#entering my boomer era

[crawlingwithmagg0ts]

I hate the boosters in new champs

Back in my day you had to jump mid air to get a speed boost

This new generation just doesn't know the peril of being a milisecond too late and falling to your death embarrassing yourself in front of 20 people

[claws-and-wit]

bitter

cranky

tired

[irithnova]

Thinking about Mongolia's thoughts about the communist era hmm.

I think that he saw it as like. It needed to happen whether he liked it or not in order to ensure his independence. I don't think he jumps up and down in joy when remembering it but he saw it as a necessity to his survival. It's a pretty complicated subject as there were atrocities such as the purges that took place, a lot of which specifically targeted ethnic minority groups in Mongolia and certain cultural heritages that were trodden on (the use of the Mongolian script, monasteries destroyed) however he's never going to deny that that period is what stopped him from losing independence completely and well. Being in Tibet's position (which is something he's incredibly sore about) even if there are very regrettable things that took place during that period.

I do think Mongolia is quite prideful so he certainly wasn't happy on relying so heavily on Soviet help but I also don't think he's so prideful that he's stupid and turns down much needed help just to be prideful/stubborn. Russia tried to frame their relationship as being sort of like an older brother helping out a younger brother ("akh duu") and Mongolia found this pretty... Patronising/annoying (especially considering the fact that he's older than Russia though not by a huge amount). He can definitely be stubborn but he's also very pragmatic and if he needed to enter into a coercive relationship (politically) with Russia to make sure China didn't swallow him then so be it - he could complain about it later. And even "later" I think his heart is quite hardened to what happened.

Not in the sense that he doesn't care about what happened or regrets nothing but moreso he's like "what's done is done". I've said this before but I don't think he's one to dwell on things that upset him (most of the time), and while this sounds great this isn't always to his benefit and he can end up seeming disingenuous or even callous when asked about things when in reality, it is something that upset/upsets him but he's not one to liberally indulge in his feelings to anyone who asks - especially if it's to do with a complicated situation.

I've read that a lot of older Mongolians are more sympathetic to communism than younger ones and while I don't think Mongolia would brand himself as a #proudcommunist yeah I do think he's somewhat sympathetic-to-communism-leaning (he's boomer-leaning to me) mainly because Mongolia did benefit in some significant ways from that era - literacy rates skyrocketed - in fact Mongolia was the first universally literate country in Asia, child mortality rates decreased greatly, promotion of higher education, better healthcare, a Mongolian was even put into space (I'm not at all trying to detract from the bad that happened or excuse it). I think it also stems from the fact that he's just more... Used to it? Mongolia was the second country in the world to adopt communism and the first in Asia, bypassing capitalism completely and going from a feudal monarchy straight to a communist society. Mongolia only stopped being communist in the 90s.

Again - the era of communism is one that Mongolia has complex feelings about because yes the improvements in the aforementioned sectors were staggering. Whilst the famous Mongolian quote goes "I'd rather suffer under my own rule rather than live happily under someone elses" and yes Mongolia can be a stubborn bastard, he will acknowledge that Soviet aid ensured his independence however coercive his relationship with Russia was at the time and well, I think improved living conditions for their people would make any nation pleased at the very least. However the bad that took place is not something he can ignore so easily at the same time. Which is why I say his feelings about it are so complex.

Side note but I read that Russians who visited Mongolia particularly liked their fur coats and rugs which could be purchased for a cheaper price than at back home and I can only imagine Russia pestering Mongolia for discounts on products (which I think he still does today tbh Mongolian cashmere goes hard). There were actually already Russians living in Mongolia before Soviet intervention however these Russians were descendants of white Russians, colonists from the Tsarist era etc, so there was a level of animosity between "local" Russians already in Mongolia and Soviet specialists being sent to Mongolia during the era of Soviet interventionism. Mongolia personally really did not care about how much either group didn't like each other as long as they weren't shit stirring with the Mongolian population. The Soviet specialists sent to Mongolia were actually interviewed by the KGB on how to behave - they had to be on their best behaviour in Mongolia so as to not ruin the reputation of the Soviets.

