Frank Kogan

Well, I think a lot of "class" is both in and not in your control. Um, "control" maybe too strong a word; what I mean is, if you're from a blue collar family you nonetheless can be a preppy but only if other preppies are willing to befriend you (which of course is just as true if you're from a rich family, but chances are if you're from a rich family you've been hanging around preppy types for a while and are more likely to have a knack for acting preppy); same for the rich kid who wants to be a skater. And if you want to be a heavy metal kid, or something that's in the near neighborhood - goth or emo, let's say - you can because there are other kids to hook up with who are classified as metal or goth or emo. Whereas if you're a fan of country rock, you're not likely to become a country rock kid, because you don't have people identifying as "country rock," even if there are as many country rock fans as there are metal fans. So you don't have anyone to hook up with in a "class" way. But does that mean that you're affinity with other country rock fans has nothing to do with class or category, just because there's no name and no group identification?

Notice, I'm thinking of high school kids here. It's not as if "class" has nothing to do with adults, but they're not getting labels dropped on them in quite the same way - maybe because their identities are not so much in flux. I don't know.