‘Oh, well, I didn’t know that.’
‘And you’ve missed the breakout sessions over lunch too,’ she continued accusingly. ‘And you’re just about to miss the start of the afternoon schedule.’
She was already hustling me into the conference room, one steely hand at the small of my back, and she stayed standing over me until I sat down and then finally she left. She was back one minute later though, like she knew I was planning to make a run for it, and shoved a glossy folder and a neoprene duffel bag at me, then stood right by the door. At least it was warm and I’d got to keep my sushi and when the mean woman stopped glaring at me I could have a little sleep.
But it turned out that conferences on The Future is NOW! were really quite interesting. Who knew that? Not me.
First, a man and woman from a global trend agency, wearing matching nerdy glasses, talked about how they sourced and tracked trends and used the information to help businesses develop new products. Like, one of their scouts might find some kids who’d set up their own club in east London and dressed like nineteen-forties gangsters who sold nylon stockings on the black market. Then, in Berlin, there might be other peeps dressing like the swing kids of forties Germany who were obsessed with American jazz and refused to join the Hitler Youth. And then, in Tokyo, there might be a DJ mixing old Benny Goodman arrangements with breakbeats. They’d take all this information and present it to their clients and, two years later, there’d be lots of forties-influenced fashion and Make Do And Mend posters all over the high street.
Then there was a scientist guy. Considering he was talking about scary, mutant, drug-resistant superbugs and had all these great slides of people with their faces eaten away, he could have gone big with a 28 Days Later scenario. He didn’t. He just droned on and on. Scary-Haircut-Lady was still glancing over at me so I didn’t dare to even take too long to blink in case she thought I was snoozing and came over to shout at me. Simply to kill time and to show there were no hard feelings, I texted Jeane to wish her luck. She texted me back immediately:
It’s bad luck to wish someone luck. Everyone knows that.
I hated her so much right then.
Thinking of all the reasons why I was hating on Jeane was a great way to spend the next half hour, until two guys with hair just like mine, wearing jeans and T-shirts, bounded onstage. They worked in Palo Alto, in California, also known as Silicon Valley. It was where Google, Facebook and Twitter had all started and, as they began to talk about the artificial intelligence product they were developing, I finally sat up and began to pay attention. I even took notes as they described how their technology could be used in everything from computer gaming to microsurgery. They were so into their work and made it sound so cool (and they had a rock-climbing wall in the middle of their office) that I wanted to abandon everything to fly to San Francisco and beg to be their tea boy.
They loped offstage and the emcee returned. ‘We’ve all been looking at ways in which the future is already here,’ he said. ‘And now we’re going to end with a remarkable young woman who’s so beyond the future that she’s been described as “a zeitgeist in the form of a teenage girl”.’
I didn’t know whether to sit up or slink down in my seat, as the guy continued singing Jeane’s praises. No wonder she was so up herself.
‘Jeane will be talking to us about the future that will be mapped out by her teenage peers, the Echo Boomers of Generation Y. I was chatting to Jeane during one of the breakout sessions and asked how she’d describe herself in one sentence and she said, “The Guardian thinks I’m an iconoclast, my half a million Twitter followers think I should spend more time linking to YouTube videos of cute puppies and my boyfriend thinks I’m an idiot.”’ He paused to let the laughter die down but I wasn’t laughing. I was mortified. I’d never called her an idiot and I’d never given her permission to say I was her boyfriend and there was a camera crew filming this and what if it ended up on the internet and someone recognised me and put two and two together and came up with not just four but the proof that I was Jeane’s boyfriend?
By the time I’d finished seething, Jeane had stumbled out onstage and now I was cringing in horror. I’d got used to how she looked, but now it was as if I was seeing her for the first time and I could hear people laughing at her. It was no surprise. She was wearing her silly greeny-blue vintage prom dress, which she’d since told me was actually seafoam, with a black sequinned evening cape, big clunky motorcycle boots and on her head was a turban. Not a turban like the one Hardeep’s dad wore, but a red velvet hat that really posh old ladies might wear once the Alzheimer’s began to kick in. I couldn’t believe that I was actually hitting that.
She stood at the front of the stage doing this really weird thing with her feet, tripping over her boots and crossing her ankles, so there was a very real possibility that she might crash to the ground. Her head was bowed and it didn’t look like she was going to do anything but silently freak out.
Then Jeane raised her head and smiled slyly. ‘Listen, it’s OK,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of teenagers don’t dress like me. Their loss, I reckon.’
This time when people laughed it was with her, not at her, and Jeane smiled again and clicked on her first slide.
GENERATION Y BOTHER?
The revolution will probably not be televised, unless you subscribe to the premium channels, but I bet I can find one million people to ‘like’ it on Facebook
‘So, welcome to Generation Y. Please keep your arms inside the car and don’t feed the animals. My name’s Jeane and I’ll be your guide as I tell you about the strange beast called the teenager. Their thoughts, their dreams, their passions, their ambitions and why they make a good case for bringing back National Service.
‘Because Generation Y are everything you feared. They’re everything your worst nightmares conjured up.
