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I didn't say that I hate every aspect of the modern day. In fact, I'm one of the people of society that don't think that the quality of entertainment and music has gone downhill as much as some might think. I might be a little biased as I am usually cut off as much as possible from the super-big movies and shows. I usually watch cartoons, either the "grown-up" satire/sitcom ones or the ones that I have childhood nostalgia for. I was interested in Nickeldeon cartoons well up until very late in 8th grade or very early during high school. I want to see the original era episodes of "The Fairly OddParents" again.
So your entire thread is based on THAT? Quality of music and entertainment? Seriously?
You know what being hungry is? Or not having enough money to buy milk for a 5 yo and living on mineral water as that was cheapest you could afford? Piece of meat being luxury? Wearing same shoes and pants until they literally fall apart as you can't afford 2nd pair? Taking bath once a week as water is rationed and you have to keep water in bathtub for daily use, cooking, and doing laundry for your children? Getting up at 3am to be about first in line to buy bread? Changing your newborn with central heating shut down and pice of ice in the room ceiling corner?
I LIVED that life.
If you don't want to grow up in the 21st century, you are welcome to go back to 1945. Just pack a a bag and head to any Central American country. Or how about 1800? Chose any poor nation in Africa.
You don't think there is anything to be grateful for, you can change your lifestyle to a times of less technology. There really isn't any reason for you to suffer such indignities here.
Toilet paper as the measure of a happy life....gotta love it. Go out and make a life, pal, and your grateful fantasies will soon vanish in present-day reality. Your job is today.
Go live where there is no sewage system, flush toilets or sanitary conditions. Hundreds of millions of people live in those conditions. Give it a try.
There are advantages and disadvantages for you living in these times.
1. Health care is much better. You are not going to stay as sick as often or as long as we did. You can get many things fixed, even failed body parts replaced. However, mental health seems to be more of a problem than it was. Three of my five millennial children would be dead if they were born when I was born. Instead one of them is a 2020 Olympic hopeful despite extreme asthma. But all of them take medication for depression, anxiety and/or add/adhd.
Polio, hepatitis, tuberculosis are essentially gone in the USA. Chickenpox seems pretty much gone too. Mumps, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever - you usually at least knew a family who had someone die from one of these, now it is rare to hear of someone even getting them. Cancer is not longer an instant death sentence. Heart failure - survivable and even curable sometimes. Dozens of formerly common deadly or debilitating diseases are now gone. Lice in schools is pretty uncommon. We are even beating back the flux.
2. Communications, information and news. You have pretty much instant communications and access to information and news. Unfortunate you also have a lot more false information thrown at you and no way to sort it out.
3. Better sanitation. Far less air pollution. Cleaner water. Greater awareness and avoidance of environmental health concerns. If you had been born in the 50s, you may well have chewed on lead paint on radiators in your home during your younger years and have resulting learning disabilities or other health issues. Or you may have spent 20 - 30 years working in clouds of asbestos fibers. Or . . . You are substantially less likely to get skin cancer than I am and I am less likely than my father (who has had several bits of his face removed already. You wear sunscreen or a hat because you know you will get skin cancer when you are old if you don't. I wore it only because sunburn peeling on my nose looked bad, and so, I wore it only occasionally. My dad never heard of sunscreen until he already had skin cancer.
4. Safer - everything. From cars to playgrounds, airplanes to construction sites, you have been protected from threats like no one ever before.
5. Far more entertainment options. My kids watch 5 or more movies a week. Sometimes in theaters sometimes on cable or netflix. I was lucky to see one movie a month. Things like downhill skiing, scuba diving, rappelling, rock climbing, and the like were exotic past times that you maybe read about in Nat. Geo, but they were basically inaccessible to ordinary people. Thins tended to be compartmentalized. So while I regularly rode a horse and went canoeing, which would be an unreachable exotic thing to do to a city person, I never attended a professional theater presentation, and rarely saw any professional sports, which was pretty ordinary to them. Now, all of these things are pretty readily accessible to anyone.
6. You get to drive much faster and in better cars. Freeway speed limits of 55 mph made 70 mph seem like crazy going all out driving and many cars were difficult to handle at that speed. Now the peed limits are 70 plus and pretty much all cars can go 100 plus mp without losing control.
7. Air travel. Was mostly for high level salespersons and business executives and maybe one family vacation in a lifetime. Now, we jump on a plane to Chicago because we do not feel like driving 4 hours. We now fly 2000 miles for a weekend visit. Now, you can fly to Europe off season for the same or less than a flight to California. You have much greater mobility. On the other hand flying is now unpleasant to horrible when you do get to fly. It used to be somewhat luxurious.
8. You have deep woods OFF. You wold never know it, but that is a life changing development. We had repellent, but it did not last long and did not work all that well.
9. You no longer have mangy mutts - they are now designer dogs. Labordoodles, Danestiffs and Bull****s have replaced mutts. Never knew that pound dog was something fancy and valuable.
10. Food availability has continued to improve. Winter comes and looking at the produce aisles you would not even realize it occurred.
