Boomers in the 80s and 90s were fucking depressed. They described their lives as a boring, soul-crushing existence where they did the same hollow shit day in and day out. They hated their bosses, they hated their jobs, their kids, their wife/husband. People had “Mid-life crises” where they tried to fill the void with “a fast car and a young hot fling.” things capitalism told them would make them happy. It didn’t.
Seriously listen to any media made by boomers when they were in their 30s-50s. It’s all jokes about how fucking mundane life is.
Even at its peak, life under capitalism was hollow and soul crushing.
They were basically taught “as long as you keep your head down and play the game, we won’t hurt you financially”
Sure, (if you were white and male) you had money, but it took everything else away. Community, friendship, family. Trapped them in a gilded cage. Having to watch their children having even that promise of financial stability ripped from them. And don’t get me started on how terrible it was if you weren’t a white dude.
I have to wonder if the “selfish, childish boomer” stereotype is something of a coping mechanism. Maybe some boomers are like that because thats their jokerfication.
Is it cheesy to say “the best things in life are free?”
Maybe. But in my experience, with a few decades under my belt, it’s definitely true. Unfortunately our society, under capitalism, forces the worship of endless consumption to keep the wheel turning. None of us are immune to it. Some of us are more resistant.
No job I’ve ever held or commodity I’ve ever owned will ever be worth more to me or make me feel more alive than time I spent with friends that I loved.
My parents (boomers) and grandparents, when they were alive, were completely incapable of ever understanding why I would work whatever minimal amount to survive and spend my other time basically “doing nothing” which just means not creating surplus value for some capitalist. Of course I was doing something though. Reading, going to concerts, just watching movies with friends, whatever. I work to live not live to work.
To me, it’s an absolutely bizarre and impossible to understand mindset that boomers have. Always work work work (maybe not harder but more hours) and then spend spend spend.
I just saw my dad spend his money on stuff and he never seemed to get a shred of joy from it. Just light money on fire basically, never smile, then get ready for Monday. Always angry, annoyed, in a hurry. Impossible to talk to. My mom wasn’t much better. She’s “retired” like 4 times now because she literally cannot just sit and read or, I dunno, come over and hang out with her son (me) and just chat about random shit in the world. It’s all a big rush; they’re always in a hurry to get their task done to move on to the next task. They aren’t living, really; they’re just distracting themselves from existence. Scared that if they stand still and think about things they might have a feeling for once, and it won’t be a good feeling.
When I was like 20 years old, I remember everything felt like it was on a track towards… Something that felt relatively positive. Better than where we were. I’d sit with my friends at the time, sometimes we’d drink, and when I was really drunk I could lay my head back and look straight up at the stars and find the constellations or invent new ones. We’d talk about what the future was going to be like. How it was almost our time to run things and to fix things.
I guess that’s the sad thing in the end. I can look back on every dollar I’ve ever earned and spent and it means shit compared to sitting outside on a chilly autumn or winter night, drunk, just staring up at the stars and “knowing” things would be better and different someday. One memory among hundreds that cost me very little or nothing.
We don’t need all this shit. It will never make us happy. We all know it. But we’re stuck in this giant fucking pit with everyone else who also know it. We’re all individually powerless to change anything, so we crush that part of us that just wants to stare at the stars and we replace it with overtime work. We buy the commodities anyway. We justify it however we must. We cope however we can.
The boomers had everything and were still depressed. My generation had (almost) everything and we’re even more depressed. Ever notice how the zombie apocalypse genre blew up in the like mid 2000s and is still kinda ongoing? I think that’s our depressed Simpson’s style humor or way of coping. People just LARP and hope the world ends so they can have a reason to not go to work on Monday. So they can be freed from the hamster wheel forever. How fucking sad is that…
Well, I don’t know wtf all this means, apologies to the zoomers for depression-posting.
Oh yeah man, I feel this with my soul.
Heavy like lead in my bone marrow.
I can look back on every dollar I’ve ever earned and spent and it means shit compared to sitting outside on a chilly autumn or winter night, drunk, just staring up at the stars and “knowing” things would be better and different someday.
Shit man, this made me tear up. I remember that feeling, but I haven’t known it in a long time.
apologies to the zoomers for depression-posting.
nah the zoomers know it too, despite all of the marketing shoved down their faces via social media 24/7, even younger reactionaries understand it but they blame the “left”? for it.
