Youth

A Facebook organized party that was to be held in Torbay, Devon has been cancelled after British police used unprecedented powers to force the whole town to stop selling alcohol. More than 7,000 Facebook fans looked set to turn up at this Friday causing the police to apply for a magistrates 24 hour ban under the 2003 Licensing Act. All off-licenses, pubs and bars in the town were to be closed. Today’s media attention, however, has meant that the event had to either be cancelled or a license issued for it to go ahead. As of now, the group page is still up, with an explanation warning that anyone turning up at the weekend party will be asked to leave or face arrest. Meanwhile, diehard partygoers are filling up the Facebook event wall (now 1400-plus comments long) with schemes on where to take the party instead.

Kids today are increasingly prone to social, mental and environmental stresses that lead to hyperactivity, ADD, frantic multitasking, and distraction. How can this tide be turned? A program in Bangkok, Thailand called the “Mind and Self Grooming Day Camp” is helping children deal with these problems by teaching them meditation. Using a custom tailored approach that cuts the meditation exercises down to easy 15 to 20 minutes segments, the camp turns meditation into games that kids can enjoy and relate to. The program has helped students deal with problems at school and to stay relaxed and focused amidst our fast paced over stimulating modern society.

[via Bangkok Post]

The recent summer surge in gas prices has finally trickled down to American teenagers. The tradition of aimlessly cruising on summer nights appears to be a rapidly disappearing ritual. This distinctly American practice was best captured in the 1970s hit, “American Graffiti.” With the downturn of summer employment opportunities and the upswing of gasoline prices, parents and teens alike are looking for alternatives to driving.

A recent article from the New York Times reports:

Perhaps the summer’s most visible change is occurring in the downtown strips of small towns where, for decades, cruising on Friday and Saturday nights has been a teenage rite of passage. It is a peculiarly American phenomenon — driving around in a big loop, listening to music, waving at one another and wasting gasoline.

“We’re not cruising around anymore, with gas costing $4.50 a gallon,” said Ewelina Smosna, a recent graduate of Taft High School in Chicago, as she hung out the other night at the Streets of Woodfield, an outdoor mall in Schaumburg. “We just park the car and walk around.”

NYT: As Gas Prices Rise, Teenagers’ Cruising Declines

The cassette tape meme strikes again. Cassette From My Ex is a website that publishes the epic stories behind mixtapes received from past loves. The mixes represent the jumbled range of emotions and feelings (good and bad) that can be experienced when in love. Most are romantic, some are awkward and others just straight up funny. Audio files, cover artwork and play lists are included so you can really live the whole experience.

An excerpt from a mix called “Obliteration”:

This was the start of my relationship with Amy, a short-lived affair that, from that moment on, was defined by music. Not surprisingly, during one of our first sober conversations, Amy and I discussed our mutual love of making mixtapes.

We shared an appreciation for the artistry involved in coming up with mixtape titles, artwork and of course, the perfect set list. To me, mixtapes were more than mere compilations. They were expressions—portraits of personalities, feelings, or relationships.

So when I revealed that despite my years of making tapes, no one had ever given one to me, Amy made it her mission to pop my mixtape cherry.

Cassette From My EX

Q: You write that studies show the time children spend in creative play has diminished over the years. Why?
A: Kids are spending about 40 hours a week engaged with electronic media after school. That’s time taken away from creative play. The combination of this screen time and all the toys based on TV shows and movies narrows children’s options for make-believe. So do these best-selling electronic toys where all you have to do is push a button, and the toy talks, walks and does back flips by itself. It’s like the toy is having most of the fun, but it’s not giving children a chance to be creative. When it comes to toys that encourage creative play, less is more. A good toy is 90% child and only 10% toy.

“You are what you eat” is one of the main principles behind UNKL 347, Indonesia’s independent clothing pioneer. But “eating” in its case refers to the Warholian consumption of pop culture. In keeping with its of-the-moment ethos, 347 has seen three variations of its name over the years since the brand emerged in 1996, with each name change reflecting its revamped identity.

The brand started out as 347 boardrider, a reflection of the founders’ roots in made-to-order fashion inspired by their love for surfing and skateboarding. It then evolved into 347/EAT, in recognition of the influence that international pop culture was having on the brand. And now, in its most recent iteration, they go by UNKL 347, the brand having established itself over the years as a well-known influencer in its own right in Indonesia (”After ten years, friends called us uncle”).

