Up With Grups*

I might be able to relate if I had that kind of disposable income.

I see many people over 30 who dress like that and listen to that kind of music. But people with lofts in Tribeca? That's no epidemic. The article is from New York magazine, though, so I suppose it makes sense locally.

But this is an article about rich people, although the writer fails to mention that beyond touching on the price tags of their required accessories.

It was an entertaining article, aside from the smug indie-band name-dropping, but it was written by a self-proclaimed "grup" who seems to have a conflicting sense of both embarassment and pride in the identity.

And the target audience for this piece is obviously other "grups," so I don't suppose there was much point in discussing the relevance of income brackets in allowing one to live the grup lifestyle.

People give up ipods and hanging out in trendy bars, while wearing designer clothes because they can't afford doing all that and having a family.

So, yes, the financial aspect is pretty important.

They also don't have time to listen to "cool indy bands", having to juggle work and raising children.

I'm 23. Married with a 1-year old son. I have an iPod, PSP, and healthy DVD collection, and soon an XBOX 360. I'm not exactly loaded, but I love my toys. I don't see myself giving that up later. And don't think that's a sign of imaturity, or me not growing up.

The thing is, you can't really talk about the mental aspect and ignore the practical issues at hand.

Some people manage both. But it's difficult. As kids grow older, they require more energy, time and money. You have to spend cash to give junior a good education, you have to spend time to help him with his homework and drive him to soccer practice. You have to work to make the above feasible.

Where are those magical jobs that give enough cash to buy gadgets, go out all the time and raise a family? I want one.

Working for dad's firm or as a fashion editor do not count.

If people start labelling me a "grup" there won't be enough bullets in the world to accomodate the killin' I'll wanna dispense.

Those jobs are all in New York City. Also, I hear the streets are paved with diamonds, and everyone's your friend.

And now for a comment relevant to the article:

Hipsters are annoying enough when they're young.

Kudo's to the North Americans, who, in there own materialistic way, have discovered what many cultures already know: you don't have to be young to enjoy yourself. The next step: getting rid of all the excess material shit.

For what it's worth, at least these yuppies are buying culture, instead of sport utility vehicles and large televisions.

This person/these people sound like the worst sort of self-satisfied, smug wankers.

I have nothing against being able to juggle a good time with career and family, but the whole attitude of this piece is pretty much "we have money and are better than you."

See, when I read this article, I thought it was trying to portray these people in a negative light. Whether or not that was the intention, in my opinion it did. Who gives a fuck how old you are in comparison with what you listen to? In regards to everything else, it just paints them to be shallow materialistic people. A "Hedge fund guy" with 200 dollar hair products and a 600 dollar messenger bag? Fuck you asswipe. Last I checked shampoo costs about 3 bucks a bottle, and a bag is less than 20, unless you're deadset on securing your social status with a bunch of rich people trying to act poor to seem as cool as the character they saw in Rent once.

Sorry, I guess the fact that the author felt it neccesary to constantly mention the ridiculous price tags put me off. I'm glad you were able to pull something positive out of it though. And you're right, it is nice that older generations are embracing technology, but you pointed that out better in your post than the article did. Honestly, the guy is talking about people in their late 30s, which is still generation x, and I'm pretty sure baby-boomers in major metropolitan areas were doing that kind of thing before, just with a different generation of high tech gadgets. Really, I guess what makes the aritcle mundane for me, is that he's trying to point out an older generation being young at heart, but he's also constantly reminding the reader of the price of that lifestyle, a price which a younger generation typically cant afford anyway (yet).

Diva I can relate while I am only turning 28 people have started asking me similar questions. Maybe I will get married and maybe I will have kids, but I want more me time and can find nothing wrong with that. Being 30 and unattached by a husband or kids only leaves you open for more experiences you could have missed out on, so rock on girl and enjoy it, I know I am trying to! While my grandparents are in better places my mom is 48 and can out party anyone I know, plus anytime a new Beck album is released she beats me to the store to get it. And watching her laugh herself to tears while watching white chicks was one of my favorite moments with her. Aside from the keg stands she can elegantly perform with no ones help but her own!

There is a word for people who drop a couple benjis on jeans...idiots.

I think as our respective generations grow older this thing won't seem all that out of place anymore. We grew up in a wired information age there is nothing to say we can sacrifice that despite age or spawning. My wife would probably like it if I didn't have twenty hobbies and the need to play with toys more than the children do....but I sure would be bored.

If seven people in a New York bar all farted while wearing hats, there'd be a similar article pontificating about the rise and fall of the Hatfart Scene.

Perhaps because I plan on being at least somewhat alert to what's happening in current music until the day I die (or all current music somehow becomes uninteresting), I take exception to how it's being tied into the materialist and faddish youth culture bits here.

