Zeno's Bar & Grill

Whatever happened to the generation gap? New York Magazine details the death of the gap in an article about Grups—the new brand of adults who listen to the hippest music, wear the grungiest jeans and spend their down time snowboarding.

The good side of Grups is that they hang onto their passion—whatever it may be—rather than checking it in at the door when their kids are born. That’s cool.

What’s less cool is when it crosses the line into pre-defined ideas of what one’s passion “should” be (and how to prove it) which often seems to involve expensive products (e.g. artfully distressed Rogan jeans costing several hundred bucks a pair). It’s also not ideal to view one’s kids as moldable blank canvases to be dressed helplessly in Ramones onesies and subjected to repeated listenings of the latest from iTunes while being told that Thomas the Tank Engine “sucks” (eep! One dad quoted in the article actually said this!). This gets back to the marketing stereotypes that we blogged about a while back: some Grups would definitely be “mini-me’s” who view their kids as accessories.

Still, the children of the Grups may end up having the last laugh when they’re teenagers, since they can always turn out to be…gasp…money-grubbing Republicans.

--Melanie & Kelly