As the 1990s have progressed, young adults have asserted more control over their own image. The generational TV shows have taken X from the glitzy Beverly Hills 90210 to the atomized Melrose Place to the ersatz community of Friends, whose cast resembles the people who watched those other shows. Many of the story lines depict youths as noncommittal, unattached, brazen about sex and work, obsessed with trivial things, and isolated from the worlds of older people or children.