I have a lot of zoomer friends, so I try not to be too… I dunno, honest? about certain things because it’s just depressing. I don’t want to feel like I’m contributing to them becoming jaded and cynical, even if I kinda think that’s inevitable.
I do like that, I guess due to the internet which millennials grow up into and zoomers grew up with, there’s this solid group of people that are all sort of united in being fucked over or see others their age fucked over. This group from like teenagers to 40 are all in this together. Obviously it’s a spectrum and generally the older people are the better off they are in terms of material conditions, but everyone can also see the creeping reality that even if they squeaked by, there’s less and less for every person after them. The only thing left to consider is if you care or not…
I do give the younger people I know who are politically active a ton of credit though. When a 24 year old in the US has read Marx, that’s worth noting with pride. When I was 24 I’m pretty sure I was getting drunk and trying to fight Christmas trees (true story). Their radicalization has happened much more rapidly just due to circumstances and reality. As far as I can tell anyway.
it more than inevitable, it happened years ago. we’re already jaded and cynical. I wouldn’t worry about that
great post earlier. I miss that feeling that the future will be better and is full of possibility. you describe it well
imagine working on enriching projects your whole life that have lasting effects and better humankind and human progress at large and leave legacies that last for centuries or more
or whatever thing we have to do instead
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Beautifully put. The thought of it is very emotionally stirring.
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There’s a sex pest movie line that was seared into my brain and occasionally pops back in to make me cringe. I don’t even know what movie it’s from, but it was a popular one.
the line
(dude is spying on girls at a school) “That’s what I like about high school girls. I keep getting older but they stay the same age.”
dazed and confused and it’s matthew mcconnauheyhey
That makes sense. Be a lot cooler if it didn’t.
mcconnahueydeweylouis
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The CHUD credo: “Everything is sexual deviancy except for actual sexual deviancy, which is fine.”
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everything is sexual deviancy unless a white guy does it
I’m in my mid-twenties and I already see high school girls as kids
Yeah, it took me a while to adjust to that because I’d see a senior in high school and think they were like 13. I know it’s not literally true, but they seem to age backwards the older you get.
Same, I remember being 22 and talked to someone who claimed to be in seventh grade and I thought “but you are like little baby, shouldn’t you be in fifth at the oldest?”
And then it hit me, I’m now the old guy.
I’m in my early twenties and I know people who are 19 and look like children. I can’t even imagine making them pay for their own meal, let alone thinking about sex with them.
American Beauty is the pinnacle of this
Have you considered that they all just had awful wives?
But those idiots still worship capitalism.
Yeah, it’s true. But I honestly think it’s a problem of the society (insert joker meme) we live in and we can’t pin it to a single generation.
There were anti-capitalist boomers, hell, some of the media that helped shape my anti-capitalism was made by Boomers. Captain Planet, Mother 3, both made by Boomers.
Gen X might have their horrible shitheads like Elon Musk, but they also produced a lot of anti-consumerist people too.
In my own generation (millennials) we may have our burnt-out worker masses crying out for change, and our Hasanbis, but we also have our Ben Shapiros and Charlie Kirks shilling capitalist propaganda.
Hell, even Zoomers might have Greta Thunberg, but they also have Mr Beast.
I think we see the capitalist side of generations as they get older because those are the people who get rewarded and pushed into the spotlight by capitalism.
hold up, Mr beast is a zoomer
I think he’s 25, which only just makes him a zoomer… I think?
Mr Beast is a Zoomer…
I kniw, it hurt me too when I found out
Boomers should be divided into 2 generations if we’re gonna do this whole pop culture generational bullshit. Cause right now boomers comprise of hippies/early rock n roll 60s stuff/ the punk/new wave thing of the the late 70s through the 80s which was done in contrary to what was considered outdated classic rock that was played by aging relics to early Gen x celebrities. One generation shouldn’t contain both a counterculture and a reaction to thst counterculture getting stale at the same time.