This did not matter though because in the 70's to 80's the glaring disparities between the Soviets and local Mongolians became too obvious to ignore. Soviet workers who travelled to Mongolia for work did so so that they could get enough money for cars and apartments back home. Soviet specialists in Mongolia were being paid as much as a deputy government minister back home! There were elite stores in Mongolia that had very high quality produce that only Soviet specialists and family members of Mongolian officials were allowed in - guards were even posted to prevent ordinary Mongolians from entering. So much for that older brother younger brother relationship. Despite Soviet help, as mentioned before Mongolia found it to be patronising, and when Russia would go on a speech about how he helped lift Mongolia from his "backwards and dark" past yes there was a bit of an eyeroll and a hurt ego. Mongolia's tolerance of Russia was seriously waning.

The democratic revolution in the 90's saw Mongolia shed its Russian influence and Mongolians began to be more openly critical of this "older brother younger brother" relationship with Russia - Soviet specialists in Mongolia felt threatened by this and even moved out. Nationalism was on the rise and people were once again singing Genghis Khan's praises. You know that video that got really popular of that Mongolian guy throat singing "Chinggis Khaan Magtaal" on a mountain? That was written in the 90's! I'd say Mongolia was pleased at the very least about this rise in nationalism and an invigorated interest in history and Chinggis Khaan in his people but lets remember this was yet another transition he had to deal with after getting used to communism. Despite a rise in nationalist spirit, there was a lot of unemployment and people turned to bad coping mechanisms during the 90's/early 2000s, I heard that some folks were even afraid of going outside - shops were empty and everything and during this transition period there was something of a shared hope in people yet no one really knew what was to come. Any major transitionary period for a nation is never going to be easy and this was no exception. I think Mongolia was kind of like, trying to bite the bullet and get through with it even if he himself felt uncertain because all you can do really is move forward. I think Russia was er. Unhappy about this but did not outright say it to Mongolia's face... He'd more so "tease" him and tell him his Russian was getting bad for example and if he needed some practice or something (note: Mongolia's Russian was still perfectly fine lol).

He's in a much better state now but there was no denying that the shift from communism after being in it for so long and getting used to a new system after shifting from a feudal monarchy to straight to communism in the first place was hard. When he remembers the communist era its not a distant memory for him - remember, Mongolia was a communist country without ever going through a capitalist period beforehand and this new era isn't even half a century old. He knows that that era was integral to keeping his independence and there were some much needed changes that were taken care of during that time (healthcare, education etc) however he will not forget the regrettable things that took place. This is also why I think Mongolia's relationship with Russia is so complex but I think I'll leave that for another post lol.

[saintshigaraki]

sorry for entering my boomer era there for a second . im back to normal

[lynxindisguise]

Did Peter Pettigrew ever intend to grow up and become a 'real adult'? Or did his dream job become 'professional rat' the moment he completed his Animagus transformation?

Who needs money when you can just live in any house at any time for free and take whatever you want without the homeowners knowing you're even there?

Oooh a great question. I think classic canon Peter probably did intend to grow up and become a 'real adult.' My interpretation of Peter is that he genuinely wanted the classic Ministry job, nice house, doting wife lifestyle. (I mean, he is a Boomer.) And I think he blames the war for taking that from him and resents having blindly followed his friends into it.

But then he enters his villain era, which is also consequently his ratgirl era, and I think he feels pretty darn clever about gaming the system as a professional rat.

your topics of the night

[simplyfroggy]

my 65-year-old landlord (note: not really a landlord i’m more just renting some rooms in his house) gave me some orange and ginger cupcakes when i stopped by to get my mail. when i told him they were really good he said he was “entering his cupcake era” so he may be an eboy stuck in a boomer body

[bzdsentai]

Just picked up Ion Fury and Project Warlock of PSN for like 24 bucks since they were marked down 70% each.

And I got the Quake remaster and Duke Nukem 3D World Tour a couple days ago.

Finally entering my Boomer Shooter Era.

[cofffin-fit]

Not to be entering my boomer era but like, if the social media platforms that I use NOW all end up dying I will never make a new account anywhere. There’s literally 0 privacy on the internet anymore, all they’re trying to do is mine your data, and with emarketing becoming the main way for companies to advertise it just seems so exhausting to try to keep up with the joneses anymore so to speak.

every day I get on here and see some post going "do not make an account on ZYLPPHONE, the hot new social media! it turns out making an account gives the creators (who are nazis) instant access to your bank account and also causes your pets to explode!" and this is all very baffling to me because I cannot believe anyone is actually fucking around with new social media platforms that shit sounds exhausting. if tumblr ever gives up and goes all the way under I will simply turn into a crab and go back to the sea you will not be finding my on zylophone

[seeminglyseph]

I see Gen Z is fully entering the “not having children” “not working” “killing industries” “selfish” era of adulthood.

