption form the article.

Joshua Gamson, the author of “Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America” calls “a shift from top-down manufactured celebrity to a kind of lateral, hyper-democratic celebrity.”

That is if you don't consider the accelerators of Ms. Tequila's celebrity, MTV and its owner Viacom, part of the manufactured top-down celebrity industry.

A better analysis of today's media/celebrity culture might be...if you're willing to do crazy stuff on camera, someone will be there to put you on.

Outsourcing Parenthood

The NY Times had a story about the increasing trend toward sending child (nine years old) athletes to the sports psychologist to improve performance.  I thought confidence was one of those things that parents were supposed to teach their kids.