Aspiring downwards

When I was a young man (don't laugh, it happened) most of my group wanted to be sophisticated, elegant, educated, well-dressed, charming and polite, because we wanted to be adults, and we thought that adults were like that. We hoped that smelling good, being clean and neat would also help us be accepted (especially by girls). We thought (fools that we may have been) that this combination would be attractive to young women, and indeed to every adult with any pretensions to "class". You might say that we (mostly us lower middle-class) aspired to the manners and behaviors of the upper socio-economic classes.

Now I find myself increasingly puzzled over the apparent desire of young people who are themselves middle or upper class, moneyed, educated and sophisticated, who seem to aspire toward the manners and behaviors of the lowest socio-economic classes: the population of the ghettos, the criminals, the terribly poor (who, by the way, don't see themselves as people to be emulated). Why aspire downwards? I see well-to-do young people wearing clothes that are deliberately damaged so as to appear worn and battered. They clearly enjoy looking scruffy, the males unshaven, both sexes ill-dressed. I hear them talking gutter talk, using argot of the tenements and the ghettos, listening to and singing the primitive and crudely vulgar music of the poorest, least-educated people. Do they do this because they no longer see the "upper classes" as worthy of emulation? Have they lost any admiration for education, "class", manners, good dress? Is it a form of rebellion against an adult society, a society run by the middle and upper classes? I wonder if the constant exposure by television and newspaper/tabloid news of everything corrupt and dishonest has made young people believe that there is no longer any integrity, no morals or honor among their seniors. Now that I’m one, I don't admire us much either. On the other hand, there isn’t much news value in honesty or integrity.