Welcome to the party friends, pretty sure it’s still the Baby Boomers who still don’t get it because the Millennials are still pretty fuckin’ broke and Gen X is like… really trying not to fuck up their kids as bad as their parents did, to varying degrees of success.

We do kinda got the same enemy on this one, we should really stop throwing shit at each other… but I do understand that we’re all the ones in reach and lateral violence is easier.

You do have my sympathies though because I do know exactly why Gen Z isn’t buying houses, getting married or having kids. It’s the same reason I don’t have a house, a spouse or a child. Trauma and a lack of money and opportunities.

But I mean, I felt like there was no future 10 years ago and suddenly it’s been ten years. So I mean. I guess there’s that lmao.

[nightcall99]

Notes from 9.4.24

What does anyone have beyond this now moment? Is it worth it to believe there's anything lying beyond the confines of now? When it gives us such heartache...

I felt some energy this morning, but maybe I've blocked it out now. Or, I'm just not here right now. Yeah, that's it. I hate being on my period. I got a box of donuts delivered, they tasted good. I don't know about the food thing anymore, I think I skip or eat meals depending on the sense of control it gives me in that moment. I still can't stand my mum. Whenever she tries to talk to me, it leaves me feeling really irritated. It's like an ugly monster is seconds away from hatching every time. I should be more grateful because she does everything for me, but I didn't ask to be born. And I didn't ask for the things she does either, so she can just stop. I know I sound like the worst kind of brat.

The other day I was helping some man and after he said, “I always knew you were intelligent". I thanked him, but then he was like "So how come I sometimes see you outside vaping?". So the compliment was just a shoehorn into what he really wanted to ask. I really shouldn't have been so nice to him after that. I know he probably meant well because he said so himself that he had been a smoker for 20 years, a obscure concern for my health etc., but I detested what he said. And I detested more that I was not brave. Then yesterday, this other lady was like, "Why aren't you wearing a mask?". I felt like this time I was more ready for it. I was polite but firm, saying it was my choice. She backed off pretty quick. I was still holding back 95% though. I don't understand how people think they have any say about what another person does with their body. And I can't fathom what kind of environment these boomers grew up in, where this kind of audacity is seen as normal and right.

I haven't heard from AL in four days. She is supposed to be back the day after next. I think I'm a much nicer person when she's not around. Every time we are together, we both disassociate from our roles too hard and we become too team-ly, too twin-like, and it progresses inevitably into an us vs. them mentality. I want to feel close to her so I let it happen, all the while I know that I am the perpetrator. In my mirroring, I am the one at fault. Everything she says is true, it happens in real time. It happens and then we take out a magnifying glass, and the image becomes bigger. Impossibly large. It passes the time, I think. But since she's been gone, a lot of what we used to complain about has disappeared. Or I have decided not to notice it. I've eased up my thinking patterns considerably, regarding all of it. I can't blame her though, I know everything is coming from me and she is just the manifestation of the energy I want to experience. She is what I am. But I do wonder if I will return there, as I always do when I am presented with it. I mean, it makes no difference to me. It's just different games. But if the energy really has changed, then things shouldn't be the same as before. Before she left she said by the time she gets back I'd better have some answers about what the heck it is we're doing here. During that fleeting cracked era of ours, I messaged her saying, Yeah I know what we have to do and you're not going to like it. I thought I was going to be telling her that we have no choice but to re-enter matrix but I don't know anymore.