It's a slippery slope, but I don't perceive quality artistic output, be it music, books, films, or whatever as needing to be youth-oriented. When it is made into a cultural signifier, as the author of this article seems to be doing, it devalues it as art. Somehow, Sufjan Stevens becomes a brand name, no different than New Balance. This is stupid. It's a misunderstanding of what makes for good art.

Look, I'm 32, and I don't listen to music because it makes me cool. I listen to it because it moves me - the same reason I read books and watch movies. For this author, it sounds as if this is not the case, which, by default, makes him come off like a pathetic middle-ager clinging to youth by virtue of style over substance.

This will eventually backfire, probably when he gets so preoccupied with kids to pay attention to the new, hip trendy bands (since he obviously doesn't really care for them as much as being able to associate himself with an image) and name-drops Bloc Party in five years, by which time they'll hopefully be a nostalgia act. Every hipster has a sell-by date. The more you hold on to your youth through frivolous, material things, the more likely it is you'll just end up a burnt-out company guy who listens to world music in the long run.

Yeah, the commodification of musical "taste" is a byproduct of culture shopping — which seems to have overtaken material crap shopping, or turned culture into another sort of material crap.

That aside, I think the whole music phenomenon, whereby people are rejecting the "mainstream" needs to be taken seperately. The whole music thing exists beyond some NYC yuppies w/ money. My fucking parents know about Wolf Parade, Neko Case, Broken Social Scene, The Stars, and so on. My parents don't own a TV. And they are not cool.

The major label enchantment has been damaged. (By the internet.) That's all. This just means that people are realizing that good music exists, and now the indy fag record store is less intimidating.

Also: these mouthbreathing vultures who are circling around the latest image — exactly what Dave said. Fuck them.

Moreover: most of the hip bands consist of people over 30.

Not "cool," perhaps, but it does speak well of them. My mom likes those Rod Stewart "standards" albums.

I think it also took some time for rock music fandom to be taken seriously as an adult activity. And it took even longer for the fandom of current rock music to be taken seriously. It's been safe for adults to admire the Beatles, Dylan, or Hendrix for years without coming off as childish - this wasn't the case when they were around, of course. The same goes for the Pistols and the Clash. I think we're just coming around to the point where adults can accept that canonization isn't the sole arbiter of quality. You don't have to wait to enjoy music.

As the "serious" or "intelligent" rock music has been more or less wiped from the charts, fandom also manifests slightly differently than it did when you could discuss the at-least-once-mainstream Bob Dylan and Van Morrison with your middle-aged buddies. Now, if you want to talk about interesting modern music, there isn't much choice but than to look to the margins (which, as you said, are also somewhat less marginal due to the internet).

Absolutely. There's a chance for us musicans of a certain age yet!

Life is about compromise. It is egocentric to believe that one generation is so different from another. Just because to our eyes it appears that there is a more "youthful" or "selfish" manifestation in the 30+ population does not mean that this has not always existed. The problem is that stereotypes of what it means to be an adult do not fully recognize the passion or even angst that is present in everyday lives. Outward manifestations of "youth culture" are in many cases a contrivance that is hollow at best. Indeed the implied judgment of maintaining a "youth" centric life style being a "superior" choice...is at the core an essentially flawed premise.

Sure keep the passion, make choices about what is important to you...but don’t fool yourself that life is not about compromise. It is a very deep well to fall into to self-congratulate oneself about making "non-traditional" choices, when being "different" becomes a banner of worth...this ultimately blunts an honest reflection on life choices and is driven by a society that is bombarded by media extolling the virtue of materialism and youth.

It's the 80's all over again -- conspicuous consumption is back in style! 'Yeah baby!"

I doubt we'll see todays youthful idiots continue to keep hitching their jeans up around their ass once they get to our age. Buy a belt, already!

We have belts. They're just badly designed jeans.

If you listen to new music and appreciate new culture because you are interested by it, good for you. If you merely want to appear trendy and modern, and are too selfish to sacrifice trivial trinkets for the good of your family, not good.

Three things:

I) Well, they're ardent CBC listeners, and the CBC coincidently — campus stations aside — is about the only game in town for new music. In fact, the programmes are frankly awesome when compared on a musical level with 98% junk on the airwaves. Between Randy Bachman's surprisingly un-boomerish (but still bommerish) vinyl programme and the National Playlist, they're getting decent non-commercial exposure.

II) I send them things.

III) (This helps I) and II), A lot of this "new" music doesn't fall into the two categories my parents have for music they don't understand — those are: "rap" and "heavy metal".

And, yeah, last time I was over I had to hide my mom's new Eagles greatest hits CD.

