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No one is saying those days were better, if that is what you believe than you haven’t read the posts thoroughly.
I do think an opinion about Rick n till was just that, opinion. Kids graduating $200,000 in debt and the fact small business has declined significantly replaced by big box stores is not opinion. I suppose it’s posdible some might hold an opinion that it’s better now that kids have more debt, but I highly doubt it. Why do you feel my pointing out aspects of the economy that have gotten worse is somehow a knock on current generations?
Huh? I wasn't answering your post. the post I quoted was from ATLGuy. Which said nothing about the economy, actually.
What people say about our subjective evaluation and attachment to the things of our youth is right, of course. I read some time ago that our musical tastes are actually shaped, on a neurological level, by the music we listen to from about 12 til 21. Our brains are more malleable those years than before or after, at least where music is concerned. And decades ago my father said something surprisingly insightful, and that was that he couldn't relate to anyone who wasn't a bit irrationally attached to the music of his youth.
Same to some extent for the way we lived in general. It became the standard we measure everything that came before or after against. But that can be factored in to critical assessments. In ways I can't fully comprehend, technology feeds technology and so it increases at rates we can't keep pace with ethically or even practically. I genuinely believe that for all that media does for us, for example, we're actually less fee on balance. I'm pretty sure I'm standing next to my car in the google earth photo of the place where I work. That's amazing, on at least two levels, one of them a bit spooky.
This all has consequences. Numbing, potentially dire consequences. I really wonder about where we're headed when masses of people share the most intimate details of their lives online, making them pretty much not intimate, and then struggle to read a post the length of the one I'm writing now. If I were more tech savvy I'd create a GIF, for the TLDR folks, of a guy moving from room to room of his burning house, uploading images to instagram until it's clearly too late for him to escape the flames. Or maybe just a frog in a pan of water.
I don't feel that I'm totally on board with being only attached to what I liked when I was in my teens and young adulthood. I have gone through many obsessive phases where I only play a lot of some particular type of music, and then I get tired of it and move on to something different. While I think I'm attached to things that lean more in the direction of "rock" that is a huge generalization. I liked classic rock as a teen, then metal, then industrial and goth, eventually some classical, opera, and even TV & film themes and songs from musicals got in there, then I've had nostalgic kicks back to 80's music from my early childhood like Dire Straits and Talking Heads...and in the last year I discovered Steampunk music which was being made starting in the early 2000's I think, and I've gotten all into that. While I have fond memories of grooving out to The Doors or rocking out to Primus or my favorite Cleopatra compilation in my teens, I rarely revisit any of that now.
And how many times have I thought of shows or movies I loved, and remember as "the best thing ever"...and then tried to re-watch them recently and they actually weren't as awesome as I remember them to be? I don't seem to have the attention span I used to, I think, the pace of Star Trek: The Next Generation, is far too slow, compared to more recent seasons of Doctor Who, or The Magicians, or Stranger Things...I get bored! I remember being a little girl and digging out on Fraggle Rock, and The Dark Crystal, and I got the DVDs and was all excited...and then I was like, man...crap, I wish I'd just stuck with my memories... Well. The Dark Crystal is still cool, but it does seem to drag on a bit, to me now.
Also, I looked up violent crime stats for the time when I was a little kid running wild in the woods and neighborhoods of Northern VA. It is safer NOW, than it was during my childhood in the 80's, both nationally, and in that region. But everyone THINKS it's worse. So a lot of this "good ol' days" stuff is just faulty perception.
What people say about our subjective evaluation and attachment to the things of our youth is right, of course. I read some time ago that our musical tastes are actually shaped, on a neurological level, by the music we listen to from about 12 til 21. Our brains are more malleable those years than before or after, at least where music is concerned. And decades ago my father said something surprisingly insightful, and that was that he couldn't relate to anyone who wasn't a bit irrationally attached to the music of his youth.
Most people seem to listen to the music they liked as a teenager and young adult their entire lives. Sometime in their mid-twenties, most people stop keeping up with pop music as closely until it becomes just noise to them. Every generation does it. For some strange reason this hasn't happened to me and I can still enjoy today's pop music. Then again, I am still single and while today's pop music is different than it was in the 2000s, it hasn't completely changed like say going from Elvis to Led Zeppelin or from Led Zeppelin to Eminem.
I tend to be the most attached to the music that was popular specifically when I was 23 and 24 because that's when I was the happiest.
Most people seem to listen to the music they liked as a teenager and young adult their entire lives. Sometime in their mid-twenties, most people stop keeping up with pop music as closely until it becomes just noise to them. Every generation does it. For some strange reason this hasn't happened to me and I can still enjoy today's pop music. Then again, I am still single and while today's pop music is different than it was in the 2000s, it hasn't completely changed like say going from Elvis to Led Zeppelin or from Led Zeppelin to Eminem.