Probably. I’m not a huge fan of generational labels to be honest
Boomer is an even stranger one cause it comprises the entire second half of the 20th century but it’s also named after a specific phenomenon, people in America having a fuckload of kids after ww2. Like, my parents were born in the early 60s which was supposed to be boomer prime time, they didn’t go to Woodstock cause they were 9 and 7, but they’re still considered the same generation as those people.
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Minion would be such a good name to call CHUDs, particularly the younger ones.
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Speaks an incomprehensible language that remotely sounds like English? (Based zoomer rizz sigma soy)
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Exists to serve the greatest villain in the world (younger CHUDs are scarily enthusiastic to admit they’re the bad guys, and get off to the idea of being bad.)
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All act like idiots, but supposedly that’s okay because it’s charming to some section of the population.
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Loud, annoying, and almost everywhere on the internet
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Generally look the same.
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They don’t know what capitalism is. They think capitalism is when freedom and communism is when poverty.
One of my least favorite kinds of media is the kind where boomers and Gen Xers whine about how terrible working their stable jobs is and how their lives feel aimless, I should go take a soul searching trip to Nepal, life is simpler there, maaaaaaan. I mean, it’s capitalism, of course the jobs are going to suck to some extent, but even at the time they should’ve had some perspective. Douglas Coupland’s Generation X, which is where the term comes from, is the perfect example.
Ya it’s annoying but I think those feelings of ennui are valid. One merely needs to connect those feelings to their material basis and you’ve got a large potentially progressive demographic as capitalism further decays. Obv it’s better to have ennui than to be impoverished in the global south, but it’s still a negative symptom of capitalism, and expression of that should be encouraged.
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Turns out even with livable conditions capitalism is alienating and awful. They focused on that part cause they had lvsvle conditions.
I have a stereotype in my head about gen Xers not verbalizing their positions enough
even Boomers seem more verbal, while gen X just seems “wishy washy” somehow. I know little about gen X so correct me if this is wrong
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He’s seen some shit.
MF has tit eyes.
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OK Soda has been remembered more for its unique advertising campaign than for its fruity flavor. The name and advertising campaign attempted to poke fun at the “I’m OK, You’re OK” pop-psychology of the early 1970s. OK Soda was intentionally marketed at the difficult Generation X markets, and attempted to cash in on the group’s existing cynicism, disillusionment and disaffection with standard advertising campaigns. OK Soda’s concept was that the youth market was already aware that they were being manipulated by mass-media marketing, so this advertising campaign would just be more transparent about it.
Excerpts from the OK Soda manifesto, written by associate creative director Peter Wegner, were printed on the cans, and were also available for a short while on OK Soda’s website. Some of the sayings were:
What’s the point of OK? Well, what’s the point of anything
OK Soda emphatically rejects anything that is not OK, and fully supports anything that is.
The better you understand something, the more OK it turns out to be.
OK Soda says, “Don’t be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything.”
OK Soda reveals the surprising truth about people and situations.
OK Soda does not subscribe to any religion, or endorse any political party, or do anything other than feel OK.
There is no real secret to feeling OK.
OK Soda may be the preferred drink of other people such as yourself.
Never overestimate the remarkable abilities of “OK” brand soda.
Please wake up every morning knowing that things are going to be OK.
Well now I just feel bad for Gen X too.
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Composition and taste edit
OK Soda had a more “citric” taste than traditional colas, almost like a fruit punch version of Coke’s Fresca. It has been described as “slightly spicy” and likened to a combination of orange soda and flat Coca-Cola.
Everything else about this sounds awful but the flavor seems, dare I say it, OK
My favorite thing about OK Soda is that it never made it to mass market, which means they probably thought the marketing campaign was too cynical even by marketing ghoul standards. The band Dillinger Four made a song about OK Soda and realized that most people were confused because it was only available in some test markets, so most people had never even heard of it at the time.
Boomers in the 80s and 90s were fucking depressed. They described their lives as a boring, soul-crushing existence where they did the same hollow shit day in and day out. They hated their bosses, they hated their jobs, their kids, their wife/husband. People had “Mid-life crises” where they tried to fill the void with “a fast car and a young hot fling.” things capitalism told them would make them happy. It didn’t.
I think our perspectives are being skewed here a bit by media. Media is generally made by very introspective people who think about their lives a lot and therefore tend to have more existential malaise. Well that’s the sympathetic way of putting it, the less sympathetic way is saying they’re kinda narcissistic and up their own ass.
