YouthNation: Building Remarkable Brands in a Youth-Driven Culture

Chapter 5The Communal Table

With the emergence of youth culture as the dominant engine of our society, the definition of family has taken another dramatic turn in its long and fabled American history. Today, in addition to joining together with the people we are related to by blood, the neighbors who live close by, and the institutions that we rely on for survival, YouthNation is creating families centered upon common ideals, aspirations, passions, and politics. This has brought about a whole new model of how we live, work, and collaborate with one another, and has dramatically changed how we define and whom we think of as “family.”

America's youth has from its very beginnings been inclined to break away from their families of origin and create new societies around common interests and ideologies. Think of the communes of the sixties, where people came together for a cause, lived, cooked, raised their children, and provided for the common good together. These social experiments, however, remained on the fringe. The concept, though is resurfacing today in a new and reimagined way.

Today with the advent of new technologies that connect YouthNation with similar values and complimentary talents, like-minded leaders are gathering together to create pockets of innovation and cultures of creativity based on common passions and ideals in cities and towns all over America and the world. This fundamental shift is bringing about some important changes in the way our culture and the marketplace ...