‘They’re lazy, apathetic, unoriginal, scared of innovation, scared of difference, just plain scared.
‘They binge drink. The confuse sex for intimacy. They definitely couldn’t tell you the capital cities of more than five countries. And they really think that Justin Bieber is the Second Coming.
‘Only fifty per cent of Generation Y own more than two books and, yes, they listen to music, but they download it from the internet because content is free, yo. Want, take, have is their battle cry.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is my generation and my generation is royally screwed up.’
THE TEENAGER IS DEAD, LONG LIVE
THE PRE-TWENTY-SOMETHING
Gucci dresses and drop top compressors, Gen Y want everything and they want it NOW!
‘My generation were raised, not by actual parents, but by Sex and the City and Big Brother.
‘They want labels, they want logos. Louis Vuitton and Chanel, preferably, but Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister will do as long as they’re selling us a lifestyle based on nostalgia for a world we’ve never known.
‘But what Generation Y really want, more than they even want an iPhone, is to be famous. Proper famous. Red carpet famous. Known only by your first name famous. Each one of them knows that they’re a special little snowflake and they deserve everything that goes with fame, which is free clothes, flash cars, skipping to the front of the queue outside some expensive nightclub and being whisked straight to the VIP room where an endless supply of champagne awaits them.
‘How they get famous doesn’t matter. They’ll date, or ideally marry, a footballer or win The X Factor or a TV modelling show. Everyone tells them that they’re amazing and talented and beautiful and, God, if that big-haired, binge-drinking bint from Jersey Shore can become a mega-celebrity, why can’t they?
‘So, to recap. Generation Y. Shallow. Narcissistic. Self-involved. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, Gen Y knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.’
STRESS PUPPIES
Why burnout is the new black
‘But the thing is, unless they do get hurled into the a
rms of that bitch called fame, the future for Gen Y is pretty damn bleak. They’re the first generation who will earn less than their parents. They’re the first generation who won’t be expected to better themselves by going to university, because what’s the point in running up thousands of pounds or dollars in debt for tuition fees and student loans when there’s little chance of being able to find a job at the end of it?
‘So, quite frankly, who wouldn’t want an easy route to fame and riches if the alternative is working in a call centre or asking people if they’d like to supersize their order?’
SO IS THIS THE DEATH OF TEEN REBELLION?
‘Nuh-huh. Not even a little bit. I said that teenagers don’t dress like me. They don’t think like me but, hey, I’m an early adopter. Where I lead, about two years later, everyone else follows. I joined Twitter when it was just one man and his dog and I was the first girl in my school to wear tights and open-toed sandals and so I honestly believe that what I’m telling you today is slowly percolating into the brains of my peer group and in the next couple of years will come to pass.
‘If I think it, then it will happen.
‘And what I think is that we’re slowly rejecting your massmarket, consumerist culture. We’re rejecting you because you want to co-opt our youth. We don’t want you buying clothes from the same shops as us. We don’t want to watch the same TV programmes that you do. God, we really don’t want our mothers banging on about how hot that bloke from Twilight is. But it’s really, really hard to find our own identity when there’s no such thing as teen culture any more, because everything has already been done.
‘Long, long ago, there used to be an underground scene of kids making music and art and running clubs and doing what they loved and languishing in obscurity because it would be years before anyone outside their little cliques would catch on. But now we have the internet and within five minutes any new scene has been TwitPicced, debated on Gawker and by the end of the month it’s on the front pages of the Daily Mail.
‘And that’s why I started Adorkable. Adorkable was a blog for all the weird, wonderful and really random things I was into but very quickly Adorkable became a mission statement, my USP, a call to arms. And, yes, it’s evolving into a lifestyle brand and, yes, I make money spotting and reporting on street trends, but the core ethos behind Adorkable is actually about celebrating a teen culture that hasn’t been created by big corporations so they can sell us a whole bunch of crap that we don’t need or want.
‘Adorkable is about ripping the logos off your clothes or inking them out with Magic Markers.
‘We’re sending letters and mix CDs to each other in the post.
‘We’ll run our own bake sales, rather than gorging on your overpriced Krispy Kremes, thank you very much.
‘We don’t want your fast, sweatshop fashion, we’ll learn to make our own clothes.
‘We don’t want music with Simon Cowell’s grubby fingerprints all over it. If we can’t make it ourselves, we’ll rediscover the joy of old records that never made it to the mainstream.
‘But more than anything, we don’t want the tiny, miserable futures that the government and our parents have mapped out for us. We’ll live our own dreams.
‘So, Adorkable isn’t just about me any more. Adorkable is a freeform, loose-knit, organic network of like-minded souls who might get pushed to the ground for the way we think and the way we look and because we’re not afraid of who we are, but my God we’re looking up at the stars.’
GENERATION Y NOT?
Tomorrow is here today
‘But enough about me. I’m getting paid to talk about my generation and I have been kinda harsh on them. So, despite the fact that I despair every morning when I walk into school and I want to shake people and scream in their faces and force them to feel something, there are times when I’m proud to be a member of Generation Y.
