20

Cover story for The Memphis Flyer

Individual profiles of 20 twenty-somethings under 30 years old

Jan. 20, 2011

The under-30s — born in the glare and glitter of the 1980s, the decade of big hair and big shoulders, that musically metallic wasteland between the death of disco and the birth of grunge. Their newly opened eyes witnessed the fall of communism, the safe return of some spacecraft and the loss of another, and violence against a president, a pope, and a Beatle.

MTV was born, as was Nintendo, the AIDS pandemic, and Marty McFly. And the Yugo was introduced to America. The ill-advised reformulation of Coca-Cola took place square in the middle of their first decade.

Natalie Portman is 29 years old, LeBron James is 27, Thriller turns 29 this year, Madonna’s career is 28, Love in the Time of Cholerais 26, and the Memphis Flyer is 21.

The following Memphians are all in their 20s, all embarking on adventures in business, nonprofit groups, the arts, ecology, society — life. They are positive, community-minded, smart, ambitious. They are seldom singular, choosing instead to come together as collaborators, as collectives of artists and professionals to make Memphis a better place, to make themselves better people.

Born in the shadow of the Me Decade, these young men and women espouse anything but selfishness. They’re coming of age in a time when “hope” and “change” are common buzzwords. Their first choice for media may be social, and they are as likely to be aware of someone in Chicago’s favorite television show as they are of the person sitting next to them in a café. They are embracing the possibility that they’ll feel the flutter of a butterfly’s wings half a world away and that the ensuing wind may carry promise and responsibilites.

Our under-30s are intensely creative and highly engaged. And they soon will be a force to contend with. Keep your eyes on them, Memphis. It shouldn’t be difficult to do … (read more)