With UNKL 347 quickly outgrowing its small label roots, so is debate about the brand’s right to continue to “eat” into other intellectual property. 347’s recent designs have appropriated imagery and logos from Nike, Xerox, popular song lyrics and even from Andy Warhol himself (the legendary appropriator). 347’s defense is that they are simply engaging in commentary and that it is far more noble (though illegal) to show your influences outright than hide them in a blur of pastiche. Inside Indonesia covered this in a discussion with Dendy, a 347 founder:

‘We’ve been cut ’n’ paste from the beginning, and now is the era of cut ’n’ paste,’ Dendy [said]. ‘We readily admit it,’ he says. ‘In fact, we make it obvious so that people know.’ One of 347’s designs, for instance, features an almost exact copy of the album cover for ‘Goo’ by the New York art punk band Sonic Youth. A young, modish couple in bowl cuts and sunglasses smoke cigarettes while they lounge in each other’s arms. Beside the image, the original handwritten words ‘I stole my sister’s boyfriend’ have been replaced with ‘I stole my Sonic Youth.’

This kind of borrowing is actually quite a common practice for small, independent clothing labels all over the world; but as 347 grows in reach and profitability, many are starting to wonder where to draw the line. Certainly 347 is more than just a copycat; the brand has produced a considerable amount of original work and has been a catalyst in the development of local underground events. In 2002, it put on the first largescale outdoor rave in Indonesia called Distance and started Ripple, an influential publication which has since sparked several spin-offs. Besides, it’s reasonable to believe that - in a country where blatant product piracy is rampant - customers are buying the “Nike” and “Xerox” shirts more because of what’s next to those icons: 347’s own bowl logo and the word “EAT” which 347 has filled with so much connotation.

But if you’re already contributing so much culture on your own, why bother to continue borrowing from others? Is it simply a lazy design shortcut?

Not many people know that China is home to the world’s largest skatepark, which covers 12,000 square meters, featuring the world’s biggest vert ramp, world’s largest concrete skate bowl, and a 5,000-seat stadium. While some impressive skating infrastructure can be found in China and the skate scene is steadily growing, the sport is still undergoing growing pains as it becomes a popular sport.

The USC US-China Institute has a good overview of the development of skateboarding in China including a profile of 社会 (’Shehui’) skateboards, one of the first domestic skateboard companies in China. Shehui founder Raph Cooper explains the waves of popularity that skateboarding has experienced in China:

“There is this 10-year fluctuation of popularity where everybody thinks that skateboarding is the coolest thing in the world and then they forget about it for awhile and then it comes flying back up again…So I think it’s sort of part of the natural fluctuation of skateboarding as a whole.”

Skateboarding with Chinese Characteristics

In the first of a three part series, the Teen Lab at Alcatel-Lucent has revealed that time shifting is the new rule for today’s youth in terms of TV consumption. Apparently, parents are no longer making the decisions about what their kids do or don’t watch, nor when they watch it. In the research, more than half of the ‘lab members’ were watching TV on their computers or storing it for later viewing – at a time that suited them. On top of this, nearly two-thirds were using a DVR to store their shows.

Social networking sites, proved not to be a mode through which teens felt apt to discuss television; instead, old-fashioned face-to-face conversation was found to be what informed them overall, with 80% of respondents learning about shows from either friends or adverts, and 90% sharing opinions via word of mouth on what they had watched. Conversely, only 14% were sharing opinions about TV shows and series online.

Read the full article here.

Last week, speaking on behalf of Streative in Madrid, I had the opportunity to share a stage with PSFK friend Heron Preston. I had a few minutes to catch up with Heron offstage and asked him to give this Londoner his New York point of view on the American youth. Here’s what he said:

What are the most interesting things about Youth Culture in NYC at the moment?

Heron: The kids don’t need rules… They don’t follow shit and they make their own thing up… Basically they do what they want to do and they throw away history, forgetting about the past and thinking the whole city is theirs… Also, they forget what came before them, or just don’t wanna know, so they act like they’re the boss and the world revolves around them…

Have you noticed any kind of antithesis to this whole digital youth thing?

Heron: I guess so, I’ve noticed - with photography - that the real art of that is coming back, that it’s not about digital images - it’s about photography again. The kids are just taking it back to analogue - film is a good place to see that kind of stuff, the antithesis.

Name me 3 teen tribes you’re interested in, in NYC.

Heron: You know your Ghetto Gays - we have the kind of Homothugs, who vogue at house parties - they’re wild… Also, the fashion/art oriented kids, they have fascinating lifestyles… Finally, the Rich Girls - they just don’t have a fucking worry in the world… And any worry they may pretend to have is just artificial… They’re taking trips every weekend, you know - flying to Paris from New York just for a party or shopping. They also have these amazing houses in the city, and they party really hard - it’s all real fucking fun…

Story originally published on Ruby Pseudo Wants a Word