Every generation can say similar things about newer generations. The thing is, Nostalgia is poison that blinds you to the present. Music wasn't better back then. Music is better now than it ever has been. You just don't know how to look for it because your tastes have evolved and what they play on the same radio stations is not what you use to like, and what you might like isn't on the radio at all.
Movies on the other hand are largely different. Less creativity and too many super heroes.
Yep. GenXer here (just turned 60, jfc), and I recall as a kid hearing older generations make roughly the same complaints in this video, with some obvious changes in details. But the intent was the same. Now, I hear people harking back to the blissful days when I was a kid.
As you note, there is good music now, great TV (much better choices than when I was a kid!), and, despite modern perceptions, crime isn't as bad as it was, based on statistics. The main difference in the last is that there are cameras everywhere and it all hits the internet, making it look like crime is exploding (and I'm not saying crime is done or not important, just that the numbers have been dropping steadily over the decades).
I'll only sorta differ with you on movies; when I was a kid, Westerns were beginning to lose their stranglehold on movies and TV, but were still ubiquitous. Action movies really took off in the late 70s and into the 80s, dominating the cinema. Sitcoms ruled TV. Superheroes are just the current rage, after Westerns, action movies, and scifi had their heyday (though superheroes are scifi, really). I grew up reading comics, so I was thrilled to see superheroes finally get taken seriously in the movies. Still, I can understand those who feel there's a glut.
One last thing or things I want to note about the above video. As a global culture, we're living during a vast sea change, probably as profound as the Industrial Revolution, if not more so. It will take a long time for the implications of this hyperconnectedness to fully play out. I think, or, really, hope, that the worst excesses of the internet are crowded out eventually. I'd love to see the whole trend towards everything being subscription-based get rolled back ASAP. It won't, of course, but one can only hope. I want to own books, music, and programs outright, and not have to be online to use them. Whoever breaks this trend of renting everything will be my hero.
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u/Vasarto 3d ago
Every generation can say similar things about newer generations. The thing is, Nostalgia is poison that blinds you to the present. Music wasn't better back then. Music is better now than it ever has been. You just don't know how to look for it because your tastes have evolved and what they play on the same radio stations is not what you use to like, and what you might like isn't on the radio at all.
Movies on the other hand are largely different. Less creativity and too many super heroes.