So they all hated it cuz it was soul sucking. The less creative Boomers and Gen Xers I’ve meet have pretty found memories of the 80s and early 90s, they had cash, music and movies were good, there was coke and cars and women with big hair. They fucking loved it.
If you were hedonistic and not really interested in things being much “deeper” than that, it was a good time.
You have a good point here, but you have to wonder how many of the people who say they loved the era actually did. Someone who takes things at face value like that and doesn’t discuss whatever introspective thoughts they have wouldn’t tell a lot of people if they found their life underwhelming or empty.
My parents and their friends can’t shut up about how great the 80s were.
Even older leftists I’ve met have expressed some 80s nostalgia. Heck I’ll be honest, even as a child of the 90s there’s some shit about the 80s that seems cool. A lot of my favorite movies and music came from the 80s, and being able to buy a house with a job you could get straight out of high school probably rocked!
I think maybe we’re actually talking about the 90s more than the 80s here. In the 90s the cracks on the system started to show more and while things were still good for kkkracker middle class kids it was becoming clearly how a lot of it was build on bullshit. There was rebelliousness in the 80s but it was always more cartoony and bohemian.
I think objectively the 60s were the best decade to be alive for the average mayo (in any country not just US)
average female heights started declining after 1970 in every mayo country on earth so I think it’s pretty clear that something happened then
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Well yes but you also are the kind of person who found and (very frequently) posts on HexBear. If you were a slop gobbling piggy you may have felt different.
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Wtf were you doing in the 80s? Coke?
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Interesting. Has any serious research been done into the midlife crisis phenomenon and linked it to the postwar boom? I’ve always heard/thought of it as an inevitable thing related to aging in general, but Really Makes You Think™ if it’s actually another capitalist condition
Ive always thought of the midlife crisis as being about you finally hitting the point where you’ve got the money and the time to do the thing(s) you’ve wanted to do since you were 12.
I know the only reason I don’t have a cool motorbike is money and timei always thought it was a breaking point of being trapped in a life that “you’re supposed to have”, but don’t really want. so people do a bunch of silly junk to fill the void that a nuclear cishet lifestyle can’t fill. realizing their wildest dreams cannot fill it either, they go back to the monotony they’re familiar with.
It’s only something that happens in the kind of society we live in. I’m not going to say just capitalism, but societies of control generally. You’re out of assigned goals, and you’ve only got things to lose from there on out. You have kids, job with some accomplishment, spouse, house, and are well past education. Now you’ll just get physically weaker and eventually die, with your friends fading away and kids moving out to do the same shit you did. It only works if you have a society where there are very clearly set expectations, which are only designed to fulfill two things: produce money and future workers. This is mainly a problem of capitalism, but it could emerge from other systems of production.
Trapped them in a guilded cage
“gilded” = covered in gold
“guilded” = having a guild, i.e. a medieval artisanal institution and historical precursor to both cartels and craft unions.
“gilded cage” = a cage covered in gold, for the purposes of situational and dramatic irony
Me no type gud
I fixed it dont tell anyone
be not afraid, your secret is safe with me
“Ah but you see, unlike under ebil Sovjet gommunism, they have many freedom and different brands of treats to choose from!”
I’d add that widespread media tends to be written by very privileged people, which magnifies this effect. This goes doubly for The Simpson’s, which is written largely by people with PhD’s in math and engineering, many of them Ivy League. There’s something about embracing privilege which involves denying one’s true self, which just isn’t good for you. I think it’s deeply tied to why no ruling class has ever willingly and peacefully surrendered their power. On a systemic level, class interest manifests as state apparatus. On an individual level, class interests manifest as denial of self.
I’d add that widespread media tends to be written by very privileged people
I think one major societal issue we have that is an impediment to building socialism is that fact that media is created by and about privileged people. Think about how many shows are about doctors, lawyers, detectives, successful entrepreneurs, etc. Or shows about writers or teachers where they don’t actually experience financial hardship. Compare that with how often you see a show like Maid or Roseanne. The majority of Americans barely get by financially (at best) but the dramatic over-emphasis in media on highly compensated professionals or people who have plenty of money creates this illusion that financial precarity is the abberation in American life and not the norm.
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