Age is just a number: rave culture and the cognitively young 'thirty something'

Abstract

This paper looks at “dance” or “rave”, a phenomenon usually associated with youth culture. It suggests that there is a hidden consumer who falls into the 30-40 age group. The paper examines the emergence of dance/rave, and the process of commodification of a sub-cultural movement. It suggests that youth-related activities are migrating up the age scale and draws on the results of a phenomenological study to support this. The findings suggest that the experience is closely related to cognitive age and the dimensions of “felt” age, “look” age, “do” age, and “interest” age.