I don't think I want anything to change. Nothing on the surface matters to me. It hasn't for a long time and I don't care to ever make it matter again. Nothing external can satisfy me because the inherent realness of things is lost forever. As soon as I woke up to this, everything turned to sand. I've long been standing in a desert. So what matters? Why are we here? Something at the essence level was decided, and it was decided that it was worth it. I see small changes but if I step back, it feels like I'm gaslighting myself to see them. And perhaps everything really is just the same, just the way I like it. I realise it can be both. I realise that it must be both for anything to exist at all. So what do I want to focus on? What do I want to see? I could say a lot of things. But I'm not sure I know what wanting feels like anymore. It all feels so performative now. I don't know what I want, much less, experience myself as real. I know that's antithetical to how I've been saying lately that I feel more 'me' but it actually leans into that. This 'me' is so abstract, so subject to the whims of something unseen that I don't want to hold onto it anymore. The doll is not real. It's like the more I try to grasp onto this experience, and devise reasons to stay here, the less of an impact it all makes. I've become desensitised. I don't think I should have let myself reach this level of awareness. I remember at the start of all this when the chat was so busy and Akari and Crystal and others were around, I think I was really happy. We were at our height then, I truly think this. Back then I could have thought of a million little things that I wanted badly to do on NE and was genuinely so excited about it. But now I think that even if there's more happiness to be felt, it seems almost painful. Even the uncontainable joy of new earth, seems sad, in a way. It's not even because what comes up, must come down. No matter what we do to entertain ourselves, no matter what we identify as or with, we will always have eternity to contend with. There is always this neutrality which is the backdrop to all. I will never escape it because I am it. So what's the point? Has the idea of new earth become a burden somehow? I don't know. Right now it feels like just another square to be checked off on an experience list. Because if I could return to myself as the everlasting witness once more, right now, I think I would. I think that signals that we went too far.

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Time After Time

It’s wild the editorials you come across on the internet. I just read an entire piece, claiming that Trump supporters see him more as a Democrat than a republican, a throwback to those Clinton-era “Liberals”. This article went on to quote a bunch of numbers about how the slide toward liberalism has been a steep one. For instance, back in 1994, nearly two-thirds of Dems agreed with the statement that 'immigrants are a burden on our country because they take jobs, housing, and health care'. By 2019, only eleven percent of Democrats agreed with it. Another gem counted the seismic shift toward pro-choice. Way back in the year 1998, forty-two percent of Democrats counted themselves as Pro-life. Not-so-way back in the year of our lord, 2023, that number had emaciated to a paltry fifteen percent. My sarcastic tone aside, I find these numbers to be amazing. It shows progress. It shows growth. It shows a cultural shift toward compassion and dignity, rather than fear-mongering and bigotry. Not lost on me is the fact that, when these numbers were taken, it was mostly Boomers and older Gen Xers who were the primary recipients. Like, my mom was in her thirties and early forties during the Nineties. By the time that first poll as cited as taken, the immigrants one, she was well into her fifties but there had been a change in the overall makeup of pollsters. You see, in 2018, MY generation had entered the race! We, Millennials, were finally on the board and it changed absolutely f*cking everything!

I was born in 1984. Became a legal adult in 2002. In 2018, I was a healthy thirty-four years old. I was roughly the same age as my mom, back in the Nineties. I am old enough to have teenage kids, if I had any to begin with. I am old enough to be shaping the next generation of voters and idealists, which is an absolute nightmare for everyone who came before, because Millennials are basically the antithesis of “Traditional American Values.” Think about it, us older ones, the group born in the Eighties whom I like to call “The Oregon Trail Generation”, were all latchkey kids from single parent homes. We grew up with the internet, using AOL Messenger and random chatrooms at, like, f*cking six years old, to talk to people on the other side of the world. Our generation is intrinsically tied to the internet boom, rise of Youtube, and the death of almost every “traditional” form a of anything to date. We put LBGT+ rights at the forefront of our generational concerns, sowing the seeds of the Zoomer Trans revolt, and forced a reckoning about mental health, late stage capitalism, and general human rights. Hell, to take it further, religion started it’s great exodus with us, the birth rate fell off a cliff because none of us are having kids, and the advocacy for a four day work week has built into a full-throated demand, all on our watch. Millennials have basically ruined everything Middle America stands for, and I stand for that. Especially seeing where the kids coming after us are taking it.

