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Why do people who grew up in the 80s (ala my mom) retain the consumerist ideals of the decade well into adulthood and middle age? Shouldn't the anti-establishment of the 90s destroyed their cable TV perception of reality? Why do people from that decade still like chincy, cringe-enducing hair metal bands and other bourgeois trash?

why does Morpheus hint that there is there a cutoff age for Neo to be The One, do you think? why do you think school lasts at least 12 years? why do you think 'dad' jokes were popular for so long on SA/ weird twitter? people can't really change after being ingrained with something for long enough. especially after having a child.

It's not like the 90s of sheltered kids romanticising gang culture were any better, and the 2010s are absolutely fuarrrking abhorrent when we're talking about bourgeois trash and narcissism.

>consuming more than 1200kcal of food and 100 gallons of water a day >calling others bourgeois day of the rope will come, my dear american porkie

>>6201 America is cool bois B)

>>6201 Indeed it will.

>>6192 Because 80s generation didn't grow up hating each and everything as compared to now. Today's generation is a generation of people who are silently disgusted to fuarrrking everything. Covetousness, enviousness is the second nature of today's people. Also, when you start to get old, more and more new things of today's generation seems absurd, hard to grasp and you start to imagine how aesthetic, simple and meaningful those day were.

>>6204 Nah user, being anti-consumerism is wicked sick and cool B)

>>6205 First of all to be consumer you need money. More than 80% youth of today's generation are living in poverty. Anti-consumerism is cool but when it's forced it's called nihilism.

>>6202 >>6205 WTF is this soykaf...B)

> Shouldn't the anti-establishment of the 90s destroyed their cable TV perception of reality? What... how was MTV and Nintendo any better than what came before? Maybe grunge and gangsta rap were better music than cock metal (debatable) but it was still consumerist, mass market nonsense. The most precise anthem of that generation is Beck's: > I'M A LOOOSER BAYBEEE... > SO WHY DONC'HA KILL ME! Yeah there was anti-establishment, real counter-culture stuff going on but it's not what defines the 90s historically. Most of it isn't remembered at all in fact. The 90s generation will be best remembered for 420 blazin' it in front of the Simpsons and Southpark after a hard day of hackey sacking.

Capitalism absorbs all. There was a hardcore punk scene in the 80s, there was hip-hop, there was funk. There were hippies in the 60s, there's always people against the establishment when they're young. But when they grow up they become part of the system because we all do. We live in hell my friend. There is no escape. Open the next.

Adult life beyond a point (I intentionally don't say an age) usually becomes fragmented into workday and weekend days, in a much more integral way than in school. Even your free time is a bunch of segments to complete checklist items during them. Living outside of a daily rhythm becomes difficult for biological reasons. A child will hammer this daily rhythm in way harder, to the hour. People lose opportunity to partake in longer than a day events that break their rhythm and thus let them get immersed and form their personality, while such events of the past remain strong. Popular culture, genres, etc of an era is always superficially important. It's the social interaction, playing and exploring that really matters, but people forget or never even realize this. Even for introverts, their beloved activity is just a concrete form or source of some abstract value, be it fun or awe or so. So, I don't think any political or cultural memes really matter, as the important things are still the same, it's just that younger generations experience those things through different labels, and in a world where huge external systems work a bit differently.

You never really change past the ideals of your youth. My parents grew up in the 50s and 60s so they still have a sort of naivete to them.

>>6215 Hey, I'm just a visitor but I thought this comment was really interesting. I saved part of it for myself (pop culture vs social interaction. Thank you!

why do people like stuff I don't like???

>>6192 Because they're not edgy commie pseudo-intellectuals like you are, OP. Besides that, it isn't just them who are stuck in brain-dead tunnel-vision mode; It is almost everyone. It is your friends, your co-workers (Just kidding, you don't have a job.), your grandparents and the new generations following in your soykafty footsteps. There is no denying that everyone is fuarrrking retarded and much too complacent and cowardly to ever even consider taking an honest look at the reality around them and the insanity of their own lives. The sooner you accept this, the better off you will be. Humanity has rightfully earned its fate. Seek whatever meaningless comforts you can still find. Or don't.

I think of it as the "TV generation".

