<p>Here's a two-word phrase you don't see or hear much anymore: young adults. It sank beneath the waves of a more recent, more powerful force: the "youth culture."</p>
<p>The youth culture in America is a lifestyle, emphasizing the one thing that youth tend to be very good at: thinking about themselves. Pridefully inner-directed, it opens itself to the outer world primarily in two ways: style and "attitude." Membership in the youth culture is defined by mass marketers as a "demographic," which begins about the age of 12 and runs without interruption to the age of 35. A "young adult" is an anachronism.</p>