1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Little outdated, mixed feelings, August 7, 2007
This review is from: Street Trends: How Today's Alternative Youth Cultures Are Creating Tomorrow's Mainstream (Paperback)
2.5 stars
First, I will agree with the previous reviewer - this book was self-aggrandizement on the part of the authors.
This affected the content of the book in several ways. The book did read, in parts, like a "pitch" for their services. Also, I am always a bit distrustful of authors who admit they are holding back information, in an attempt to sell you more at a higher rate, at a later date. This, incidentally, made the book a bit "thin". It also upset me just a bit that the Gen-X authors would sell out their generation to huge corporations (it was obvious to me that they were trying to land a big client - not just share their observations about young people). And yes, it was a bit generalized. It seems that they wanted a book simply to justify their careers, without caring much about the quality or content of that book.
Also, please realize this book is a bit outdated. Some of the information is still valid & insightful, but the majority of it is particular to the late 90's.
A final observation is that the false categories of X'ers, which is purely the construct of the authors (the "Hip-Hop", the "Intellectuals", etc) were a bit naive, a bit redundant, and somewhat funny actually to a person trained in sociological method.
Much better book about Gen X'ers -- which are not likely to go out of date for a very long time -- are
Generation Debt,
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, and
Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
self-promotion based on wild generalizations, January 29, 1999
By A Customer
Pretty clever idea: get thousands of people to pay to read your corporate brochure. The authors blatantly pitch their company's services throughout. That's embarrassing. But many of their insights are based on unfounded generalizations -- that today's youth are responsible for the rise in microbrewed beer, or that all future music will contain electronic components. The result: we can't take these so-called researchers seriously. There may be valuable insights in this book, but what can you believe?
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Postive for International Youth Marketeers, June 13, 2000
Street Trends is an effective book for all marketeers wanting to know what is in the mindsets of the youth market. Its assessment of the market also translates well into some of the trends that hit international markets.
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