I too grew up in an age of movies like Star Wars fighting an overtly fascist empire, of Indiana Jones killing nazis, of countless kid’s shows and cartoons emphasizing values like being accepting and not judging people by appearances, of shows like Star Trek explaining the complexity of human societies and using aliens to relay messages of understanding and empathy with others, of science and educational shows like everything on PBS… I thought FOR SURE that these lessons being seen by everyone would lead to a brighter future of mutual compassion and understanding between people.
Holy shit was I wrong. People didn’t watch ANY of that shit, and if they did, they didn’t think about it, and certainly didn’t take any lessons from it. A vast majority of media-consumers don’t engage with their entertainment I’ve learned, they just experience it and move on without any attempt at making mental effort. Even the lightest mental effort is too much for most people. I’m literally shocked we have the society we do knowing now exactly how ignorant most people are.
It’s a hot take, but I sorta blame the late 90s anti-hero for this. Obvs there’s other stuff going on too, but the media influence had a hand.
I’m a millennial, I grew up with Mr Rogers and Star Trek, but then came my edgy teenage years and all the girls argued about whether to fuck Spike or Angel from Buffy and all the boys wanted to be Tyler Durden. Then I graduated and I was weird for thinking Sheldon from Big Bang Theory was annoying, and characters like House and Blender were cool and lowkey enviable.
I really think a segment of my generation never stopped trying to be the lovable jerk that only exists in the movies.
As Gen X, I think I’ve seen all these cycles over and over again, media makes ostensible “role models” that people pattern themselves after, then the pattern changes suddenly as it does and leaves a generation stuck without direction as new role models take the stage and make all the previous adopters resentful of society.
Its a bit deeper and more surreal than that. Growing up politicians had to pretend to not be villians. We voted based on the best showman. If you couldn’t sell your lies, you didn’t get the vote. Now it feels like people vote for who can be the most like a scooby-do villain. I don’t understand how people don’t find that infuriatingly insulting. These people talk to the public with blatant contept, constantly treating their constituents like they’re stupid. It is so fucking blatant! Then I realize people don’t know when they’re being insulted. It’s insane how utterly oblivious people are.
It’s part of the “nothing ever happens” generation desperate to have a narrative to follow. If they’re going to feel disengaged and disconnected from how complicated politics has become in an increasingly complicated world… WELL MIGHT AS WELL DUMB THIS SHIT BACK DOWN, OOHRAH WWE WRESTLEMANIA YEAH BROTHA ACTION
They saw “Look at all the cool technology capitalism is going to bring us!” instead of “Holy shit capitalism will use this amazing technology to make everything worse”.
Always thought libertarians didn’t watch nearly enough 90s anime. So much of it was evil corporations and Cyberpunk about evil corporations.
They just blame it on the government. Wage theft? Probably due to regulations.
I too grew up in an age of movies like Star Wars fighting an overtly fascist empire, of Indiana Jones killing nazis, of countless kid’s shows and cartoons emphasizing values like being accepting and not judging people by appearances, of shows like Star Trek explaining the complexity of human societies and using aliens to relay messages of understanding and empathy with others, of science and educational shows like everything on PBS… I thought FOR SURE that these lessons being seen by everyone would lead to a brighter future of mutual compassion and understanding between people.
Holy shit was I wrong. People didn’t watch ANY of that shit, and if they did, they didn’t think about it, and certainly didn’t take any lessons from it. A vast majority of media-consumers don’t engage with their entertainment I’ve learned, they just experience it and move on without any attempt at making mental effort. Even the lightest mental effort is too much for most people. I’m literally shocked we have the society we do knowing now exactly how ignorant most people are.
It’s a hot take, but I sorta blame the late 90s anti-hero for this. Obvs there’s other stuff going on too, but the media influence had a hand.
I’m a millennial, I grew up with Mr Rogers and Star Trek, but then came my edgy teenage years and all the girls argued about whether to fuck Spike or Angel from Buffy and all the boys wanted to be Tyler Durden. Then I graduated and I was weird for thinking Sheldon from Big Bang Theory was annoying, and characters like House and Blender were cool and lowkey enviable.
I really think a segment of my generation never stopped trying to be the lovable jerk that only exists in the movies.
As Gen X, I think I’ve seen all these cycles over and over again, media makes ostensible “role models” that people pattern themselves after, then the pattern changes suddenly as it does and leaves a generation stuck without direction as new role models take the stage and make all the previous adopters resentful of society.
Its a bit deeper and more surreal than that. Growing up politicians had to pretend to not be villians. We voted based on the best showman. If you couldn’t sell your lies, you didn’t get the vote. Now it feels like people vote for who can be the most like a scooby-do villain. I don’t understand how people don’t find that infuriatingly insulting. These people talk to the public with blatant contept, constantly treating their constituents like they’re stupid. It is so fucking blatant! Then I realize people don’t know when they’re being insulted. It’s insane how utterly oblivious people are.
It’s part of the “nothing ever happens” generation desperate to have a narrative to follow. If they’re going to feel disengaged and disconnected from how complicated politics has become in an increasingly complicated world… WELL MIGHT AS WELL DUMB THIS SHIT BACK DOWN, OOHRAH WWE WRESTLEMANIA YEAH BROTHA ACTION
They saw “Look at all the cool technology capitalism is going to bring us!” instead of “Holy shit capitalism will use this amazing technology to make everything worse”.
“Robot arms!”
Because they lost their limbs in an avoidable industrial mining accident because safety was too expensive.
“But look at ‘em!”
Bruh.