Buzzword of the day: Peterpandemonium.

I had a pretty good childhood, but I don't want to relive it, and this is just creepy:

London has become a magnet for young men and women determined to relive their childhoods. Every weekend thousands of twentysomethings dress up in school uniforms, to go clubbing at School Disco. People from all walks of life - doctors, computer programmers, hairdressers, lawyers - enthusiastically embrace this retro nostalgia. The young men in white shirts and blazers and the young women in short 'school' shirts take great delight in pretending that they are naughty teenagers having a snog on the dance floor. The School Disco scene has spread northwards, to Newcastle and Leeds; in February 2002, the School Disco Spring Term album went to number one in the charts.

God save us from the people who peaked in high school and don't ever want to leave. It gets worse:

Retro nostalgia is not just an Anglo-American phenomenon. 'Hello Kitty', a white kitten whose trademark is a flower or red bow, is hugely popular among Japanese adults. Female professionals and office workers bring Kitty stationery into the office; when they hit the bars they chat on their Kitty mobiles and offer cigarettes from their Kitty cigarette cases to businessmen wearing Snoopy neckties.

I do not get the whole "Hello Kitty" thing. There's something wrong with having a cartoon themed cigarette case. Personally it gives me sort of a combination Norma Desmond/pedophilia case of the willies.

Our society is full of lost boys and girls hanging out at the edge of adulthood. Yet we find it difficult even to give them a name. The absence of a readily recognised word to describe these infantilised adults demonstrates the unease with which this phenomenon is greeted. Advertisers and toy manufacturers have invented the term 'kidult' to describe this segment of the market. Another word sometimes used to describe these 20- to 35-year-olds is 'adultescent', generally defined as someone who refuses to settle down and make commitments, and who would rather go on partying into middle age.

Give it a snazzy label and it's mainstream. This would seem to be part and parcel of the neo-barbarian youth culture that believes in the twin virtues of piercing and unemployment. Or maybe I'm just reacting to this with horror because I'm hitting middle age and these are the people who were supposed to keep society going when I'm old. That's going to be difficult to do if you can't pry the fucking Nintendo controllers out of their pudgy little fingers before 40. Three pieces of advice for the 20 somethings:

1) Buy clothing that covers all your private parts. Nobody wants to see that shit.
2) Take that bone out of your nose, Shaka. This ain't Borneo in the 1800s. Nobody wants to see that shit either.
3) Move out of your parents' basement, even if it means leaving the big screen and the Playstation and selling off your mint condition Star Wars figures.

You'll thank me later.

[via Arts & Letters Daily.]