Are you?



Are you a GRUP?


I'm ashamed to say that I probably am a Grup, but not to the extremes that JerseyKRS is. I can't remember the last time I went to a concert, while JerseyKRS frequents these things in between visits to the skating rink and hanging out in the McDonald's parking lot with friends.


So, tell me, are you a Grup?

What is a GRUP?

Someone who goes to concerts a lot?

Most people aren't familiar with the term yet Dan.

And you are WAY more than I am Dan, you've got the disposable income that DEFINES the term.

jerseykrs said:

WTF DOES IT MEAN????

isnt that the term from Star Trek where kids rule the world, and they call Kirk a
grup (contraction for grownup?)

purplerein said:

* 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.

Let’s start with a question. A few questions, actually: When did it become normal for your average 35-year-old New Yorker to (a) walk around with an iPod plugged into his ears at all times, listening to the latest from Bloc Party; (b) regularly buy his clothes at Urban Outfitters; (c) take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a Brooklyn bar; (d) stay out till 4 A.M. because he just can’t miss the latest New Pornographers show, because who knows when Neko Case will decide to stop touring with them, and everyone knows she’s the heart of the band; (e) spend $250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall totally apart; (f) decide that Sufjan Stevens is the perfect music to play for her 2-year-old, because, let’s face it, 2-year-olds have lousy taste in music, and we will not listen to the Wiggles in this house; (g) wear sneakers as a fashion statement; (h) wear the same vintage New Balance sneakers that he wore on his first day of school in the seventh grade as a fashion statement; (i) wear said sneakers to the office; (j) quit the office job because—you know what?—screw the office and screw jockeying for that promotion to VP, because isn’t promotion just another word for “slavery”?; (k) and besides, now that she’s a freelancer, working on her own projects, on her own terms, it’s that much easier to kick off in the middle of the week for a quick snowboarding trip to Sugarbush, because she’s got to have some balance, right? And she can write it off, too, because who knows? She might bump into Spike Jonze on the slopes; wear a Misfits T-shirt; (m) make his 2-year-old wear a Misfits T-shirt; (n) never shave; (o) take pride in never shaving; (p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag, because, seriously, only his grandfather or some frat-boy Wall Street flunky still carries a briefcase; or (q) all of the above?

This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old. It’s not about a fad but about a phenomenon that looks to be permanent. It’s about the hedge-fund guy in Park Slope with the chunky square glasses, brown rock T-shirt, slight paunch, expensive jeans, Puma sneakers, and shoulder-slung messenger bag, with two kids squirming over his lap like itchy chimps at the Tea Lounge on Sunday morning. It’s about the mom in the low-slung Sevens and ankle boots and vaguely Berlin-art-scene blouse with the $800 stroller and the TV-screen-size Olsen-twins sunglasses perched on her head walking through Bryant Park listening to Death Cab for Cutie on her Nano.

Is there a link to a quiz that will determine this for me?

Ok Yeah I am one. Big time

I even have a rare toy collection.

I'm pathetic.

apparently, I'm a grup.

Let’s start with a question. A few questions, actually: When did it become normal for your average 35-year-old New Yorker to
(a) walk around with an iPod plugged into his ears at all times, listening to the latest from Bloc Party;
yes I do, but Bloc Party sucks
(b) regularly buy his clothes at Urban Outfitters;
uh, no, as if
(c) take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a Brooklyn bar;
again, no
(d) stay out till 4 A.M. because he just can’t miss the latest New Pornographers show, because who knows when Neko Case will decide to stop touring with them, and everyone knows she’s the heart of the band;
ack!!
(e) spend $250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall totally apart;
uh, no, I wear my clothes til they fall apart normally, take a look at the last cell phone picture....
(f) decide that Sufjan Stevens is the perfect music to play for her 2-year-old, because, let’s face it, 2-year-olds have lousy taste in music, and we will not listen to the Wiggles in this house;
I hip my kids to every cool music there is...Sufjan Stevens is not in that list
(g) wear sneakers as a fashion statement;
I wear sneakers cause I always have
(h) wear the same vintage New Balance sneakers that he wore on his first day of school in the seventh grade as a fashion statement;
who the fuck wears New Balance?
(i) wear said sneakers to the office;
yes, I wear sneaks to my office, jealous?
(j) quit the office job because—you know what?—screw the office and screw jockeying for that promotion to VP, because isn’t promotion just another word for “slavery”?;
That is Dan to a fucking "T"!!!
(k) and besides, now that she’s a freelancer, working on her own projects, on her own terms, it’s that much easier to kick off in the middle of the week for a quick snowboarding trip to Sugarbush, because she’s got to have some balance, right? And she can write it off, too, because who knows? She might bump into Spike Jonze on the slopes;
like I could ever do that
( l) wear a Misfits T-shirt;
yes, but I have since I was about 12
(m) make his 2-year-old wear a Misfits T-shirt;
my daughter is scared of it
(n) never shave;

(o) take pride in never shaving;

(p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag, because, seriously, only his grandfather or some frat-boy Wall Street flunky still carries a briefcase;
hahaha, I do spend, but not that bad!

See, and he was trying to make fun of me.....suck it Dan.

CarrieMpls said:

Welcome to the club!

Wanna go shopping for vans and arctic monkeys t shirts?

CarrieMpls said:

Ditto...

Who wants to go to the concert with me tonight?!?!?