Like, Millennials sparked the revolution, but these Zoomers and Alphas are going to stoke that sh*t into an inferno. Watching these brave ass f*cking kids, standing up to injustice, is outstanding. They all hate capitalism, absolutely know that the US government is full of sh*t, and they refuse to buy into the propaganda. I mean, obviously, there are concerning aspects of sh*t out there like this ridiculous Tradwife nonsense and the entire Manosphere, but even those are in decline. Each successive generation after mine has just gotten more Socialist and gay, and I am here for all of it. Less than three decades, man, and we went from most of the adults in the room, crying about fetus rights, to the VAST majority of us trying our goddamndest to enshrine a woman’s right to choose in every goddamn State constitution possible. But guess who’s standing in our way? That’s right, those Boomers! Even though they have lost so much of their presence in the adult electorate, they’re literally dying off, these assholes are packed to the gills in very level of government and won’t f*cking leave. Mitch McConnell personally knew Fred Flintstone and just no decided to step down from his GOP leadership role. Biden and Trump are Octogenarians, trying to run a country where they’re values haven’t been in the majority for at least a two decades. We have been trying to wrench the reins of power from these assholes born way back in the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties for the better part of two decades, and they just f*cking refuse!  

A perfect example of this gap in perception is Israel. Personally, f*ck Israel and very Zionist who lives there. That’s been my sentiment since I learned about how that country came to be. But guess what? Through the power of the internet, and Tik Tok (why do you think the Feds are so hard-pressed to get rid of it), WAY more people feel the way I do than before. And guess how old those people are? Guess how old the people who blindly support an Israeli state, genocide and crimes against humanity be damned, are? The Democratic party hasn’t “shifted” left, we, as a society has. What the f*ck did you expect? We were rabid, feral, multi-cultural kids, from broken homes, unlocking doors and making grilled cheese for ourselves at six. By ten, we were raising our younger, Nineties Babies, siblings, because our one parent had to work stupid hours to pay for a mortgage trap. We took our objectively woke sensibilities, hone from years of public school integration, to the goddamn internet where we were exposed to the entire world of perspectives differing from ours. We are the last generation to play outside, and the first to Google facts for school reports. There hasn’t been a shift to the left, there has been a shift in understanding, intelligence, and knowledge. The shift is cultural, not political, and it’s just going to keep grow as we get older. No one wants to be Conservative anymore. We have to redefine those lines. The world is so much bigger, now, than it was back in the later 1900s. What a time to be alive!

[smokeybrand]

Time After Time

It’s wild the editorials you come across on the internet. I just read an entire piece, claiming that Trump supporters see him more as a Democrat than a republican, a throwback to those Clinton-era “Liberals”. This article went on to quote a bunch of numbers about how the slide toward liberalism has been a steep one. For instance, back in 1994, nearly two-thirds of Dems agreed with the statement that 'immigrants are a burden on our country because they take jobs, housing, and health care'. By 2019, only eleven percent of Democrats agreed with it. Another gem counted the seismic shift toward pro-choice. Way back in the year 1998, forty-two percent of Democrats counted themselves as Pro-life. Not-so-way back in the year of our lord, 2023, that number had emaciated to a paltry fifteen percent. My sarcastic tone aside, I find these numbers to be amazing. It shows progress. It shows growth. It shows a cultural shift toward compassion and dignity, rather than fear-mongering and bigotry. Not lost on me is the fact that, when these numbers were taken, it was mostly Boomers and older Gen Xers who were the primary recipients. Like, my mom was in her thirties and early forties during the Nineties. By the time that first poll as cited as taken, the immigrants one, she was well into her fifties but there had been a change in the overall makeup of pollsters. You see, in 2018, MY generation had entered the race! We, Millennials, were finally on the board and it changed absolutely f*cking everything!

I was born in 1984. Became a legal adult in 2002. In 2018, I was a healthy thirty-four years old. I was roughly the same age as my mom, back in the Nineties. I am old enough to have teenage kids, if I had any to begin with. I am old enough to be shaping the next generation of voters and idealists, which is an absolute nightmare for everyone who came before, because Millennials are basically the antithesis of “Traditional American Values.” Think about it, us older ones, the group born in the Eighties whom I like to call “The Oregon Trail Generation”, were all latchkey kids from single parent homes. We grew up with the internet, using AOL Messenger and random chatrooms at, like, f*cking six years old, to talk to people on the other side of the world. Our generation is intrinsically tied to the internet boom, rise of Youtube, and the death of almost every “traditional” form a of anything to date. We put LBGT+ rights at the forefront of our generational concerns, sowing the seeds of the Zoomer Trans revolt, and forced a reckoning about mental health, late stage capitalism, and general human rights. Hell, to take it further, religion started it’s great exodus with us, the birth rate fell off a cliff because none of us are having kids, and the advocacy for a four day work week has built into a full-throated demand, all on our watch. Millennials have basically ruined everything Middle America stands for, and I stand for that. Especially seeing where the kids coming after us are taking it.

