15 May

How to see kidult culture. Culture is like water to fish, mostly invisible to those living it. In the 19th century, Jules Verne created magical stories. About travelling to the moon, and amazing submarines exploring the depths of the oceans, and journeying to the centre of the Earth. These captured the collective imagination of people, and helped make them excited about a century of extraordinary technological progress. A culture that was outward-looking, that wanted to achieve impossible things. Fast forward to today. What’s our culture? A culture of trends. Trends reflecting fights between social groups, for status. Nothing collective about it at all, no exciting vision for the future. Meaningless fads and fashions reflecting these fights, shifting every 10 minutes. That’s the world of the schoolyard. Of yo-yos, and trending sneakers and bags. That’s kidult culture, a culture where status isn’t attached to achieving material things (adolescents have little power), so people just fight each other for position.