Global youth culture: Does it exist?

Mr_Costello: sorry you felt that it was so negative, certainly wasn't my intention. It can be tough to write about a broad group and still give examples that ring true. Regarding capitalism, perhaps it would have been better to say that there has been a shift towards embracing aspects of capitalism like branding on the individual level, but that it doesn't apply to the entire group as a whole. Also, the demo being sketched out is 14 to 35, of course too wide a range to be lumped together in any defined way in terms of tastes. Much more about a common sense of a globalized outlook.

Edited, cause I'm an idiot, and was addressing the wrong person.

on the whole, its more like a culture of stupid, ignorant, corporate tools who just want to get drunk. in general my generation is materialistic, dosent care about politics, and is obsessed wit idol gods (celebrities).
its not our fault, we have been completely brainwashed by corporate owned and controled media, people think maths and science is 'nerdy' and 'geeky' which is absurd. if you work to hard you are a 'swat' or a 'loser' all these words come from films and tv, from people who want us to think that this FAKE version of reality is THE way we should be living. When people realise this the west will be sorted, and hence the rest of the world. end of rant.

A shallow, insulting and rather upsetting article. Not all Global Youth consider 'Capitalism their friend'.

And when speaking of our broad 18-34 demo, DeepthiW should refrain from specifics such as 'Justice, MIA & Slumdog Millionaire'

I was always facinated when i would hear about "new teen/young person trends" and some but not all were things i was into. I think most of the similarites are due to commercial influences and i would not call it global youth culture

sidedish, I may be overly optimistic, but i think that the article does address what you mention here in, or at least shows an awareness of it. This paper probably addresses your comments here in more depth: http://tectonic-uplift.com/deepthiw/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/welaratna_global_...

And to reciprocate, I'm a 30-year-old agnostic media studies grad student at The New School. Mostly American, with a little British and Sri Lankan thrown into the mix, and just a hint of Parisian.

RECIPROmedia: REPRESENT

pjacobs51: totally agree! If not before. Easier to talk about and recognize, the more distance we have...

I think there has been a global youth culture since the Hippies of the sixties.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

I think that using the term 'global' youth culture assumes too much about religious and cultural ideals. While I would go so far as to say that today's youth are more concerned with themselves over the society they live in, I don't think you can say any fashion, entertainment, religion or cultural beliefs make up a general majority of an entire continent let alone the world.

Also, you may be grouping changes in social norms to the part of society which is young enough to accept and adopt those norms (ie. the internet) wholly. Some would say this 'global culture' is just the result of kids accepting the new and well-marketed as individual.

I would say that freedom from commercial influences is a major part of some Americans' culture and the blind following of these influences are an even larger part. The fact that a portion of young adults are rising to the occasion and not taking everything our predecessors try to force on us is just another example of conflicting moral values.

And for perspective, I'm an 23 year old agnostic, american, green-party-supporting geneticist/artist.

abbym0308: sounds like you're ok with this, sorta? When most people mention branding in this context, it's in a negative way, but you give it a pretty positive spin.

St_Alia_10191: Nice reference, West Side Story, definitely fits into a global youth culture conversation :)

sideshow: you bring up a lot of points, and i can't say they all make sense to me, but yeah, it does seem obvious, right? But that's prolly cause you're part of it. People who aren't are much more fascinated by it.

Also, globalization has been going on since as long as civilization's been around, and has just ramped up into something recognizable since the 1800's--in the long view of things. So the MJ/DH examples also fit, IMO.

Also, I'm totally curious as to what you define as a pure global youth culture...free of commercial influences? Does that reflect modern life in any way?

inane. justice and mia? really? just because some young people don't remember the international appeal of michael jackson and david hasselhoff doesn't make them part of a more global culture.

mtv making a new social networking site? who the hell cares? social networking sites are at best a corruption of youth culture by datamining corporations and i foresee serious changes before a pure global youth culture could form ther.

this article would make more sense if it just said "there are more kids contributing. there are more kids with access to what these people are contributing through modern technological means". I'm all for studies of society but this feels obvious and melodramatic.

I think we have access to the same stuff, but I wouldn't call us like a west side story street gang of closeness. That would be nice, though.

Crazy! Cool!

I think now more than ever before there is a very global youth culture, thanks to globalized media and branding. You'll see youth all over the world sharing trends from other cultures, sometimes making popular the same style, and sometimes adapting and incorporating bits and pieces into their native culture to create a hybrid style.