Comments on: Yupsters, grups, Peter Pans, etc. http://www.letterneversent.com/yupsters-grups-peter-pans-etc/2036/ Tell me when to go. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:46:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: susan http://www.letterneversent.com/yupsters-grups-peter-pans-etc/2036/comment-page-1/#comment-21218 susan Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:25:01 +0000 http://www.letterneversent.com/?p=2036#comment-21218 I think the association of youth with music is a really recent thing in Western culture. For centuries, music was something that everyone was expected to enjoy and participate in. Now that I think about it, the whole "music is for adolescents" thing really only dates back to the whole phenomenon of marketing for teenagers and the pseudo-oppositional culture of "rebellion" that started in the early rock'n'roll era--basically taking something "shocking" that your parents are supposed to disapprove of and commodifying / marketing it to young people as some kind of ready-made identity. Which of course didn't last that long before getting undermined by aging baby boomers. The whole "this is not your father's Oldsmobile" ad campaign comes to mind. Anyways, prior to that, sure, people might have associated excessive preoccupation with music with youth, but music wasn't constructed as this thing supposedly made by and for the under-30 set. Personally, I don't think I appreciate music any less now that I'm older than I did when I was a teenager. Back then there was still so much to learn about it that it was extra exciting, and I have gotten a little jaded in some ways. But my knowledge of music and the experiences I've had also make my current experience of music richer, which is a totally ok trade-off in my book. The thing that bugs me about that grups article is the totally unexamined class privilege aspect. It's all about these people with fancy jobs pulling in a way bigger salary than the average person, who live in New York City and places like that. But they take all these generalizations from them like "the generation gap is closing" and stuff. Maybe in these certain groups, with certain interests who make certain amounts of money and are all white. But is that really true elsewhere? I think the association of youth with music is a really recent thing in Western culture. For centuries, music was something that everyone was expected to enjoy and participate in. Now that I think about it, the whole “music is for adolescents” thing really only dates back to the whole phenomenon of marketing for teenagers and the pseudo-oppositional culture of “rebellion” that started in the early rock’n'roll era–basically taking something “shocking” that your parents are supposed to disapprove of and commodifying / marketing it to young people as some kind of ready-made identity. Which of course didn’t last that long before getting undermined by aging baby boomers. The whole “this is not your father’s Oldsmobile” ad campaign comes to mind. Anyways, prior to that, sure, people might have associated excessive preoccupation with music with youth, but music wasn’t constructed as this thing supposedly made by and for the under-30 set.

Personally, I don’t think I appreciate music any less now that I’m older than I did when I was a teenager. Back then there was still so much to learn about it that it was extra exciting, and I have gotten a little jaded in some ways. But my knowledge of music and the experiences I’ve had also make my current experience of music richer, which is a totally ok trade-off in my book.

The thing that bugs me about that grups article is the totally unexamined class privilege aspect. It’s all about these people with fancy jobs pulling in a way bigger salary than the average person, who live in New York City and places like that. But they take all these generalizations from them like “the generation gap is closing” and stuff. Maybe in these certain groups, with certain interests who make certain amounts of money and are all white. But is that really true elsewhere?

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