‘Over the last couple of years in Britain there have been cuts to the health service and cuts to education and many, many other cuts that hurt the most vulnerable and needy members of our society. It made me very angry and I wrote impassioned blog posts and even went on BBC radio as part of a panel discussion and got very shirty with a cabinet minister. Then a really big demonstration was planned. I leafleted the entire school, though I wasn’t sure why I was bothering because everyone thought that politics was beyond boring.
‘On the morning of the demo, I went to school. Then, at twelve, in the middle of a Business Studies lesson, I stood up and told Mr Latymer, our teacher, that I was now leaving school to go into town and protest the erosion of my civil liberties. To be honest, I could have just waited until the lunch bell but quiet women rarely make history.
‘Then, as I started to leave, two boys who’ve never even spoken to me stuck their hands up and said they were leaving to join the protest too. One by one, everyone stood up in an “I am Spartacus” style and marched out of school with me, texting as they went, so by the time we got to the yard there were hundreds of teenagers assembled. I thought it was just an excuse to head to Starbucks, but, nope, they were bloody angry about having their rights to free education and healthcare snatched away and they were coming into town with me and if they got to shout rude things at a policeman, then, hey, added bonus.
‘So, they came, they marched, they took photos of themselves marching and posted them on Facebook, we almost got kettled and the next day they went back to ignoring me and I went back to looking down at them, but it was one small step for Generation Y.
‘And as the recession continues and our prospects look bleaker and bleaker, I’m excited. I look to the past to see what our future will be like. And in times of economic hardship and harsh governments, of pointless wars and mass unemployment, there was pop art and there was punk, there was hip hop and grafitti, there was acid house and riot grrrl.
‘There was art and music and books that could bring you to your knees with their utter perfection. Because, when everything else is gone, all we’re left with is our imaginations.
‘So, you know what? I’m not ready to write Gen Y off just yet and neither should you, because I think we’re going to grow up just fine. Yeah, it pains me to admit it, but the kids are all right.
‘I was going to punch the air at this point but now I think it might come across as a little cheesy, so I’m just going to fold my arms behind my back to let you know that I’ve finished.’
27
Applause.
People were clapping but my body was still clenched painfully tight because maybe the clapping meant nothing more than, ‘Thank God that weird girl has finished yammering and we can go to the bar.’
But they were still clapping and now people were rising to their feet, not to leave but to clap harder, and when I made my eyes focus everyone seemed pretty happy. I think this is what they call a standing ovation.
Oh yeah, Jeane, you’ve still got it. Like there was ever any doubt.
Then John-Paul, the host, strode on stage and I had to take questions from the audience, which all came down to the same thing – how can we sell our products to your generation? – and I was all like, have you not listened to a single word I’ve been saying?
Finally some snooty-looking hipster commented that I wasn’t really a typical teenager and I said, ‘Well, duh!’ then I realised that probably wasn’t the most tactful response. ‘That’s the whole point. I’m among them but not of them, thank the Lord.’
Then I was done. John-Paul was happy. Even Oona, the really grumpy woman who’d organised the conference, seemed happy. When I walked into the green room, I had to pose for pictures with the other speakers and string whole sentences together even though the tension and the adrenalin were starting to slowly drain away so all I was really capable of doing was grunting and maybe drooling a bit.
I looked across the room as this really boring scientist guy was talking to me about really boring science stuff and saw Michael being pushed through the door by Oona. He didn’t look very pleased when h
e first caught sight of me. I shrugged and pulled a face to say that how I’d behaved before the conference couldn’t be held against me because I’d been stressed up the wazoo.
Michael’s telepathy skills had to be getting better, because he started to smile. As he came closer his smile got broader and then he actually picked me up and twirled me around even though I thumped his back and threatened to kill him.
‘You were amazing,’ he yelped, once he’d put me back down. ‘Seriously. I didn’t like all that “Gen Y, they’re rubbish and they just want to be famous and God help us if there’s a war” and I was really pissed off about you going on about logo T-shirts yet again, and then you did this complete one-eighty about how no one is going to put us in the corner and we’re going to overthrow capitalism and I might even have got a little choked up.’
‘Really?’ I asked doubtfully. ‘’Cause that wasn’t quite what I said.’
‘For absolute reals. And, hey, guess what?’
Michael grabbed my hands and gave them a little shake and now I was over my conference-sponsored angst, his enthusiasm and gushing and utter approval was kind of infectious like nits and I was smiling too and entwining my fingers around his. ‘I don’t know. What?’
‘I walked out of school and went on that demo! I mean, I’d thought about it but I didn’t have the guts but when I saw Year 11 marching down the corridor, I just walked out of Maths and half the class followed me.’ Michael beamed. ‘I was never sure how we all suddenly decided to go on the protest, but I should have known you were behind it. It had you written all over it.’
‘To be fair, I think it was more a kind of mass hysteria thing, like—’
‘Oh, please, you know that modesty doesn’t suit you,’ Michael snorted. ‘Anyways, it was fantastic. At one stage someone let me shout into a megaphone. It was one of the best experiences of my life – to feel like I had a say in my own future, you know?’