Reading about the Newsweek article (and then reading the article, online) about the Stitch and B* book, I have a couple of thoughts:

first of all, I will be mightily surprised if I ever come across a "mainstream press" article that praises the new popularity of knitting without resorting to the "it's not just for grannies" hackneyed bit. I mean, really: "They may have blue hair, but they aren't grannies" (from the Newsweek article). Feh.

Second: I am definitely not in the "new knitting" demographic. I'm not a Stitch and B* girl (too old, go to bed too early, too unhip). I'm not a HYUK (too old, too traditional, not urban, too geeky). Nor am I a celeb. But I'm not a granny, either. I am also not pregnant, the fouth current stereotype of knitters (though not one you hear as much as the "riot grrrrl knitter" or lovely-young-thing-knitting-on-the-set or the "granny knitter" these days)

I guess, then, I am part of that vast Fifth Group of Knitters. The Invisible Knitters. The people who aren't pretty enough or famous enough or outrageous enough to make the papers. The people who are professionals in areas outside of fiber arts. The people for whom being shocking and loud and "out there" is not part of their craft.
And you know, it's kind of sad. I think, in a way, it's the Invisible Knitters that carried on the craft during its times of lowered popularity - the ones who knit with the non-novelty yarn and who now, perhaps, sigh a bit as they see the wall in their LYS - or the pages of their knitting catalogs - full of flashy fancy fluffy yarn, instead of the plain solid good wool or alpaca or blend or high-quality synthetics that they've used in the past.

I don't know what I'm saying with this. Perhaps it's an irritation - a long-ongoing irritation - at how the popular press can take anything and turn it into a cardboard cutout, a caricature, of itself. Perhaps it's a feeling that I'd like to see some knitters featured who clearly and primarily concern themselves with the craft and skill and not with the message or image of knitting (because, that's what I get, right or wrong, out of these articles - that knitting is a "lifestyle choice", that it's something that some people at least are doing because it's the thing to do - and that irritates me. Deep down to that little adolescent place in my soul where a female version of Holden Caulfield hides out and who starts cussing when she sees a "phony" headed her way).

[edited to partially de-snark, 9 pm]