As did the 50s, the 40s, the 30s, and the 20s. I think distinct outward displays of your generation’s culture pretty much dissolved in the 90s. The rise of the internet gave everyone the freedom to be whoever they wanted to be, regardless of whatever your peers were doing.
Nah, it’s not just you guys. It’s definitely a thing.
Edit: Pre-internet, your “tribe” was your graduating class. Now, your tribe is more likely to be based on your love of anime, whatever obscure musical genre you’re into, or that you’re into parkour, and the online groups that grow around these things. Each group evolving its own culture signals to display in the wider world.
You guys are my tribe. If I look at you while we’re playing poker one day and say, “Sup bro? Donkaments, amirite?”, you’ll know we have the same roots, even though we’ve never set eyes on each other before.
Upon some reflection, I think part of this is being male. I’ve seen some tik toks about “Getting Ready to Go Out in the” 2000s or 2010s, and there were definite some fashion trends that have come and gone in there that I sorta recognized but never really internalized because men’s fashion hasn’t changed nearly as much as women’s has. Still, the difference between high rise and low rise jeans is pretty small compared with the 80s having a whole neon color palette that barely existed anywhere outside of that decade.
You think it’s the internet more than the “enshittification” that comes along with late stage capitalism? I was leaning the latter, because it seems like it’s not just fashion that has slowed down. Innovation in e.g. snack foods and cereals seems to have slowed a ton, too. Why bother making new things when companies can sack those departments and just keep cranking out the same shit year after year, whether it’s food, clothing, music, or whatever?
There is still a lot of decade differences from the 80s to the early 90s, especially in TV, Music, clothing, and movies. I mean, Scream basically reinvented horror movies from the schlock of the late 80s, Seattle style hit the scene, rap music became harder and Rock music went from hair band sugariness to grunge and filth. The line of demarcation from the late 90s to the early 00s, and the 00s to the 10s, to the 20s, is much less prevalent
I’m going with some combo of (a) we’re just old/out of touch and (b) the way that the culture of an era gets represented in movies doesn’t represent the way everyone in that era actually lived.
-Movies about white kids in the 90’s are going to lean into grunge, alternative music and skater culture. Not every kid growing up then was into those things (just like not every child of the 60’s was a hippie), but that’s what will represent it. For the 2000’s, I’d probably pick emo (Paramore/Fall Out Boy/ Panic at the Disco) and I’m not sure about the 2010’s, but maybe some of the androgyny/skinny jeans/colorful hair aestetic common to soundcloud/mumble rap.
One of the biggest changes I have noticed are young people. I can’t help but notice that 20-30 years ago a lot young people were thoughtful and erudite, but now they are reliably dumb as a box of rocks. I agree that all the music sounds the same.
My take is we gradually stopped having a monoculture sometime around 1999 and sine then there are no defining cultural milestones since we all started doing our own thing. When was the last time there was a show everyone was watching and talking about at the same time? Maybe Breaking Bad?
Game of Thrones was more recent and did higher Nielsen ratings than Breaking Bad. But more and more shows getting dropped as binges instead of weekly releases obviously does significant damage to the ability to keep a broad social conversation going about it when a season is aired/released.
Lots of netflix stuff has popped for a minute, but the churn was quick:
Tiger King
Queens Gambit
Squid Game
Also, are we forgetting about the Barbenheimer moment? Or (until recently) the absolute chokehold that Marvel movies/comicbook culture had on blockbuster movies?
And, going back to the “we’re old” part, I’m sure that in a decade the folks who are in their teens or early 20’s will be discussing some viral tik tok trend that they all were doing… A certain dance, or the milk crate challenge, or something.
The Avengers movies feel like the last big mass cultural thing that had any staying power. When you think of the 2010’s as a decade, that’s going to be a part of it. I’m not sure if shows like Tiger King or Succession will have that kind of staying power.
Haven’t seen the Sandler basketball movie yet, but agree that Air was good, and it had an uphill climb with me since I find it annoying that a movie that sets up Nike as the protagonist in that way could even be a real thing. Whatever negative biases I brought in, it won me over, very easy to watch and enjoy.
On the other hand, 2023 has also given us another drama about a big company trying desperately to ship the nickels: Tetris. And Tetris was a disaster, probably rating as my least favorite 2023 release that I’ve seen. For as good as CODA was, these Apple TV movies have otherwise tended to be pretty rough so far.
I am somewhat assuming the demographic makeup of UP, but I think too the perspective that things have homogenized is also a pov of straight white men of middle class finances. If we are looking at stuff centered on women, trans people, intersex people, people who are gay or at least not straight, there’s been a steady growth of diverse style and characters.
Compare, for example, trans rep in The Crying Game with Tangerine, or the intersex character in Freaks and Geeks with the intersex character in The Power, or the understood implications of Gwen Stacey in Spider-Verse vs the suppressed implications of Switch in The Matrix.
I also watch some YouTube stuff from people of color who describe a continued evolution of culture such that it’s very different now for old heads than it is for new blood.
I wonder too if the signifiers of culture have become so much more increasingly digital that while IRL indications may appear similar in aesthetic, it doesn’t take much engagement to see oh these things are very distinct from each other.
100% agree with all of your points about subcultures. Just thinking about the one I’m most familiar with, lesbian music, fashion and culture has changed a ton from the 90’s… (Shout out to shaved head-era Ani DiFranco)
I watched the scene and finally see what you mean. I see it is on Netflix too. You watched Booksmart. It is only fair for me to take a chance on one of your suggestions.
Lest we forget: you recently took one of my suggestions (Mother) and you enjoyed it, so even if I miss I can only drop to .500.
I don’t 100% know whether you’ll like this one since I can’t think of a comparable movie that I’ve really seen you post about, but I hope you like it and I’m cautiously optimistic.
Gamer in 2023: let me just get comfortable with a cutting-edge gaining system and kick-ass MMO…World of Warcraft (2004). It’s almost as if people went from playing Pong in 1976 to playing Pong (plus expansions) in 1993.
“Let me take a quick break from gaming to use an AI image generator to whip up some fake porn starring one of my classmates and then share it with my friends via snapchat.”
“Or maybe I’ll take those classified docs I downloaded during my IT gig with the national guard and share those w/ my dischord buddies”
“Or maybe I’ll click this app on my phone and get some total stranger to come pick me up and drive me somewhere.”
And even if we’re just talking about games, showing the latest version of NBA2k to someone who was playing NBA Jam at an arcade in the 90’s would be mind blowing.