Here's some ideas I've been kicking around; 1) Consumerist ideals are not just an 80s thing. People love showing off their new bling regardless of the time period. At one point, being wealthy meant indoor plumbing or just being fat. Another point it was fancy watches or gold grills on your teeth. Now it's being able to flash the newest smartphone that'll you'll replace because you dropped from four feet and broke it or because Samsung or Apple released a new phone for you to take another loan out on. Humans want to acquire more and more stuff and show their status. 2) People just like stupid stuff. Webm is early 2000s but remember when everything had to be a proxy battle anime?

>>6215 I just don't get why people work so damn much in the first place, everyone who talks about working like this just blows my mind. I pay like 200USD for my rent and I have a 2 story house basically to myself (I have a partner who pays 200USD also) so 400USD + Utilities. My base expenses literally cost less than 7k a year. You can literally just work a year or two at a time and have 5-10 years off work, especially if you own your own property. The issue is that people are obsessed with cities and living in massively overpriced metro areas. JUST LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS YA fuarrrkS. God it pisses me off so damn much. If the housing demand was more spread out instead of concentrated in such tiny areas, we could all be living like this, cities and migration toward them is what enforces this schedule/capitalistic lock-in you are describing.

>>7985 Part of the problem is that a lot of people are about status, like was said in >>7888. I mean, everytime I point out to someone that they can just buy a used computer (or used anything really) a lot of people kinda shake their head at the idea. But most people don't realize how easy it is to not work yourself raw if you are just willing to shallow your pride and live with others/live in a less popular area. Or learn how to reuse things so you don't have to rebuy things over and over again. Personally, while I'm not really one to complain about capitalism, it does provide the waste needed for me to buy cool things for cheap, but I wouldn't be opposed to forming a commune where everyone can just work a basic part-time job and everyone chips in where they can.

>>7987 See this is the kind of mental programming I'm talking about though, it even comes up in your framing of the discussion. >swallow your pride and live with others/ in a less popular area The idea that I have to swallow my pride to do tihs is mental programming of capitalism. I can't imagine how it would be less prideful to live with people you love/care about, or live in a cozy town where I can wlk around in silence every night and there is no crime or light pollution or trash everywhere or stench of the disgusting city. I even love the aesthetic of decay and cyberpunk- soykaf and I get all that. But you can get this same aesthetic of decay as powerfully in the run down cozy rustbelt town as you can in the metropolis. These days I can get the same overpriced fancy coffee bullsoykaf served to me by a sailor-tattoo wearing hipster as I can in the bigger cities, same with food, I can get authentic szechuan pork stomach in my town of 30k people as I can in the metropolis. Networking IRL has become irrelevant in the age of linkdin-type soykaf. And I can literally fly anywhere anytime with the money I save from living in such a cheap area, so if someone says "hey can we meet for coffee and discuss the job offer in NYC" I can fly out and have just as much access to that as someone who lives there. I really can't see a single advantage in the modern day to living in the city other than keeping people docile and overworked. I don't swallow my pride by living in a smaller town, I would have to swallow my pride to waste my life in the metropolis.

>>7990 The comment of "swallowing your pride" is more in reference your everyday person, and not really me or you. I love living with my family in the outskirts of a small city that is still fairly close to a large city but I don't like going there because crime. I have no shame in how I live. I have given up with explaining how to live easily to people since most people want the city, the newest overpriced status symbols, and are too lazy to look for the best option that won't break the bank. Maybe pride is the wrong word, but I just get a lot of silly reasons for why they can't just live within their means, pride was just the closest thing I could think of as to why people waste their energy and time for little gain.

>Why do people who grew up in the 80s retain the [...] ideals of the decade? I believe it's the generation gap, often I've found myself talking to other people and I notice there's some divergence about fundamental ideas. I believe my own generation is a descendant of the so-called 'X-generation' and so forall kids who grew up around my time (and with current events ongoing) anything that reeks of institution is frowned upon and those of people in the past seem irrelevant, though for them there was just some generational trait, to which their predecessor generations found objection. There's a whole range in which a society in space and time is inscribed, they become our whole world, and we believe in it. So time is a communication barrier, or breach, there's noise in the medium, I can't remember the author or the quote[citation pls] but it went something like this: >Between what I thought, what I wanted to say, what I thought I said, what i actually said, what you heard, what you thought to hear and what you wanted to hear there's 7 chances to misunderstand each other

>>7985 I want to move out of the city but I have to stay within a large city right now for my work. Just got into a four year apprenticeship program and it's the only way I'm ever going to make a reasonable wage in the future. Wife and I will probably be homeless for a while but we've resolved to do what it takes to save money and buy a house in another state that doesn't rape you with taxes and that's not in a big city. At the end even if we're living in the middle of nowhere I should still be able to find work. I just want to escape the city trap and have a little home for myself where I can be comfy and not have to work my ass of just to pay rent.

