Grups are Groovy

The New York media is obsessed with identifying new trends. Occasionally they have to make up a trend - just so they can tell the rest of the world what we're missing by not living in New York.

There is a lot of prestige in being the first person to identify and name a trend. Think about the bragging rights that come with being the first person to coin a term like "yuppie", "Generation X" or "Grup".

Grup? What the heck is that? Wasn't that the cartoon character in the Banana Splits version of "Gulliver's Travels"? ("We'll never make it, we're all going to die!")

No, wait, that was Glum.

The term "Grup" comes from an old episode of Star Trek where the Star Trek crew lands on a planet ruled by children. All of the adults have died from a plague and the children have created their own society. The children call themselves "Grups", which is short for "grown-up".

Today, being a Grup has nothing to do with space travel or "Lord of the Flies"-style civilizations. Instead, it is the latest trend-of-the-week.

Apparently, there is a bunch of 30- and 40-somethings in New York who refuse to grow up. They hold on to their adolescences by keeping up with the latest bands and brainwashing their children to listen to only the "right" music.

New York Magazine has a great story about these narcissistic "cooler than thou" middle-aged hipsters who still wear concert T-shirts and thrash around in mosh pits.

Before you think I'm being too harsh, read the article, especially the parts about how Grups:

"(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"

"(p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag"

Another label comes to mind. Poseur.

Here's the best part of the article, spoken by a person who definitely isn't a poseur. He says it better than I can:

**********
At one point, I spoke to a 39-year-old musician who had lived briefly in Park Slope and then fled, largely because of the prevalence of exactly the kind of person who would buy jeans designed to fall apart in a month.

This musician is old school in his fashion tastes—which is to say, one day he came to a point where he pulled that old concert T-shirt from his dresser and thought, Yeah, I just can’t pull this off anymore.

These days, though, especially in New York, there just aren’t many people saying I just can’t pull this off anymore.

“If really hard-pressed, I would admit that I actually own a Clash T-shirt that I got from that last Clash tour,” the musician told me. “But I don’t wear it! And I’m certainly not going to wear it under an Armani black blazer."

"I even remember meeting this guy who was around my age, who was wearing an expensive blazer, and on the lapel was a London Calling button. Who the f*** wears that? That’s what I wore when I was 18 in art school! And you’re the same age as me? And you’re wearing it again?”

He pauses, then adds, “And you know what? Giving your kid a mohawk is f***ed up, too.”
**********