Customer Reviews

Street Trends: How Today's Alternative Youth Cultures Are Creating Tomorrow's Mainstream

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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Also, please realize this book is a bit outdated.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Much better book about Gen X'ers -- which are not likely to go out of date for a very long time -- are Generation Debt, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, and Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America

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?

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.

In our quest for The Next Big Thing, many of us have rummaged around in the wrong places, like the drunk who stumbled under the streetlight for hours seeking his keys. Asked why he keeps covering the same ground, he says, "Because that's where the light is!"

In Street Trends, Lopiano-Misdom and De Luca are seeking the keys to hot, new trends - and finding them, too - but not under the bloodless light of statistical research alone (which everyone admits is illuminating ... as far as it goes).

No, these authors venture right into the thicket. They mount an expedition into the surly habitat of those young, independent kids who wouldn't dream of filling out a corny questionnaire, or be caught (duh!) in a focus group.

Whether or not you agree with the authors' observations (and whether or not you'd grant a First Church of Chi-Squared Almighty imprimatur to their naturalist methodology) this apparently modest volume is actually a fascinating, wickedly subversive little book.

Ray Simon (Ray is the author of Mischief Marketing, Contemporary Books, Fall 1999)