11. Frozen custard - by itself is something you should be thankful for.
12. You now have more leisure time and more disposable income as a generation than any generation before you.
13. No draft.
14. Sewage treatment has come a long way. It is pretty unlikely you will unwittingly swim in a raw sewage spill. Ewwww.
15. Velcro shoes - in fact tons of aspects of life have become easier and more convenient.
So far I am not impressed with the 21st century in any way, shape, or form. I would never tell anyone that they "have it made" in today's world.
But growing up as a kid in America's 1800's could be very tough depending on where you lived. Simpler times, yes, but if you were in a poor farm family you could have been over-worked with very little time to play and be a kid. On the other hand, people knew how to be resourceful with almost nothing, which is something we can't say for ourselves today.
And if the world hits a major disaster, we will ALL run out of toilet-paper.
The easiest way to find out what makes you lucky is to go live elsewhere in a much less developed area and see what you enjoy.
For some 12th-18th century joy, try very rural Afghanistan in Taliban territory with a poor family that doesn't have a car. Believe it or not, it's not so bad if you really like old-timey living. You're a male? So no probs. If you're a woman, that could be a life-ending endeavor with all the babies and so on but hey, enjoy that, you won't have to watch crappy cartoons.
You could also try one of the more strict Amish sects. Warning: they are more familiar than the Taliban but for those of us who've known both... the differences are much smaller than you'd think particularly with respect to women's rights. Taliban have more severe punishments, but both situations suck for women.
For some nice 18th - 19th century fun, I'd go North Korea or rural Sudan. Depends what part of that era you're really looking for. Poor nutrition? Lack of access to medical care? Really unregulated drugs?
Late 19th, early 20th century, you're going to have a hard time finding this because the first thing people buy now is a phone, not a car--obviously--so it's hard to get away from many phones without getting away from everything else. But I'd shoot for Siberia, Uzbekistan, rural South Africa, very rural Kenya or Nigeria. Some place where you're going to be washing clothes by hand and possibly using an outhouse, but also, you have access to news.
Have you ever had to break ice to get water to boil to make tea in the morning? No? It's super exciting and exotic.
You don't even really need toilet paper if you have old books. Just crumple up the paper and rub it together really well until it is soft. Voila, toilet paper. Don't complain about ruining the books: they are often written in a dead alphabet and are treatises about how a particular national military hero was a great communist.
Or I mean you could go full stone age and walk into the Amazon until someone shoots you with an arrow.
Good times, good times.
Yeah, right now we are living with what we have instead of squandering the wealth of an entire continent. So that's rough, unless you're an Indian, in which case, things are more or less the same.
I'm 38, so I was a teen of the 90's. My sons are now teenagers. What makes me crazy is that when I was their age, I had a will to do things for myself. Not that I was a good kid, I was a hellion, but if I wanted something, I put some effort into getting it. I didn't just whine at somebody hoping they'd do it for me. If I wanted to go visit a hot boyfriend, I would learn to ride the bus or I'd walk. If I wanted to go to some electronics store to play a video game because my family wouldn't buy them for me, again, I would ride the bus or I'd walk. If I needed to know about something, I'd find a way to get the information.
My parents didn't have much time for me, didn't give me much attention, I found other people who would. OK, so perhaps some of my activities weren't the best or healthiest, and I'm glad my kids aren't doing a lot of the sex & drugs, fine...but...
My sons have GOOGLE. They have tiny computers in their hands that they COULD use to find any bit of information they could possibly want. But they are still so incredibly clueless and helpless. They beg for rides to places you could walk or ride a bike or take the metro. If I tell them that maybe they should explore those options, they just huff and sigh and don't go. Neither of them, at ages 16 and 18 is motivated to learn to drive or get a job, but that's just it...they're not motivated to do anything but sit around and play video games and watch other people play video games and talk about memes. They have set aside any desire to have real experiences, to sit around having pretend ones on screens. But their lives are soooooooo harrrrrrd.... And of course I don't understand.
Dude. I had to learn to ride the bus with little brochures. Now they have an app, you can plug in where you're trying to go, and it'll tell you where and when to get on, where the bus is at that very moment, where to transfer, where to get off the bus, what time you'll be there... Insane.
And while I do think we had some awesome TV back then (loved a lot of the animation, like The Maxx, Liquid Television, Space Ghost C2C, even Beavis & Butthead)...and some pretty great music... All of that stuff is still out there, now you don't have to wait for it to come on, you can find and stream it, and of course there is MORE. The only real tragedy is that many of the most amazing musicians and actors have died, so you won't get anything new or be able to see them live.
People complain about how society has changed for the worse, how "values" have changed, how it's harder to find love, or anything like that... I don't think so. I think probably just as many people had awful home lives or love lives back at any time, but now individuals are not as stuck in bad relationships, have more options, and have more platforms to connect and complain when things go wrong.
World War I, the Flu Epidemic of 1918, Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam.
Yeah, your generation has it bad.
Might want to crack open an American history book and read about the delightful fun of the 20th century.
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