Like, Millennials sparked the revolution, but these Zoomers and Alphas are going to stoke that sh*t into an inferno. Watching these brave ass f*cking kids, standing up to injustice, is outstanding. They all hate capitalism, absolutely know that the US government is full of sh*t, and they refuse to buy into the propaganda. I mean, obviously, there are concerning aspects of sh*t out there like this ridiculous Tradwife nonsense and the entire Manosphere, but even those are in decline. Each successive generation after mine has just gotten more Socialist and gay, and I am here for all of it. Less than three decades, man, and we went from most of the adults in the room, crying about fetus rights, to the VAST majority of us trying our goddamndest to enshrine a woman’s right to choose in every goddamn State constitution possible. But guess who’s standing in our way? That’s right, those Boomers! Even though they have lost so much of their presence in the adult electorate, they’re literally dying off, these assholes are packed to the gills in very level of government and won’t f*cking leave. Mitch McConnell personally knew Fred Flintstone and just no decided to step down from his GOP leadership role. Biden and Trump are Octogenarians, trying to run a country where they’re values haven’t been in the majority for at least a two decades. We have been trying to wrench the reins of power from these assholes born way back in the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties for the better part of two decades, and they just f*cking refuse!  

A perfect example of this gap in perception is Israel. Personally, f*ck Israel and very Zionist who lives there. That’s been my sentiment since I learned about how that country came to be. But guess what? Through the power of the internet, and Tik Tok (why do you think the Feds are so hard-pressed to get rid of it), WAY more people feel the way I do than before. And guess how old those people are? Guess how old the people who blindly support an Israeli state, genocide and crimes against humanity be damned, are? The Democratic party hasn’t “shifted” left, we, as a society has. What the f*ck did you expect? We were rabid, feral, multi-cultural kids, from broken homes, unlocking doors and making grilled cheese for ourselves at six. By ten, we were raising our younger, Nineties Babies, siblings, because our one parent had to work stupid hours to pay for a mortgage trap. We took our objectively woke sensibilities, hone from years of public school integration, to the goddamn internet where we were exposed to the entire world of perspectives differing from ours. We are the last generation to play outside, and the first to Google facts for school reports. There hasn’t been a shift to the left, there has been a shift in understanding, intelligence, and knowledge. The shift is cultural, not political, and it’s just going to keep grow as we get older. No one wants to be Conservative anymore. We have to redefine those lines. The world is so much bigger, now, than it was back in the later 1900s. What a time to be alive!

[rametarin]

Also. 'What does old age look like?'

When you're born, the world you enter is what cements itself to you as normal. A person born in the 50s imagines their time and place looking a certain way that someone born in the 60s may not completely recognize.

Lets say you jumped in time and emerged in 1975. A 60-year-old of the day would've been born in 1915, and spent the 1930s being a 20-something. Living the bulk of their adult life in that window between 1933-1963. From young adult, to middle aged, to old.

But that same person fills the niche of Very Old, just 10-15 years after that. From 1975 to 1990. Maybe not to them, but everybody that came into existence after them. From their perspective, that person has Always Been An Adult(tm).

A middle aged person in the 1960s is different from a middle aged person in 1970s. If only in subtle ways.

I was born in 84. "60 year olds" to me were born in the 20s. 80 year olds? The people old enough to've interacted with old timers from the 1800s? Yeah.. Born in the 00s. My platonic ideal of 'old person' was born just before or just after 1900, and had the chance when they were in their single digits to speak to people that were on their way out, having seen the 1830s.

It's utterly mindblowing to me that the boomers are now old, and the greatest are ancient. Granted, the 1970s and 60s always felt like aging and someone elses nostalgia to me, because that was the era of our parents. Truly the post modern of modernity, with electronics, technology and appliances, counterculture and drugs.

But I'm not a minor anymore. From the perspective of someone today born in the 00s, as last as '06, 1986 may as well have been a period of antiquity in a history book, the way we all look back at the 30s and 40s.

