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5 8 h Youth Culture 8 Youth Generations Vocabulary Generation: the average When working with youth it can be length of time between surprising how quickly a youth the birth of parents and generation—five years—passes. the birth of their children. For teens, five years is 1/3 of their A youth generation: the lifespan—a lifespan 1972 average length of time already marked by between one form of constant change, “long-lost” friends, “cool” and the next. five-year shelf life. The hi-fi was new slang, and for Slang girls especially, new knocked out by the transistor Words for “cool” have a short ways to look sexy. radio and that by the stereo. In shelf life. You can determine Think: bikinis, bobby succession thereafter were the The Cold War was prehistoric to a almost anyone’s age by asking sox, miniskirts, high eight track, the walkman, the CD 28-year olds. A 23-year-old wasn’t them what word was a slang boots, hot pants, player, and the mp3 player. alive when the Berlin Wall came synonym for cool when they were bare mid-drifts, and Napster lost to Pandora. Spotify is down. An 18-year-old has no feel yoga pants. sixteen: the cat’s pajamas, hip, being re-taylored swiftly and by for the Princess Diana effect and groovy, , sweet, wicked, 2020 the smartphone could be Relationships 13-year-olds relate to 9/11 like I did da bomb, phat, sick, or cray. There reclassified as “so 2015.” A youth generation is defined by to the end of World War II. To relationships. Thirteen-year-old is nothing so uncool as slang that Marquee Events them it is no longer relevant. is out of date. “Word?” And five eighth-graders might know some People remember epic events. In youth work, if your knowledge high school seniors, but anyone years is a word’s typical shelf life. Where were you the day JKF was base is nearing five years old, you older is ancient—except maybe Technology shot? Or when man landed on the better think about updating it. Or their siblings and neighbors. Five It is an interesting coincidence that moon, or the space shuttle blew you could just switch your career years is nearly forever! music technology also has about a up? Such events define a cohort. to paleontology.

awesome da bomb fresh hot primetime sweet Cooler Than Cool bodacious epic gangsta kickbutt rad to die for American youth culture has had a brill fantabulous gold off da hook rockin’ wet lot of words for cool. Do you chill far out hellacious out of sight sick wicked. recognize them all? Could you put cray cray fresh hip peachy smashing Yup! All that and them in chronological order? crazy groovy hoppin’ phat spiffy a bag of chips! Teenage Heartthrobs YouTube and .) Mendes first started great smile, a good voice, but he might just posting six second cover videos on Vine in 2013 look too old at sixteen. Pop idols for thirteen-year-old girls, not and within months had picked up millions of The better candidate is the twelve year old surprisingly, also have a shelf life of about five followers. He released his first song, “Life of rapper, Matty B. Hair, smile, voice, and years. Justin Bieber replaced the Jonas the Party,” in June 2014 and became the machinery are all in place: YouTube, Twitter, brothers, who had replaced Justin Timberlake. youngest artist ever to have a debut song in Vine, Facebook, iTunes, wristbands, Bieber shot up the Google Trends charts in late the top 25 of the list. Within sweatshirts, caps, and t-shirts. He isn’t yet 2009. Just this month he has dropped to 37 minutes of his making the song available on thirteen so he may still be a year or more away below his February 2010 figures. The race to iTunes, the song catapulted to the top spot. from becoming the thirteen-year-old’s replace him is on. At 21 he is just too old to be He was just under sixteen. He has nice hair, hearthrob, but he has a good shot at it. a thirteen-year-old’s heartthrob anymore. Pop culture abhors a vacuum and the music industry is passionate about filling it quickly, but with whom? The candidate must meet certain criteria. He must be sixteen or younger, have a great smile, nice hair, and at least a mediocre voice. Most importantly he must get discovered by a key player in the pop music industry who knows how to rocket him to the top. Shawn Mendes is a candidate. He is the first to have used Vine, the six-second video app, to gain serious recognition. (Justin Bieber used

Living on the Vine co-star his brother Hayes and sister Skylynn, and are posted to coincide with the end of the Nash Grier recently turned seventeen. He is school day. “I don’t use cuss words. I try not to Vine’s biggest star with 11 million followers. He do anything awful. You don’t want to lower became nationally known in 2013 for his six- your audience,” he says. His focus is almost second Vine videos. He has over seven million always upbeat and uptempo. followers on Instagram and four million on Major brands such as Sonic, Aeropostale, and Twitter. When he added his YouTube channel Virgin Mobile who have paid him as much as last year over four million people subscribed to $100,000 to plug their products on Vine videos. it in just four months. Grier has developed a highly engaged fan base Nash Grier is a Christian from North Carolina due to his mix of slapstick comedy and doing who frequently consults his iPhone’s Bible app parodies of current pop songs. His videos often while on the road.