This article aims to contribute to the discussion surrounding Manuela du Bois-Reymond's important "trendsetter learner" thesis and, in so doing, to join the wider debate about post-compulsory learning cultures. The article outlines the trendsetter learner thesis and then considers recent criticisms that it has attracted. While the author concurs with these criticisms, this present article sets out what is believed to be a wider ranging critique. Using evidence from a study of students and staff of an Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education (AVCE) in Travel and Tourism, I focus upon two weaknesses of the trendsetter thesis. The first concerns its treatment of formality/informality in learning. The second criticism is broader. I argue that the concept of youth cultural capital is highly problematic, being premised upon overgeneralised assumptions concerning the declining power of structural influences, such as those of "race", class and gender, within contemporary subjectivities.