the kids are alright so leave them alone
just read an article off the fortune.com website. it was about this chain store called Hot Topic whose tagline, "Everything about the music," reflects its hugely successful operating premise: Music is the primary influence on teen fashion. (Lobe stretchers include Incubus lead singer Brandon Boyd and members of the band Blink 182.) Rock, pop-punk, emo, acid rap, rave, rockabilly -whatever your teen is into, Hot Topic has it. The company's bread and butter is T-shirts featuring bands you've probably never heard of.

i think it's the american equivalent to our local 77th Street, only on a big ass national scale. i cannot believe they're making this shit into some money-churning machine.

"Hot Topic is a model for other companies seeking to snap up the growing numbers of teens and preteens -the so-called Generation Y and Millennials. Americans ages 13 to 17, who are expected to number some 30 million by 2005, up from 28 million today, spent $20.9 billion on apparel for the year ended July 31, according to market researcher NPD Group. Today's adolescents have much more of their own money than they used to, and parents spend more on them than previous generations did."

BUT the most injustice part is this ---> "all Hot Topic staffers, from the CEO to the lowliest store employee, regularly attend concerts by up-and-coming and established bands to scout who's wearing what. The company reimburses store clerks for concert tickets if they write up a fashion report afterward."

kids, if i was a musician and i get all these wankers trying to cop my style, i'll feel raped.

Isn't she worried that if Hot Topic gets too large, teens might cease thinking of it as a voice of the counterculture and start thinking of it as the establishment? Not really, the CEO says: "We go to great pains to not be seen as 'corporate.' " <--- makes me think of godpa and his interpretation of the local hiphop scene.

i'm sick to my stomach. on to mo brighter things.

phrase of the day, Albert Hammond Jr in the recent SPIN magazine
"Since I was 15, I've had a motto that you should always look like you're on stage."