YouthNation: Building Remarkable Brands in a Youth-Driven Culture

Introduction: Forever Young

YouthNation (Yooth-nay-shun)1. (noun): A highly influential group of over 80 million American citizens born between 1982 and 1998. They are currently aged between 18 and 34 and nearly all of them cannot remember a time when the Internet did not exist. 2. (verb): A movement of influential individuals who possess disruptive power over cultural, business, and political issues in the United States.

Youth is not just a state of mind; it's the state of the art.

YouthNation is a new phenomenon. When America itself was young, there was no youth culture to speak of. There was no place set aside for young people to discuss and share things that were of particular interest to them. In most cases, young people were never really together as a group, and as a result, had no opportunity to form a culture that was unique to them. Historically, children were at home, sequestered away from other kids their own age, and by the time they were 10 years old were expected to take their place in the adult world of work. At the beginning of America, people weren't young for very long.

In those days, the information about the world that young people received came only from adults. When they had problems or concerns, they shared it with their elders. It wasn't until very recently from a historical perspective that young people were able to spend enough time with each other, separated and apart from the worldview of adults, to find the opportunity to be youthful. Even adolescence ...