playground love

Is it wrong for me to feel slightly threatened by the members of Generation-"born after 1995-ish"? Okay, not threatened. Not in the way that I fear they will beat me up after class, steal my job or give me a wet willie on the playground, it's just, I have not given these kids the credit they deserve on the "with-it"-meter. Today I stumbled upon what feels like 10,000 blogs/websites created by people under the age of 13, and I began to wonder, how are they so well-versed? Smart/knowledgeable in that they watch The Office, know more about Bob Dylan than I do and have ideas about Pantheism.

Being about ten years older than most of these pre-teens, I look back on my 13-year-old days, when my musical tastes hovered around such "diverse" artists as Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill, the Offspring, and even Britney Spears; nonetheless it pretty much stuck in Top 40 territory. Thanks to my parents I got a little bit of Beatles and Neil Young mixed in there (along with some 80's gems), but I didn't have actual opinions about their musical talent, their genres or their actual weight and importance in society.

As for fashion, the lovely just-turned-thirteen blogger Tavi, writes one of the top visited fashion blogs on the 'net, has an obsession with Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, and owns a piece of Rodarte knit specially made for her by the Mulleavy sisters.

Don't get me wrong, you couldn't pay me to go back to age thirteen, or fifteen for that matter. But that kind of devotion and charisma that these bloggers possess at such a young age is actually quite impressive and even inspiring. It's almost impossible to compare these youngin's means of output for their interests to mine, for blogs just simply didn't exist in my day. Maybe you could say that the 3-ring binders I so dramatically plastered with photos of my favorite models and musicians from Vogue in 6th grade was my way of showing off my like total obsession with fashion, but I do not think that back then I could speak on avant-garde designers of the day with such eloquence and wit.

So I'll continue to keep my eye on these kids; in 2 years they'll be 15 and Vogue will surely be looking for cheap labor.

Check out these winners, and prepare to get owned.

Tavi, fashion blogger
Random kids singing Jarvis Cocker
Spencer Tweedy, son of Wilco frontman