This is true. I'm kind of in la la land, since I grew up in with a lot friends whose parents were only to happy to give us weed, loan us their instruments, whatever. West coast hippy shit. And there's a really vibrant music scene in Victoria, which is kind of all ages, so that sort of passive rock music fandom for adults isn't entirely alien to me — and I'm not talking about 30 somethings, I'm talking 60 somethings. But fandom is definitely more wide spread with the younger older people, and new music is definitely picking up listeners, like my parents, who kind of tuned-out around 1980, except for brief interludes of Sting, The Cowboy Junkies, and Norah Jones.

It's interesting, because there's always a segment of the populace who will listen to whatever was cool when they were in highschool — and I will totally leave a party if Sublime is playing — and those people will be convinced that it ended with the Beatles, or The Police, or Nirvana, or whatever. But I think there's a good portion of the population who actually wants new music, it's just that when these people are caught between shitty commercial radio, and a music scene they're too old for ...

... and age is also a interesting, because if you look at musical traditions, like the blues, it's always been an all ages thing, and not something to do before you have kids, and (apparently) stop having fun. I think most people are averse to the whole WASP lifestyle, where you balance taxes and re-visiting the glory days; they'd rather move through life in a culturally progressive way, picking up on good music, and not stagnating at particular point. But this never happened, because most people weren't going to brave the local indy store, if it existed, or actively seek non-commercial music. And to the extent that it applies, I think that the mainstreaming of "indy" has, to a degree, demonstrated the general desire for new music — not mention the fact that, for a lot of people, the glory days didn't end at grad.

It might also be that the "glory days" were not that glorious, and life got better as you figured yourself out. I know of many fiftysomethings who swear life took off after 25. I'm 22 and life gets better every year, high school has nothing on me now.

If you are middle to low-middle class, having a newborn will change everything financially.

Imagine your current budget.

Now Imagine your current budget and subtract Daycare and Baby Food/Clothing costs.

For our family: Taking $750 a month out of your budget is quite a chunk of money.


The only "luxury" we have is our cable bill. We can't afford to do anything else, so at least we can watch TV with DVR to make up for our lack of a social life.

But honestly, if you love your kids.. you'll want to spend as much time as you possibly can with them, rather than doing other things.

I'm kind of talking out of my ass here, since my wife and I don't have kids... but the parents I know who make some time for themselves and indulge in a little non-kid-oriented fun regularly come across as far happier and mentally stable than those who spend every minute with their kids. I don't think this indicates a lack of love; it just indicates that the parents manage to keep themselves, as well as their kids, happy.

I agree, but I think the secret is in making your kids not realize you have a social life. Hopefully they consider the babysitter coming over to be an exciting event, just like my brother and I did.

I would agree that taking time for yourself is really important if you are a parent. You will be re-invigorated and probably be a better parent to your children. I agree with Neaux that when you have little money and very young children you are going to be limited in your own "personal" time. That is when you really start making choices about what is important in your life.

As an aside it has been fantastic watching my kids dig through all my music and find something they like on their own. I am looking forward to what they bring to me as the get older.

Watching movies with kids is a great experience as well, teaching them to be critical thinkers, showing them that they can walk away from the screen when they see things they don't like, and frankly seeing the uninhibited passion for stories and ideas that kids have...those are absolutely priceless moments. Ultimately, these moments have a lot more to do with a passion for life rather than an artificial clinging to the "youth" culture.

Yeah the truth is I'm talking from the experience of having a 17 week old baby.

Our son goes to daycare because Mommy and Daddy have to work. When your child goes to daycare, you really do want to spend as much precious time you can with your child after NOT seeing him all day.

Weekends are always busy making trips to Target, the grocery store and seeing family and friends.. we just do it with our son.

I think that parents who want "extra time" to do things on their own at night probably have the ability to stay home and spend more time with their kids in the daytime. I dont think many people are that lucky.

We are lucky enough to have our next door neighbor as a teenager that works daycare that can babysit for us if we need it. But that also costs money too.

All this being said, My wife and I are paying for a babysitter this friday so we can celebrate our 5 year Anniversary with Dinner and a movie.

I have a different perspective on this.

I married in my mid twenties and didn't father a child until my early thirties. My wife and I spent our first seven years of marriage in education, travel, and professional advancement. By the time we had our first child, we’d climbed pyramids and paddled down rivers in Central America; we toured the Louvre and the fields of Agincourt. We’d stayed out all night and slept all day and gone to concerts and surfed and engaged with a wide circle of friends.

In other words, we got it out of our respective systems. When we had our first child, we didn’t feel that our obligation to that person infringed on our hip and cool lifestyle. We felt that it was our pleasure and our duty to center our lives around our roles as parents. The downside? We haven’t been to a concert in ages. The upside? We have a great kid, with another on the way.

Adolescence is great; extended adolescence is even better. Adulthood beats ‘em both.

I was ruminating on this during some downtime today, and basically came up with what Graynadian posted - if you want to hang out late and see the New Pornographers because you like the music, good for you; if you're doing that and buying "cool" clothes to appear "hip" and "trendy", FUCK you.