So, then, "old" DU'ers, what would you like to share with the kiddies?

[FunBobbyMucha]

Given the trend here, and having just read the one about the kids born 1986 or later, what things in the culture, the world, etc would you like "the children" to know that maybe they don't.

I'll go first--If there is a trend over the last twenty years that I find frustrating, it is the sheer pace at which culture moves now. When I was a teen (late 70s, graduating in 82), all pop culture wasn't driven/marketed/curtailed to the attention spans of children. Sure there was a teen culture (Kiss, Jodie Foster movies, etc) but they didn't dominate the landscape. SNL in its infancy was way over the heads of most kids, for instance. Good movies weren't AS focused with achieving a rating that would put maximum fubu-covered asses in the seats. Marketing to kids felt like an after-thought.

Granted, there wasn't the instant messenger media back then either, so even the largest stuff in the culture might take a good year or two to get from NYC to the sticks (Star Wars famously debuted in May, my Ohio town got it in October). Not that that was preferable. Just saying...

The result, if I can whine, is an America where nothing matters as much. All artistry, all commentary, it's all just a soundbite, here today, gone tomorrow (five years ago, Coolio was what 50Cent is now). It seems to have made art more crass, more image-driven, and less concerned with social or artistic relevance than simple "gettin' paid." I've heard legends from Neil Young to Bruce Springsteen admit they couldn't even get signed if they were coming up today. Thanks again to MTV for making the massage that is the message something to celebrate.

Not that I'm pissing on all things young. There's some resonating stuff out there, but it tends to be the exception rather than the rule, (and no, I don't think that was always the case). Not that everything was super-duper art back in the day, either.

I don't mean to sound like grumpy Grandpa decrying the evils of the Internets. When we heard one of the Heathers complain "That's so five minutes ago," we thought it was ironic. Nowadays it is reality.

[Burma Jones]

1. People were not, back in the old days, walking billboards

The trend I see that disturbs me most is the complete corporatizing of the culture. Of course, I do suspect that the children of the 80's that exist here at DU buck that trend............

[FunBobbyMucha]

4. I didn't think of that!

Yeah, with the exception of concert tees or sports tees (there wasn't the breadth of merchandise in either case that there is now), I didn't have a single item of clothing with a logo.

[Magrittes Pipe]

2. I've got some candy in my car.

[asthmaticeog]

19. Hey kid, wanna make a movie in my van?

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. There was a time when women could wear double digit sized

clothes and still be thought stunning. Now size 10 = heifer to many people.

P.S. Zero and Double 00 aren't really sizes. :eyes:

[FunBobbyMucha]

6. I h ave a great postcard of Marilyn Monroe jumping in a blue dress

and my wife looks at it and says "Ah, when back fat was sexy..."

I think part of my dirty love for Thora Birch is that she looks like any number of girls I lusted for in 1978.

[thestatusquo]

20. Amen to that!

my generation is very very thin obsessed, BUT that trend started with Twiggy in the 1970's. So it's not all our fault.

[Maddy McCall]

5. Clackers were absolutely the best toy ever...

But you young folks can't play with them, because you would brain yourselves, and then your mom and dad would sue the toy company.



:evilgrin:

[FunBobbyMucha]

8. Holy shit, you even have pics!

How about toys that produced sparks, eh? Or tetherball.

[johnnie]

11. They stopped selling those

Too many kids getting their gourds busted..lol. Those were the days. Oh, and Jarts...ouch.

[Maddy McCall]

14. I still have mine. I am a pro with them...

They are in my office...my coworkers are amazed when I do them.

:evilgrin:

[Village Idiot]

7. REMEMBER RUMSFELD AND VIETNAM!!!

His actions then speak VOLUMES regarding his motivations and machinations in the current confrontation.


Rumsfeld - Loathesome Dove

[flamingyouth]

9. It was my job to get up and change the channel

My parents were cruel.

Furthermore, we did not have color TV until 1976 (!) so I clearly remember watching my first games in color.

We also got all the Canadian TV channels. And we had an antenna on the roof! :D

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. Heh! This was MrG's job as well! He would have to stand there for

sometimes an hour while his father "surfed" the channels. :hi:

[flamingyouth]

13. LOL - mine too

Of course, even considering the Canadian ones, we still had only about eight channels back then. :hi:

[oneighty]

16. TV! Boy

when I was a kid TV was a disease one did not wish to catch.

Or was it TB? Oh getting awful hard to remember.

180

[no name no slogan]

17. My wife didn't know Smurfs were blue until college

She grew up in a large, rural farm family, and they didn't have color TV until after she graduated high school in 1987. And being rural folk, they STILL have a big TV antenna on the roof of their 100-year-old farmhouse, too.

[BurtWorm]

24. Yes, kids, once upon a time, you actually had only 13 channels on the dial

but the UHF dial might add a dozen more, depending on the weather. On UHF, channels didn't click into the picture; they faded into it. In Maine we had a grand total of four VHF channels (the networks--CBS, NBC, ABC--and PBS) and Channels 31 and 54 from Boston. On very clear days we'd get Channel 7 from Boston on VHF as well.

[Ready4Change]

12. Pop Culture is not important.

The latest movies, music, fashions, toys, colors, etc... mean nothing beyond minor, momentary amusement.

What is BEHIND those things might be.

One example: The computerization behind cell phones, IM chat and iPods will continue making big changes in how we relate with one another.

Another example: Most music is trite. Some music echos deep societal movements. Look at the protest music of the '60's, or the black empowerment echoed by the rise of Hip Hop and Rap. Still note, however, that the music itself is not important. It's the movement BEHIND the music that makes a difference.

So don't get mesmerized by the surface appearance of pop culture. Do, however, look behind it for broader importance. Use this same technique to look behind what the news media reports, and behind what your leaders are saying and doing.

Until you can look beneath surface appearances, you're just a programmed sheep in this world.

[no name no slogan]

18. Pop culture has always sucked

It's always played to the lowest common denominator, even in such past "golden eras" as the 50s/50s/70s/whatever.

For every "Stairway to Heaven", there were at least ten "Run, Joey, Run"s. For each Elvis Presley, there were at least ten Conway Twittys.

People always romanticize some past era as being "the good old days" when things were "so much better" than they are today. Hey, I still get a kick out of people of my grandparents' generation who talk about how "good" things were during the Great Depression and WWII, despite the fact that they went to bed hungry most nights and lived in houses without furnaces (in Minnesota no less).

[tmooses]

15. There was a cry to stand up to corporatism in the 60's and 70's...

which I believed in wholeheartedly and still do now. Unfortunately, that generation, in general, became one of the biggest sellouts to mass media and corporate culture. This became a country of people wanting to be entertained instead of changing anything. I think the country is in the hands of the radical right now because of a laziness on the left to
get involved.

[thestatusquo]

21. That's not entirely true

check out the popular mag 'AdBusters' the most anti-corporate publication I have evern seen, started by the 'culture-jammers' of my generation. Also, I saw lots of young people at the WTO protests that were highly aware of how big corportaions exploit foriegn labor.

[Tikki]

22. Well I don't know....

- but I've been told
You never slow down - you never grow old...... Tom Petty...Last Dance with MaryJane.

You will hear variations on this theme, often, as you get older and older.

[Skittles]

23. don't be hysterical wondering who your friends are

at the end of your life you'll be able to count on one hand who your real, true friends were.