Influx

Why is the idealization of black, urban culture dominating youth culture and the teenage mass market? And what does it mean for the brands ranging from McDonalds to Boost Mobile to JC Penney who are paying big with hope of getting closer to their vague dreams of ghetto-flavored credibility?
Businessweek Article

This is one of those un-PC issues that seems intuitive enough and gets skirted. But it can do some good to say it and hear it outright once in a while.

We all know that life in the projects is desolate, but there’s a freedom in the desolation: worries are immediate, there’s something close to the ground about the lifestyle, an authentic independence. ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’

Exposure to black, urban culture makes middle-class suburban teenagers feel like posers. Why? Because middle and upper-class teenagers are really just going through a surly phase on their way to buckling down and joining the workforce and they secretly know it. They are pretending to be disenfranchised from their families, reliant just on themselves and their friends. But in reality they have a comfy featherbed waiting at home for them.

As a poor black kid in the ghetto, you actually are disenfranchised and have to rely on yourself and your band of friends in an actual class-warfare, not just a mocked up struggle. Most interestingly, even if a black kid in the ghetto takes on a ‘posture’ or adopts a uniform-like style and slang, it isn’t susceptible to being called inauthentic because it’s felt to come from a real and necessary social and cultural banding together. This is why, in the urban market, it’s acceptable for a just few hip-hop heroes to be among everyone’s favorites, and a few styles and brands to be the gold-standard. This kind of almost monolithic mass movement hasn’t been seen in white culture since the Beatles generation, when you wouldn’t get laid if you didn’t have long hair and sideburns because people would think you weren’t part of the movement. Just look at old wedding pictures.

Unlike urban black teenagers, the suburban, middle-class teenagers today are struggling with two anxieties: they have to appear emancipated from their parents and part of a ‘tribe’ or subculture, and yet they also have to appear like they aren’t just slavishly putting on the uniform of that ‘tribe.’ This is why there is so much segmentation and sub-segmentation of white suburban teen styles and cultural identities and why their trends, fashions and brands can burn brightly and then not just die but become objects of contempt. Except, of course, for hip-hop and urban styles, trends and music, which are judged by a very different set of rules. This ‘other set of rules’ and its implications for brands is the subject of our newest Influx white paper and trends presentation.
For more information, contact rperkins@bssp.com