A 60-something today was born in the mid-50s to 60s. An 80-something, the 30s-40s. It's simple math, but in human terms, those ages each represent a niche stage of life in old. A gradient, if you will.

It's fascinating to see and surreal to imagine. There will, eventually, be 80s year old Millenials, with ancient Gen Xers.

To somebody, Old Age is going to look like a dude that still dresses like it's 2007 and they're headed to Flavortown, and wears "old fashioned" Axe Body Spray. And that person will occupy the niche we have of the grandpa born in 1911 that fought in WW2. That kind of shit that smells like freshman year of college got backed over by a seasoning truck full of fucking rats. Some young child will hear about the 80s crack cocaine epidemic and the 90s heroin epidemic and think of it like the alcoholism of Victorian English times.

"I'm old and my formative years were [these decades]" is such a fascinating thing. like being a living time capsule of an era from your prime.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Low Turnout for Trump’s Tailgating Party

Stephen Jay Morris

6/14/2023

©Scientific Morality

            Oh, you should have read the Tweets on Twitter’s cyber bulletin board! The Chuds were as histrionic as a high school drama major. One Tweet read, “We will avenge the deep state in indicting our patriotic leader President Donald J Trump! Blood will be flowing in the streets of Miami! Signed American Warrior!” Well, the only thing flowing was sewage from a busted pipe in the street gutters of Miami—which is a normal occurrence in that city.

The only glamour that’s ever come out of Miami was in the 1980’s TV crime drama, “Miami Vice,” with its pastel colored clothes and buildings, fast sports cars, and 80’s music on the soundtrack. Florida has become the premier state of reactionary politics, alligators high on meth, and White Trash criminals robbing convenience stores. If you like tornadoes, tidal waves, or unbearable humidity in the summer, Florida is your state! There’s lot of racism against Afro-Americans and Latin migrant workers. Jewish retirees are subjects of Anti-Semitic jokes. That is, unless you’re a WASP or an exile of Communist CUBA.  White Catholics are treated as second class Aryans unless they’re Conservatively correct.  No wonder the state is shaped like a penis. Does that mean America is no longer identified by the pronouns she/her?  America is a Trans-nation?? Florida’s governor, an Italian American named Ron DeSantis, thinks he is going to beat Trump for the presidency in 2024. He cannot stop using the word, “Woke” anytime he’s on camera, in public. Does he have a solution to Florida’s infrastructure problems or natural disasters? No! But he swears he is going to stop the woke agenda! Whatever the fuck THAT is! He’s already promised that, if Trump is convicted, he will pardon him. Yes! That is the way to get Trump votes!

Well, leading up to yesterday, there were promises made to the public, over cable TV and social media, that fifty thousand, enraged Trump supporters, armed with pitchforks and torches, would show up in Miami and tear down the federal court building! A contingency of Proud Boys had committed to come and beat up Left wing, counter-protesters. Militia groups were going to march, AR 15s at their side, ready to use them if provoked. They were to begin a second civil war in America!

So, what happened? All in all, about 250 Trump supporters showed up. It amounted to what looked like a Trump campaign rally in Montana. “Blacks for Trump” showed up, all 9 of them, though it was more like a low turnout for a tailgate party for the Miami Heat in the parking lot of Kaseya Center. The Heat just lost the NBA championship, by the way. I’m sure Miami is proud of their team.

The only action reported was that of a Baby Boomer “Woke” protester. He was wearing a 19th Century era, black and white striped prison uniform, and holding a sign that read, “Lock Him UP.” At one point, he ran in front of the motorcade to try and stop it, but Secret Service agents immediately pushed him aside and onto the ground. Miami police took him away in handcuffs.

In the end, Trump entered a plea of “Not guilty,” and then he and his team went on their merry way to a campaign rally at his New Jersey golf club.

The next time I go to traffic court, I want my own motorcade paid for by the taxpayers.

[hannahlacey]

1950s Design- American Dream, Advertisement + Pop Culture- Research LO1

The 1950s American Dream

The American Dream of the 1950s was about materialism, the roles of men and women, having a happy family, and being sophisticated.

1950s: An American Dream? : Online Exhibits : Exhibits : Smoky Hill Museum

The business industry used color to target consumer behaviors.

