Friday, March 31, 2006

Up With "Grups"

As a full on pop culture and trend junkie, I loved this week's article from NY Magazine that examines ever diminishing generation gap: Up with 'Grups'.
* Also known as yupster (yuppie + hipster), yindie (yuppie + indie), and alterna-yuppie. Our preferred term, grup, is taken from an episode of Star Trek (keep reading) in which Captain Kirk et al. land on a planet of children who rule the world, with no adults in sight. The kids call Kirk and the crew “grups,” which they eventually figure out is a contraction of “grown-ups.” It turns out that all the grown-ups had died from a virus that greatly slows the aging process and kills anybody who grows up.

The article mentions a nyc jeans designer, Rogan who has a line of jeans that retail for upwards of $300 a pair--and are basically all ripped to shreds, or "distressed." His first collection sold out in a matter of days--all thanks to the grups. Many grups could easily afford expensive suits, but for obvious reasons, prefer jeans. It's all about the statement: "yeah, I'm wearing jeans, but these jeans cost bank. Do you think its easy to get them ripped and shredded this prefectly?"

I guess I feel a kinship with this group, myself, though I don't have any kids (which is probably the most widely accepted indicator in our society of "grown up" status). But from a business perspective, I think this group is basically opening up the floodgates in terms of creativity and possibility for many of us who might not be have been able to successfully make a go of it 10 or 15 years ago--and that's pretty cool.

2 comments:

Melkorka said...

So very true, (that article is really interesting) the article also has this quote :"For a Grup, professional success is measured not by how many employees you have but by how much freedom you have to walk, or boogie-board, away." which I think is the mantra of the "minipeneur", the sucess is in the ability to do your own exciting work and freedom that comes with it.

Anonymous said...

It does create a new demographic to market to, but I rather didn't like the articles implication that every adult without kids is an image obsessed, materialistic status seeker.