[zanny]

I think it has to do with the commoditization of image. In the early Internet we didn't have centralized social media so going to a new place and experimenting didn't have ramifications across your social circles via platforms attached to your real name. You could make "bad" stick figure cartoons by night while working a "respectable" career by day and nobody would know who you are either way.

I feel terrible for kids today - they grow up into social media not knowing what it is, and by the time they can comprehend it their creativity has been stifled for years by the implied pressures of conformity and a cultural disapproval of failure.

But theres some nostalgia in that too - its not like every 80s and 90s kid was sitting in a computer lab inventing the next tower defense game. It has always been a tiny minority of kids that get creative from a young age, and if anything the continued availability and quantity of entertainment can serve to keep kids occupied with consumption rather than creation more today than ever before.