I am not down with the kids, clearly, because I no longer
know who the kids are. Weirdly, I think of young people as young: teenagers,
possibly early 20s.
After about 25 people seem to live in a permanent state of angst about ageing that is itself so monotonous (the quarter life crisis? Please) that they may as well be done with it and zoom straight to 50.
Lately, my confusion has grown.
Young people, we are reputedly told, do not vote and are not, therefore, catered to by politicians who gear everything up to the already-monied baby boomers. The Tories will slash and burn all benefits for those aged between 18 and 21.
“If you do not vote, then don’t complain,” says every middle-aged middle-class pundit, self righteously ignoring the fact that we do not have proportional representation and whether your vote makes any difference depends entirely on what seat you live in.
Sure, vote, but don’t misrepresent the reality of our system.
Russell Brand, famously a non-voter, has been activated by Ed Miliband or vice versa – I couldn’t possibly say – to appeal to “the youth vote”. Brand is pushing 40 and Miliband is 45.
In the video interview for Brand’s news channel The Trews, Ed did OK in tolerating Brand’s inability to let someone else have any personal space; Brand, as usual, comes on like an over-excited spider and ends up leering in Ed’s face.
This attempt to “reach out” is honourable as Ed plays the patient humanities teacher to Brand, who prefaces questions with: “I hope this doesn’t sound totally adolescent”.
Brand’s whole schtick is adolescent and it appeals to some.
When he attempts more adult analysis – as he does in his new film The Emperor’s New Clothes, essentially a critique of the failures of neo-liberalism – its all a bit dry and one yearns for a joke. Or Paul Mason.
Undoubtedly, though, Brand does have an audience – but if he is the voice of youth, what has happened to actual youth?
More and more it seems that my generation continue to grab everything as ours. There is no bit of culture we cannot claim, that we cannot colonise; data from Spotify shows that people in their mid-40s are listening to Taylor Swift and One Direction.
With every genre and every bit of musical history downloadable, we can have all the music all of the time. Everything can exist in the present tense.
We can listen to the music we listened to at 15 and then listen to what 15-year-olds listen to as well, as though we are forever young.
The same thing happens on TV.
BBC 2’s controller Kim Shillinglaw describes her mission as making TV for a mindset with a “maturity of word view” but who remain “young at heart”.
These are people my age who grew up with punk and who will lap up endless programmes that are essentially about their own youth.
We remain utterly, culturally dominant – at risk, surely, of cannibalising the younger generations. And as we have unlimited access to everything, we can claim to represent it.
But the fact is we don’t. Culturally or politically.
The lack of young voices in this election has really bothered me, but it is totally accepted by the establishment as the way elections are, the way politics is: in other words, it’s about a bunch of middle-aged guys.
This election is crucially important and yet remains distant to many people.
Partly this is because no one near power except the SNP is challenging the austerity narrative – and the SNP’s record on the subject is pretty questionable – but also because the unreal nature of political campaigning seems to occupy a bunch of blokes on Twitter and no on else.
At least Miliband stepped out of this vacuum for a bit.
Some dress like goths and will vote Ukip. They certainly cannot be represented by Brand’s anarcho-spirituality.
With tuition fees set to rise and many trapped in low paid jobs, unable ever to think of anything other than renting, many don’t have the luxury of Brand’s millionaire mindfulness.
My feeling is that we may be creating a generation with little connection to the state who may veer ever more rightwards and we need to make these very basic arguments again.
While baby boomers have benefited from free university education, affordable housing and slouching around on the dole, how will any of that feel to those who have never had benefits or grants but know only the world of loans? How benign will this shrunken state seem?
Against this, the rhetoric of revolution may be the political equivalent of buying a Harley-Davidson and an expensive divorce while the younger folk look on knowing they can’t even afford a moped.
In all this strange generational skewing we also have the likes of Farage who may be 51 but, like Cameron, seems to have adopted the culture of a much older generation, that nasty mash-up of Benny Hill and Michael Winner.
The right wing does not even pretend to do youth culture. Or culture at all. They are securing the future of the generation that votes for them and no one else.
