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January 7, 2007

"Rejuvenile"

This weekend, I finished Christopher Noxon's, "Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up". I'd mentioned it on the last "Confab", and thought I'd take a brief moment to call it out.

The book is an exploration (treatise, really) on changing social norms around adulthood, and what it means to be adult. We know that the 'traditional' notion of the Lifestyle Conveyor Belt - first high school, then college, then marriage, job, house and kids by age 25 - has been bankrupt for about 20 years now; people are marrying later in life, having kids later in life, returning home to live with parents after college, and so on.

What's less explored, or less understood, is that the very concept of 'adult responsibility' has morphed and changed at the same time, allowing high-functioning, normal adults the luxury of engaging in silly, childish, or child-like behaviors, often in parallel with their other responsibilities. Three decades ago, adults were expected to act, well, adult, to repudiating things that were seen as frivolous or childish. Today, adults can adopt kid-like hobbies or interests (cartoons, Lego, hackey sack) and nobody bats an eye.

This results, among other things, in otherwise-normal 34-year-olds having, oh, say, a crazy enthusiasm for Disneyland.

(In fact, given that Elaine and I spent our Saturday at Kristen & Aaron's "Game Night" (think: Jack + Coke + "Karaoke Revolution"), I'd say most of my friends are rejuveniles, to varying degrees.)

The book doesn't court controversy with a position or point-of-view; rather, it's a walk-through of demographic changes and trends, coupled with interviews of rejuveniles all over the country. Some of the market statistics are pretty amazing - Disney World, for instance, clocks more than 200,000 visitors a day; of those, fully half are adults without young children. When Disney figured this out, they began re-architecting Walt Disney World to offer more adult-oriented entertainment ... and hence we have Cirque du Soleil and the Richard Petty Driving Experience in Orlando.

I also enjoyed the books' discussion of adults that do kid-like stuff, but without the kid-like enthusiasm:

It should be clear, though, that not all play is created equal. There is a big difference between the sort of spontaneous, imaginative play embraced by rejuveniles and what play theorist Gwen Gordon calls "the enemy of play": recreation. ... Some adults have a talent for turning even the most childlike pastimes into exercises in adult efficiency, improvement, and status-accrual. Witness the owners of fifteen-pound bicycles who can't imagine riding without microcomputer systems that track pedal cadence, altitude, and heart rate. These adults play to lose weight, blow off steam, or spend "quality time" with the kids, in the process barely glancing up against the pulsating anarchic force of true play.

(Not that this describes anyone I know.)

I don't know that I'd buy the book (SPL has it), but if the subject strikes you as intriguing, it's definitely worth a look.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at January 7, 2007 3:17 PM. Posted to Entertainment.

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Posted by: charpopp at January 8, 2007 2:06 PM

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