I don't miss Twitter. BlueSky isn't as funny (yet), but the reduction in doomscrolling and roving Nazis has actually improved my mental health.
when I talk about taste/fad changes as a demand determinant in econ, I always tell the kids the story of all the fads I remember in grade school and how after going through so many (pogs, yo-yos, CrazyBones, etc) and getting pissed when people stopped playing crazybones like right after I finally convinced my mom to get me some, I said as a 5th grader that I wasn’t going to get into the next “thing”. Whatever it was was just gonna go away in a month or two and I’m sick of trying to stay with it when it’ll just be gone soon. The next fad was indeed Pokémon, and I refused to buy a single card. Oops.
I remember seeing the Pokémon movie at 10 a.m. on a Saturday and it was the first time I remember looking at my mother to understand her reaction and all the parents just had this face that was just counting down the minutes to go home. I assume the Power Rangers movie a few years earlier made them feel the same but I think my parents understood the basics of that show a little more.
Beyblades were huge during my middle school years...back in 2015 when I had a job working with kids/teens I was floored to discover that they were "in" again
In the late 2010s, at the after school program I work at, we for a time had trouble with a few kids playing Beyblades at dinner every day, lol.
Streamer / youtube celebs make me yearn for the days of Paris Hilton. Imagine Truman Show-ing your life but you never actually leave your bedroom.
As someone on Twitter said, like a decade ago, some of these Internet celebs would get their day in the sun, appear on Ellen and go away. Now, they’re just seemingly forever here.
YouTubers and online celebrities are only getting worse. So much of what they seem to do is just straight up harassment of people at a store or public area. When I'm feeling sad I think about the guy who shot that one YouTuber who was getting in his face in the middle of a mall.
I think a lot about how every generation says that the new generation is so much worse than the one that came before it, and how usually that’s wrong, but maybe this time it actually is correct lol
It is tough because the loudest voices get the most attention. I spend so much more time complaining about my handful of problem students than I do talking about my great ones, and there are definitely many great ones. Overall, though, the range of social media and how it comes to dominate more and more of life is different than complaining about flappers of Elvis' hips. In the old days you had to stand on a sidewalk and do stupid things to get attention, but now anyone can. These younger generations don't know who Tom Green is or remember Punk'd but they are carrying on that legacy without the confines of broadcast licenses or standards and practices departments. During one of the Eagles' Super Bowl runs a fan got down and ate dog excrement. Where do you go from there? Is there any wit or social commentary there? How much more debased can you really get?
tired: thinking of generations as separate, distinct entities with broad qualities/trends that primarily reflect on said generation itself inspired: thinking of the societal factors that create those qualities & trends
I think this generation is just as annoying as we all were at one point in our lives. I think the difference is previous generations would do stuff like what Morrissey says here and get a handful of laughs for a bit, but eventually the teachers and peers get tired of it and the reinforcement loop ends. Now they can post on YouTube or TikTok and amass millions of followers. That kind of reinforcement is hard to break.
Yeah, I mean you’re both right, I think the real answer is that the behavior is as bad as previous generations’ worst behavior, but just amplified by 1000
I talked about this with my parents, in regards to my nephews, who all love YouTube shorts and whatnot. For me, my parents were worried about MTV. But at least that has standards and practices. There's no guardrails with influencers these days and they can see someone like the Pauls do the worst shit imaginable and not have their careers hindered at all.
I think this is a good point. Parents seem to have a hands off approach now and not be aware of the entertainment consumed, whereas it seems parents of kids in the 80's / 90's etc did their research. Now, a lot of that was probably through news and hyperbole, but there seems to be a very blind approach to ipads and youtube as entertainment now. As long as the kid is engaged and quiet, all good. I could be wrong though, don't know many actual parents ha, and my sister does very little screen time with her kids (to almost the opposite extreme).
Agreed. I also think it's pretty tough for parents to keep up with all the influencers. My parents knew about Tom Green, Jackass, wrestling, etc. I can't imagine trying to keep tabs on all the pranksters, ishowspeeds, etc. etc.