Kids. When I’m not yellin’ at ’em to get off my lawn (waving my cane in their general direction), I’m tellin’ ’em to not slouch so much, or to get those plumb earbuds out of their ears or put on a belt so their pants don’t fall to their knees. Why can’t kids be more like they were back in my day, I ask myself, when they wore parachute pants and used gallons of hairspray on their mullets and listened to music the way it was meant to be listened to—on a boombox three millimeters from your ear?
Turns out, though, today’s youth may be more on their game than I give them credit for.
According to a story by William Higham in Adweek.com (which we talked about in this week’s Culture Clips), teens are more conservative—financially and socially—than their baby boomer forebears. Drinking, smoking and drug use among youth are all falling. More than 75% of teens say that family is “the most important thing in their lives,” and more than half say that “living by high moral standards” is their No. 1 priority.
Maybe some could teach their parents a thing or two. The same story says that drug use among folks in their 50s is soaring (it’s gone up more than 70% since 2002), and more 50-somethings use marijuana than people in any other age group.
Now, Higham pieced all this together because he believes that advertisers should take note and change with the times. Kids today might really be interested in things like “insurance and pensions,” while oldsters might be more prone to commercials that focus on staying hip and edgy and—well, young.
Now, I’m not sure if I completely believe all the conclusions Higham outlines. But when I watch advertising geared specifically toward Boomers—filled as the ads are with gray-haired rock bands, wrinkled surfers and exhortations to stay forever young and revolutionary—I kinda wonder whether he has a point.
And, if Higham’s right, we might be in for a very interesting decade: What happens if trying to stay “hip” ironically marks you as being old and out of touch? Will youth proclaim once again that “you can’t trust anyone over 30,” adding, “because they’re too stoned to make much sense”? Are we finding ourselves in an age in which folks, when they (finally) grow up, aspire to be more like … their children? Or was that what got us into this situation in the first place?
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