And because this phenomenon wears itself so clearly as the convergence of downtown cool and easy, abundant money, it is also, of course, about stuff—though that’s not all it’s about. It’s more interesting as evidence of the slow erosion of the long-held idea that in some fundamental way, you cross through a portal when you become an adult, a portal inscribed with the biblical imperative “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: But when I became a man, I put away childish things.” This cohort is not interested in putting away childish things. They are a generation or two of affluent, urban adults who are now happily sailing through their thirties and forties, and even fifties, clad in beat-up sneakers and cashmere hoodies, content that they can enjoy all the good parts of being a grown-up (a real paycheck, a family, the warm touch of cashmere) with none of the bad parts (Dockers, management seminars, indentured servitude at the local Gymboree). It’s about a brave new world whose citizens are radically rethinking what it means to be a grown-up and whether being a grown-up still requires, you know, actually growing up.

THE FOUR STAGES OF GRUPITUDE

1. PRE-GRUP
Hangs Out at Jake’s Dilemma and Bourbon Street on Amsterdam Avenue, Butterfield 8 in Murray Hill.
Currently Reading Dog Days, by Ana Marie Cox.
Listens To Coldplay; Jack Johnson.
Typical Wardrobe Off-the-rack Nike Shox; relaxed-fit Levi’s 501s.
Aspires To Be Jake Gyllenhaal; Kirsten Dunst.
Secret Shame Saw ARCADE FIRE on the cover of Spin; not sure what it referred to.

2. BEGINNER GRUP
Hangs Out at Mo Pitkin’s on Avenue A, hoping for a David Cross sighting.
Currently Reading Indecision, by Benjamin Kunkel.
Listens To Echo and the Bunnymen; anything found on the “Listeners Also Bought” list for the Killers’ “Hot Fuss” on iTunes.
Typical Wardrobe Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars, MORE COWBELL T-shirt from Urban Outfitters; torn jeans from Abercrombie & Fitch.
Aspires To Be Skateboard mogul Tony Hawk; Natalie Portman in Garden State.
Secret Shame Has Kelly Clarkson on his iPod. The whole album.

Continued on next page >>

And it’s been a long time coming. It showed up in the early eighties as “the Peter Pan Syndrome,” then mutated to the yuppie, which, let’s face it, has had a pretty good run. Later, it took the form that David Brooks called “bourgeois bohemians,” or bobos (as in Bobos in Paradise). Over in England, they’re now calling them yindies (that’s yuppie plus indie), and here, the term yupster (you can figure that out) has been gaining some traction of late. And as this movement evolves, something pivotal is happening. This cascade of pioneering immaturity is no longer a case of a generation’s being stuck in its own youth. This generation is now, if you happen to be under 25, more interested in being stuck in your youth.

This article being what it is, I wanted to come up with my own term to describe them. But what? Dadsters? Sceniors? Dorian Graybeards? Over the course of my investigation, I started calling them Grups. It’s not the most elegant term, but it passes the field test of real-world utility. (Here a Grup, there a Grup, everywhere a Grup-Grup.) “Grups” is a nerdy reference to an old Star Trek episode in which Kirk and crew land on a planet run entirely by kids, who call grown-ups “grups.” All the adults have been killed off by a terrible virus, which also slows the natural aging process, so the kids are trapped in a state of extended prepubescence. They will never grow up. And they are running the show.

Oh, and there’s one more thing I learned, in answer to my opening questions: If being a Grup means being 35, and having a job, and using a messenger bag instead of a briefcase, and staying out too late too often, and owning more pairs of sneakers (eleven) than suits (one), and downloading a Hot Hot Heat song from iTunes because it was on a playlist titled “Saturday Errands,” and generally being uneasy and slightly confused about just what it means to be an adult in these modern times—in short, if it means living your life in fundamentally the same way that you did when you were, say, 22—then, let’s face it, I’m a Grup. The people in the pictures accompanying this story? Grups. In fact, take a minute and look up from the magazine—if you’re in public, you’ll see them everywhere. If you’re in front of a mirror, you might see one there too.

The Grup Music, or the Brand-new Sound of Twenty Years Ago
Once upon a time, pop culture, and in particular pop music, followed a certain reliable pattern: People listened to bands, like the Doobie Brothers or Cream or Steely Dan, that their Frank Sinatra–loving parents absolutely despised. Then these people had kids, and their kids became teens, and they started listening to bands, like the Clash or Elvis Costello or Joy Division, that their Cream-loving parents absolutely despised. And, lo, the Lord looked down and saw that it was good, and on the eighth day, He created the generation gap.

And then these Clash-listening kids grew up and had kids of their own, and the next generation of kids started listening to music, like Franz Ferdinand and Interpol and Bloc Party, that you might assume their parents would absolutely despise. Except it doesn’t really work that way anymore. In part, because how can their parents hate Interpol when they sound exactly like Joy Division? And in part, because how can their parents hate Bloc Party when their parents just downloaded Bloc Party and think it’s awesome and totally better than the Bravery!

jerseykrs said:

you ass

jerseykrs said:

ME!!!

Who is it?

applekisses said:

Sweeny79 said:

Taking Back Sunday!

jerseykrs said:

I just realized that being familiar with the term before CNN does a expose on it makes you one of them.

jerseykrs said:

where'd you get the scratch for tickets Mr. I'm Broke?

purplerein said:

hahah, check the thread, it's good to know people!!!

Imago said:

Hello kettle!!!

jerseykrs said:

Mommy's happy Hour I'm SO THERE!

ZombieKitten said:

grup is to generation x

as "aging hippie" is to the baby boomers

so count me in.

what the hell am i supposed to do, wear pastel polo shirts and cardigans with sears slacks and penny loafers?

Anx said:

You could totally rock that look, lover!