As Kerouac, Ginsberg, and their friends became famous, a trend among the group of writers and artists was noticed, and was written about in the mainstream media. Kerouac was asked to describe his generation. He explained that the pressures of 20th century living had 'beaten' normal ways of thinking and working out of them, and they preferred the beat of bebop and jazz to most other music, "so I guess you could say we're a "beat generation"."