The result is that the young are being utterly neglected, whatever their age, wherever they are.
After about 25 people seem to live in a permanent state of angst about ageing that is itself so monotonous (the quarter life crisis? Please) that they may as well be done with it and zoom straight to 50.
Lately, my confusion has grown.
Young people, we are reputedly told, do not vote and are not, therefore, catered to by politicians who gear everything up to the already-monied baby boomers. The Tories will slash and burn all benefits for those aged between 18 and 21.
“If you do not vote, then don’t complain,” says every middle-aged middle-class pundit, self righteously ignoring the fact that we do not have proportional representation and whether your vote makes any difference depends entirely on what seat you live in.
Sure, vote, but don’t misrepresent the reality of our system.
Russell Brand, famously a non-voter, has been activated by Ed Miliband or vice versa – I couldn’t possibly say – to appeal to “the youth vote”. Brand is pushing 40 and Miliband is 45.
In the video interview for Brand’s news channel The Trews, Ed did OK in tolerating Brand’s inability to let someone else have any personal space; Brand, as usual, comes on like an over-excited spider and ends up leering in Ed’s face.
This attempt to “reach out” is honourable as Ed plays the patient humanities teacher to Brand, who prefaces questions with: “I hope this doesn’t sound totally adolescent”.
Brand’s whole schtick is adolescent and it appeals to some.
When he attempts more adult analysis – as he does in his new film The Emperor’s New Clothes, essentially a critique of the failures of neo-liberalism – its all a bit dry and one yearns for a joke. Or Paul Mason.
Undoubtedly, though, Brand does have an audience – but if he is the voice of youth, what has happened to actual youth?
More and more it seems that my generation continue to grab everything as ours. There is no bit of culture we cannot claim, that we cannot colonise; data from Spotify shows that people in their mid-40s are listening to Taylor Swift and One Direction.
With every genre and every bit of musical history downloadable, we can have all the music all of the time. Everything can exist in the present tense.
We can listen to the music we listened to at 15 and then listen to what 15-year-olds listen to as well, as though we are forever young.
The same thing happens on TV.
BBC 2’s controller Kim Shillinglaw describes her mission as making TV for a mindset with a “maturity of word view” but who remain “young at heart”.
These are people my age who grew up with punk and who will lap up endless programmes that are essentially about their own youth.
We remain utterly, culturally dominant – at risk, surely, of cannibalising the younger generations. And as we have unlimited access to everything, we can claim to represent it.
But the fact is we don’t. Culturally or politically.
The lack of young voices in this election has really bothered me, but it is totally accepted by the establishment as the way elections are, the way politics is: in other words, it’s about a bunch of middle-aged guys.
This election is crucially important and yet remains distant to many people.
Partly this is because no one near power except the SNP is challenging the austerity narrative – and the SNP’s record on the subject is pretty questionable – but also because the unreal nature of political campaigning seems to occupy a bunch of blokes on Twitter and no on else.
At least Miliband stepped out of this vacuum for a bit.
Some dress like goths and will vote Ukip. They certainly cannot be represented by Brand’s anarcho-spirituality.
With tuition fees set to rise and many trapped in low paid jobs, unable ever to think of anything other than renting, many don’t have the luxury of Brand’s millionaire mindfulness.
My feeling is that we may be creating a generation with little connection to the state who may veer ever more rightwards and we need to make these very basic arguments again.
While baby boomers have benefited from free university education, affordable housing and slouching around on the dole, how will any of that feel to those who have never had benefits or grants but know only the world of loans? How benign will this shrunken state seem?
Against this, the rhetoric of revolution may be the political equivalent of buying a Harley-Davidson and an expensive divorce while the younger folk look on knowing they can’t even afford a moped.
In all this strange generational skewing we also have the likes of Farage who may be 51 but, like Cameron, seems to have adopted the culture of a much older generation, that nasty mash-up of Benny Hill and Michael Winner.
The right wing does not even pretend to do youth culture. Or culture at all. They are securing the future of the generation that votes for them and no one else.
The result is that the young are being utterly neglected, whatever their age, wherever they are.
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