The Abercrombie Age : Millennial Aspiration and the Promise of Consumer Culture / Myles Ethan Lascity.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lascity, Myles Ethan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consumption (Economics)--Social aspects--United States.

Consumption (Economics).

Generation Y.

Mass media--Moral and ethical aspects--United States.

Mass media.

Mass media and culture--United States.

Mass media and culture.

Success in popular culture--United States.

Success in popular culture.

United States--Social conditions--1980-2020.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2024]

Summary:

"Be popular and good-looking-it's the key to a happy life. Luckily, with a bit of know-how and money, you, too, can have it all. At least, that's what teen pop culture was selling in surround sound at the turn of the millennium. From movies like Clueless to TV's Dawson's Creek to the music videos on MTV's Total Request Live and the catalogs of Abercrombie & Fitch, a consumer-minded ethos drove pop culture storytelling as millennials came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But in the long shadow of the Great Recession, the upwardly mobile aspirations fostered by the era's popular culture and media seem to have been thwarted. Many millennials today lack the wealth their parents had at the same age, and the gaps between rich and poor rival those of the Gilded Age. The Abercrombie Age reconsiders teen popular culture from the turn of the twenty-first century, revealing how it told young people that life not only could but surely would get better. Far from frivolous or forgettable, the era's superficial, materialistic culture sold millennials unrealistic expectations of what life could offer, setting up a stark juxtaposition with the realities of today"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Abercrombie, aspiration, and consumer culture

Back to school '97: understanding the Abercrombie teen

Spring break '99: 'Cruel Intentions' and the millennium high school film

Summer '99: "Summer Girls" and intertextual teen TV

Spring break '00: 'The Skulls' and the millennial college experience

Spring break '01: revisiting contemporaneous critiques

Spring break '04: 'Mean Girls' and post-9/11 high school

Summer '06: 'The Devil Wears Prada' and expectations of millennial adulthood

Christmas '08: Goodbye to 'TRL', and the legacy of the Abercrombie teen.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781469680958

1469680955

9781469680941

1469680947

OCLC:

1458757483