How To Stay Relevant with the Kids

Life is a funny thing. One day you are attending all the hottest parties and considered “cool” by the masses, and the next day you are watching the evening news and getting drunk off one glass of wine. It’s not even that you’ve become less cool, it’s just that you are growing up. Suddenly standing elbow-to-elbow in a sweaty bar trying to score free drinks just isn’t as interesting to you. But even though some aspects of your awesome career in action sports have become mundane or even undesirable, it’s still not a bad life. Unfortunately while the rest of the world wants you to grow up, this industry of cool doesn’t, so it’s important to at least pretend you are still hip. Here are some tips for staying relevant with today’s demanding consumers.

Step 1: Accept Your Own Irrelevance

It doesn’t matter who you are, how long you have been around, or that what you’ve done shaped the current state of things. The kids don’t know who you are, and they don’t care.

Step 2: Learn to Think Like Them
Thanks to the Internet, there is an endless source of free information about what the kids are into. Don’t ignore it, as dumb as you may think it is, this is what’s happening now.

Step 3: Hire an Intern
If you are a real adult (which let’s assume you are if you are becoming irrelevant) you probably don’t have time to scour message boards and blogs for info, and you might not understand what you are reading even if you do. An intern will do this for you. They know the stuff the kids are into because they are a kid. You can make them work for free and if they have good ideas, you can steal them and pass them off as your own!

Step 4: Keep You References Current
It’s really important to not come off sounding clueless with today’s kids. So make sure you are quoting the appropriate pop culture references. If you are still saying “so hot right now” you are exactly the opposite. Get with the times.

Step 5: Start a Blog
All the cool kids have blogs. Even if you are uncool, you can fool people by linking to blogs that are cool and passing it off as your own thoughts. But this is a very important step in staying relevant because without a blog, how will the kids know about all the cool things you are doing?

Step 6: Stay Strong
Finally, don’t mistake hateful comments you are sure to receive in these web 2.0 days as mean. That’s just how today’s kids communicate. Anonymous hate is the new text messaging. What, no one is phrasing things like that anymore? Crap.

  1. Damn I must be getting old!

  2. Goddammit, someone stole my top secret notes on how to stay cool. Shit. I’ll get you, anonymous!

  3. I am going to get this article tattooed on my face.

  4. nitsch

    this is like a freaky accurate horoscope.

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