[sjfjsjdjwvwvc]

Everything just gets worse as you age. Sure, my dad said it too back then, but he just didn't get how the world moved on and improved. This time around though it's real, everything gets more stupid and dumb and I hate it.

[safety1st]

One of the advantages of getting older is you get to see the same dumb shit play out again and again, and that's how you realize it's dumb.

Mainstream culture has always been vapid, heavily manipulated by big corporations, and mostly a waste of time. Anyone bemoaning how social media has guard rails and is all about passive consumption, is not old enough to remember television I guess, which was at one point just three networks telling you exactly what you could watch and when.

And in the TV era there was this same class of would-be commentators and tastemakers who would complain about how the culture had now turned to shit... they are just trying to make a buck and a name for themselves, but I always thought they seemed like a particularly unhappy bunch.

The only thing that seems really unique about the current era to me is the smartphone/social media combo, it shovels all this crappy mass culture into your brain at a level of efficiency and comprehensiveness that was previously unimaginable.

But you can just turn that off. My phone was either switched off or out of sight for all but 2 hours per day last week. With that piece of junk out of my hands life basically just feels like a better version of the year 2000 or so, in the real world not much has changed.

[waldothedog]

Not clear if this is sarcasm or not?

[binary132]

I read it more as wry irony. "My dad was dumb and wrong, but I'm totally right when I feel the same way he did." I don't think the comment really means either one of them was right or wrong.

[AdrianB1]

Probably not. You will see it yourself when you reach 50 years old.

[hutzlibu]

I think (hope) it was sarcasm, but one sign of this time and age is, that it is increasingly hard to tell. Often people themself don't know anymore ..

So anyway, in this case I think the bitterness is real and the awareness, that it might be "just subjective" and not objective but that doesn't change the bitterness and misery of watching all those idiots out there ..

[chasd00]

Heh there was a Simpsons episode from the 90s where some genx’ers were being parodied

Guy1> psh oh look, these guys are cool Guy2> dude, are you being sarcastic? Guy1> I don’t even know anymore

[hutzlibu]

Ah, but this time it is for real ..