I tend to be the most attached to the music that was popular specifically when I was 23 and 24 because that's when I was the happiest.
One of the biggest reasons people in those days were against Elvis and Rock n Roll was not the music itself, but because it was considered too sexual and too “black”, people had fits that “white” stations were playing black artists for their kids. It wasn’t really about music but resistance of change from prudish days to more permissive ones.
In the 80’s, NWA was arrested in many venues they played in for the same reasons, the mainstream white world felt threatened by them.
One of the biggest reasons people in those days were against Elvis and Rock n Roll was not the music itself, but because it was considered too sexual and too “blackâ€, people had fits that “white†stations were playing black artists for their kids. It wasn’t really about music but resistance of change from prudish days to more permissive ones.
In the 80’s, NWA was arrested in many venues they played in for the same reasons, the mainstream white world felt threatened by them.
Good points here. A lot of people get this idea of people clinging to the music of their youth from the fact that the silent generation rejected rock and the baby boomers rejected hip-hop. However, there is a cultural aspect to it that is less talked about.
Similar to this is the rejection of jazz in the 1920s and 1930s by people who grew up before WWI.
I looooooove current music...that is one thing I don’t cling to, music from my teenagehood. I still remember and like some of it but I for sure don’t think it was superior. I love that music is always in flux and that artists play around with techniques and come up with different stuff.
Yet someone way up thread mentioned people arguing on social media and no one backing down. Here's the thing about that... I recall a visit to see my grandparents (who are not screen people) before Grandma died. She and Grandpa got into an argument about some bit of Robert Redford trivia. It was very clear that Grandpa was used to being simply presumed right. Because he was louder, more stubborn, argued more belligerently, because he was The Man. Finally Grandma just lapsed into resentful silence, as he got the last word, "Nnnnnhhhhh, I don't think so...." in. I pulled out my cell phone, and Googled it. Grandma was right. I loved, in that moment, being able to vindicate her. One small victory in what was probably many decades of just giving up and letting him be right.
I've been in your shoes almost exactly with my in-laws, the only exception being that my late FIL was not quite as domineering as your grandfather. I agree, having all this information at your fingertips has made it (somewhat) easier to deal in facts rather than who is the most stubborn and insistent arguer. Though it doesn't always solve that problem, thankfully my FIL (and others I have interacted with in this manner, where I look up something that is in dispute) was open-minded enough to prefer being in the know rather than just digging in his heels and insisting he was (wrongly) right.
On a similar note, I'm not convinced that people are truly any less "good" than they used to be. We just have a lot more freedom now where it is more socially acceptable to either speak up or disassociate from people they don't want to interact with. I think this is most bothersome to people who formerly enjoyed the privilege of others having to put up with them because it was expected.
Most people seem to listen to the music they liked as a teenager and young adult their entire lives. Sometime in their mid-twenties, most people stop keeping up with pop music as closely until it becomes just noise to them. Every generation does it. For some strange reason this hasn't happened to me and I can still enjoy today's pop music. Then again, I am still single and while today's pop music is different than it was in the 2000s, it hasn't completely changed like say going from Elvis to Led Zeppelin or from Led Zeppelin to Eminem.
I tend to be the most attached to the music that was popular specifically when I was 23 and 24 because that's when I was the happiest.
Thats mostly been true for me. While I hated my teenage years in general, music was the bright spot. Can't beat 80's music!
Yeah l think some is better but some is a lot worse.
For a start half of us live through these stupid things and internet lala land now , that's gotta be worse than a real life.
l often think of it in terms of life , and life in my country some might say is better than ever but they probably just don't see it , many people can't see shyt.
l think it's worse . life is all about rules and bills and pressure and high mortgages , people don't care any more, shyt comes in the mail in seconds they track everyone, and hound you crazy,yaknow , it goes on and on. GDP'S you name it it's everywhere in life now.
The stresses in life supposedly being easier well , people are more stressed now than ever in history , so are kids. No need to guess why that is.
life was def' much easier going and people were better , this country was better, when l was a kid.
Even traffic was better., l actually liked the roads better too , freeways are like giant vacuums to drive on and you don't see shyt anymore either.
l miss going to the movies too , real.
But , l spose we have lots of gadgets now and big tv's , nice stuff.,
lts weird sometimes , like they do a nice job of cars for example but still you know if you jump into an old car now , it really has something the new cars don't , well to me lifes a lot life that too now, it's lost so much.
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Which said nothing about the economy, actually.