Honestly, OP, I think people just have a hard time understanding how much the world can change from how it was when they were young, impressionable, and building their understanding. I'm terrified of it happening to me, I turn 23 tommorow, so I won't be young for many more years. No idea how I can stop it, though.

My theory is that you reach a point in life where you just can't be bothered to change your mind anymore. When you're on a regular work schedule, maybe have kids or other responsibilities, you want to spend your free time and mental capacity on relaxing and easy entertainment instead of taking on another big task to change your lifestyle. A lot of people have the same consumerist world view they had when they first entered the work force and this is usually because before that time, you're looking up to people who show off their wealth with status symbols (which has always been a thing, as >>7888 pointed out). There is probably a better theory out there, but it might explain why so many especially older people knowingly let their choices destroy their environment and when called out, say "I know it's not great, but...".

>>6192 My mom too. I really don't understand it. One time I really tried to ask her about it cuz I really wanted to understand (the consumer culture worldview). >Me: I mean, the only things that you care about are owning things.. >Her: I care about having nice things!! It's important to me, the way I look to other people! I care about nice things!! >... She is really emotional about material possessions, I'm not hippie or or a socialist or anything like that. I understand possessions and I respect property but the way she cares about those things, is only comparable in my experience to some interactions, I've had with people

>>6192 Mind-Washing, kinda. They are a product of their time, the birth of big-marketing, of mass-media, it was all kinda drilled into their heads all at once until they turned into football watching coach potatoes. Just the way it is. Your mind stays flexible if you are mindful of it, but most people are not. thank you for the interesting question. I love you fellow lain. >>6192

My dad grew up in the 60's but reinvented himself as a hippie in the 70's, by the 80's he was an obnoxious vegetarian, socialist, feminist, and tinfoil wingnut, fitting in with the 80's left-wing intelligentsia counterculture while still treating women like soykaf. My mother in law was a surly suburban yob during the 80's, but became a hippie in the 90's, fitting in with the New Age crowd while still being quite a shallow arsehole, just stoned and obnoxious and pretending to be psychic.

>>12320 Thanks for sharing.

>>6192 Advertising firms and industrialized goverments were much surprised that their goals were not so dissimilar. In the 80s consumerism was thought out to alter the result of the the arm-wrestling match between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and it wasn't long before common objects were presented and sold - with a twist! - as culture. It is also at that time that nostalgia became profitable for manufacturers, like when they first targeted women audiences to boost their sales. The ''anti-establishment'' is a myth, simply because the establishment wouldn't tolerate competition, it is a softening name that rolls in the ears. This is a banality, in the end, known and ridiculed by the government and its armed representatives, like a exterminator about to put ant traps in the pantry. The mystery is simple, there remains the answer to your question, and it is so stupid it is an insult to the human intellect, of what the great minds of our species laid out, of the space ladders we could build, and the education we could afford at low-cost for all; It is only because people who were young adults in the 80s never knew better. In the time of their forefathers, who still knew the simple life of uncommodified norms (albeit strict), the rate of urban occupation was 10 times less than in their age. Their first meal was processed food, their first joy was brought to them by some made-in-china gizmo, their first strong emotional impulse was transmitted via cheap hollywood movies. When buying in itself becomes more important than the goal it underlies, people that act like the ones you criticize suddenly appear and take over the public space, to the great delight of the establishment and the companies that shape our visual surrounding. Very cyberpunk, no?

>>7886 > There is no denying that everyone is fuarrrking retarded and much too complacent and cowardly to ever even consider taking an honest look at the reality around them and the insanity of their own lives This is the problem, I can't digest that. I will sound romantic or childish but what a meaningless life. Being inside a mega coercive structure where even the places you can walk are controlled, acting like a submissive pet, pushing buttons, following instructions and the dying.

And people nowadays do not? Don't make me laugh.