Dialogue: Young pleasure seekers can make life hellish for others

By ELEANOR BLACK

Young Pleasure Seekers ... Yappy Pushy Slappers ... Yes, Puke Soon.

Ask any "twentysomething" and they will tell you they are well acquainted with the new social class "discovered" by Otago University and described in a consumer study published last week.

Young Pleasure Seekers are the young pups who load into hatchbacks and cut you off on the motorway. They are the clump of giggling women at your local wine bar who poke fun at the other patrons and look so similar they could have come out of a box. They are the people who keep Starbucks open.

Whiny, selfish and careless with others' feelings, they live for the moment and declare they would rather die young and beautiful than old and wise.

They're a pain in the butt.

The too-cute-to-be-true guy who broke your best friend's heart by sending a break-up text message? YPS.

The flock of gum-smacking salesgirls who lazily fold T-shirts and gossip among themselves about their huge night on Friday while you wait to try on a pair of no-name jeans they wouldn't be seen dead in? YPS.

The law student who owns six pairs of designer sunglasses but has difficulty coming up with the rent? YPS.

What is so galling about these trendy freewheelers, especially if you are also in your 20s but do not share their inborn sense of entitlement, is their apparent lack of conscience.

While other young people struggle to support themselves with entry-level jobs which make dinner for two at McDonald's look like a glittering treat, the pleasure seekers happily amass credit-card debt at shopping malls across New Zealand, then skip the country for more consequence-free fun overseas.

They rely on their parents to bail them out of financial potholes and expect their more responsible friends to lend them cash to cover the rough patches - like when they have already spent their paycheck on this season's "must have" leather pants and still have to buy groceries.

Yet when Mum wants Miss YPS to join the family for Great Aunt Rosemary's 80th birthday party, the young whippersnapper can't be bothered.

Mr YPS will spend an absolute fortune on esoteric design magazines and CDs but can't find $5 for the morning tea kitty at work.

And give up trying to wrestle that chocolate lamington out of his grip.

Ms YPS, the wannabe feminist, will tell all and sundry how much she loves and respects her female friends, then drop them like a load of dusty old bricks for the first man who winks at her.

When you get home at the end of the day, tired and grumpy from having spent 10 hours staring at a computer screen, your YPS flatmate will be lolling on the sofa, takeout containers and empty energy drink cans at his feet. He will not have washed the breakfast dishes or bothered to mow the lawn.

Just when you think you will go mad if this leech doesn't learn how to change a toilet roll, he will win a role in a reality television show and fly off to a tropical island with a bunch of his bleating counterparts.

He'll probably win the treasure, too.

Okay, so I'm a little fed up. I know plenty of carefree and breezy YPSers, and after years of lending money I'll never see again and having my wee heart smashed underfoot like a rotten tomato, I have stopped smiling.

This demographic do not have opinions on social issues, probably don't bother to vote, write cheques they know will bounce, and expect instant gratification when it comes to relationships.

They practise cynical snarls and claim they will never let the Government push them around while at the same time naively buying into multimillion-dollar marketing strategies by Coke, Nike and Versace.

These people make up more than 13 per cent of the population and they may never grow up.

Yuck, Painful Statistic.