Ypulse Guest Post: The New Urban
Posted by meredith on 03-04-2009Today's second guest post comes from Richard Cox one of the many readers to leave an insightful comment on Anastasia's thought-provoking post on the terms "multicultural" and "urban." As a twentysomething, Richard had a unique perspective on the subject and asked him to expand on his thoughts. If you work in youth media or marketing and have an idea for a Ypulse Guest Post, feel free to email me.
The New Urban
Could the word "Urban" really be dead? A few weeks ago Anastasia asked this question and there were a good number of comments from readers eager to share their thoughts on the issue. This was no surprise to me, as this is usually a topic that inspires plenty of opinions whenever it is brought up. But what I did find surprising was my own reaction– how confident I initially felt that the word was no longer needed, and then how conflicted I felt five minutes later about the implications of actually doing away with it. Maybe the word urban just needs to be redefined?
In practice, the word urban has come to take on two different functions. The first is more race-based. It historically seemed to be a way of easily pin-pointing certain ethnic groups – primarily African-Americans but also Latinos and Asian Americans. It was an easy box seemingly created by companies and their marketing departments to target these particular groups and to cater products and ad campaigns to them specifically. The second function of the word urban is more cultural-based. It is used to describe anyone, regardless of race, who participates in urban culture and shares those interests (types of music, clothing, television shows, etc…). These two functions used to point us to the same group of people. But the issue that we are now facing is that this is no longer the case – especially among youth.
With the ever-growing international reach of the internet through the proliferation of social networking sites, blogs, vlogs, wikis, Twitter and other easy methods of sharing information and ideas, cultures are no longer as tightly associated with a particular race as they used to be. In fact they are becoming much more contextual. And what we are seeing as a result are kids participating in different cultures depending on where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing in that particular moment and on that particular day. One day you may spot a young guy at a coffee shop dressed in straight cut jeans and a hoodie, reading The Fader, and listening to Lil Wayne on his iPhone. The next day you may catch that same guy at the coffee shop wearing skinny jeans and a flannel shirt, reading the Economist and listening to Feist. The next day you'll catch him in boardshorts reading Transworld Surf and listening to Brazillian singer CéU. Can we truly place this guy into the "urban" box because he is African-American? Would companies interested in marketing to African-Americans be successful in targeting this young guy by focusing on what they see as stereotypically "urban?" I don't think so. (A side note: "that young guy" is me.)
So given this example and many more like it, it definitely seems like the word urban in the racial sense is no longer relevant. And thus my immediate reaction would be to eliminate it from our daily vocabulary. But when you look at it from the truly cultural side – the word urban can still be very useful. If we acknowledge that anyone can be a member of urban culture if they share characteristics that are in line with what that culture represents, then it can still be a relevant and helpful way for companies to identify a particular audience in their advertising and product marketing initiatives.
But here is another dilemma that seems to exist even if we decide to use urban only in the truly cultural context-based sense, disregarding racial and ethnic background: how do we still pay sufficient attention to often under-represented groups such as African Americans and Latin Americans? And how do we successfully serve these groups while still recognizing the diversity within the group (not all African Americans, Latin Americans, and Asian Americans are alike)? Places like the "urban" section of Ypulse were created to diversify the site and provide more content for these groups but maybe the word urban is just the incorrect term to use for this purpose. But if that is the case, then what should the new term be? Or is this entire debate just a pointless game of semantics that doesn't really make a difference at all – as long as we know who it is specifically that we are targeting?
Just food for thought. I'm interested in hearing if there are any people out there that have this same dilemma and asked themselves these same questions as they think about whether the word urban is dead or very much alive and living well…
For more coverage of urban culture, check out the new Ypulse Urban Channel. And if you do think of a better name for this channel, let us know!
About Richard Cox
Richard is an Assistant Buyer for a Fashion Retail company in Southern California. He graduated from Stanford University in 2007 where he gained his love for thoughtful debate. In his spare time he enjoys sharing his ideas on music, film, fashion, and sports at his recently launched blog Media Mayhem.
Categorized under: Urban
March 5th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Well-written article Richard. I agree that there is far more cultural versatility these days. All of this crossover and fusion will continue to make it increasingly difficult for Big Wigs to market to Generations X, Y, Z and beyond.
Racially it is dead. But in the cultural world, the notion of Urbaness lives on. So long as there is the continued spread of counter-cultural, ground-breaking and genre crossing trends, there will continue to be a face to the Urban movement.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:10 am
We all know the cool factor of youth translates into $$$ for companies with products and services targeted at this audience.
The urban audience should not be defined by race, age, gender, geography or other previously restricting limitation’s, but by a shared spirit born out of the diversity of urban/youth culture linked by social change, style, and innovation.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:54 am
I've had this open in my browser for almost a week trying to decide how to best articulate my thoughts, and I'm not sure I'm even there yet, but I'll go on anyway—
From my perspective urban means city, as an antonym of rural. If using urban to describe a style, I would use it in the context of describing something hip, trendy, youthful and reflective of numerous influences often found in larger cities. Yes, many cities have larger minority populations and significant representation from a multitude of cultural backgrounds, but it would not occur to me to use the word "urban" as a synonym of or implication of any racial group.
I'm in my mid twenties, which probably has something to do with my perspective, and I grew up in a part of the country where the largest minority group was Hispanic, predominantly Mexican. The African American population, and other minority populations, were very small. Also, the Hispanic minority wasn't any larger in the area's big cities than it was in smaller cities and rural communities. From my growing up experience, describing something as urban had no racial implications. Now I live in a rural, predominantly African American community in another state, and the nearby cities have large majorities of Caucasian residents; again the term urban would be out of context to describe the ethnic representation of this area.
I don’t have any good suggestions for lingo to represent respect and attention to various ethnic groups – this is a good question you raise. Diversity is the concept we’re seeking to describe, but I’m not sure what branded name works? I’m interested to hear if anyone else has suggestions.