Everything About 50s Posters | Widewalls

After a war period, Cultural panorama of 1950s was all about lifestyle innovations – telephones, TVs, cars and household appliances entered almost every home in United States

graphic design increased, and commercial film, television and magazines entered the Golden Era.

In 50s, poster art exits the exclusive and elitist field of high culture and art and enters the era of widely present mass media and open the door and sets the standards for pop art.

Nostalgia in 50s posters is feeling of sympathy for the naïve time of baby-boomers generation, when people fearlessly enjoyed end-of-the-war and economical progress with many technological innovations and newly established pop culture industry, which shortly turn to be main axes of the new world order which reproduces inequalities and conflicts instead of prosperity.

This post-war time period transformed the way media was consumed, and the messaging behind it. The ‘American Dream’ was put into place, which prompted audiences to buy into this idea of commercial perfection. By looking at the characteristics of the adverts and posters produced in this time, I can see the propaganda-style features that created Pop Culture Visuals. 

By including these kinds of visuals as a basis for design, I feel like i could amplify the irony of my idea. I could utilise the composition and colour to sell this idea further, going about this with a modern twist.

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 28: My So-Called Life 1x03

This is a weird episode to watch in 2023, in many ways... It's the guns-in-schools ep but it aired in 1994, before Columbine, before mass shootings were common news, and so it's really not about that fear, even though it can be easy to forget that, watching it now. This is the fear that there could be guns in schools, that violence could be seeping into schools, that schools are not inherently safe places. It's not a fear that a person with malicious intent might enter a school, heavily armed, with the specific purpose of inflicting as much as pain as possible.

And that makes it much sadder for me. Where is this energy now, this outrage now? I know it's still here but it's just burdened with so much loss and so much exhaustion and this fatalistic attitude... This is like a letter from an era of early alarm bells and it's like no one listened and now we have this. There was a while when I watched the ending and thought 'oh this doesn't hit as hard now, because, duh,' but this time I felt like it actually was worse. Yeah, I am heartbroken that kids have to go through a metal detector to enter a SCHOOL. A SCHOOL. I don't want to be desensitized to that.

At the same time, tying the presence of weapons to... really this whole under-world of the school that adult don't see or understand was very clever and gutsy too, I think. The parents get mad and yell but they seem mostly inept, even when they truly are trying their best. The Principal cares about the school's reputation. The Boomer teacher cares about the principle and rhetoric of the thing. And all the time, Angela is going through this crisis of reputation--not life and death of course, but hurtful to her, and an example of how a situation can snowball out of control completely by accident, in this wild adolescent world with no brakes on it--and, more importantly and more critically, Rickie is being bullied and hurt and, guns or no guns, he doesn't feel safe.

This is such a good episode for Rickie. I don't just mean because he gets to become more three dimensional or because he has those stand out moments like his speech in Social Studies or his conversation with Angela in the car, but because in the previous two episodes, he was the 'gay sidekick' character, or veering into that territory, and here in episode 3 it's made clear: he's a multi-faceted character like everyone else. His longing for a normal life like Angela's, his desire that people see him as scary and dangerous, his actual relationship to the person who brought in the gun (just another hint of how different his situation is from hers), and yes, that school is a dangerous place for him--and so is home--all of this is part of him just as much as his humor or his style. And Rickie's so smart, man. I always thought the speech in the classroom was his real thoughts on self-defense, but I see now that it's not: as he tells Angela, he doesn't know how to shoot a gun, an he thought it was dumb for his cousin to bring it to school. But he's using the narrative to his own advantage, in a way not dissimilar to how Rayanne does, but more adroitly. Someone out here is dangerous--and it's me.

This is such a Gen X episode in many ways, one of the times MSCL shows its era in ways other than clothes or tech. Angela wanting to be cursed to live in dangerous times... really comes with new irony, post-9/11, or in the covid-era.

Jordan continues to have a definite crush on Angela, and also to reveal himself as just generally a pretty nice guy? Like, again, seeing this from his POV, he tries to use the rumor as a segue with her, sees she's not into it, thinks about it a lot, decides he's freaked her out, and tries to fix it. Something about "I'll say we hardly know each other, which is, of course, true," just reeks of something Angela would say.

I know Amber's speech about Rayanne was trying to establish Rayanne's platonic girl crush on Angela but like... Rayanne has a regular ol' crush on Angela. "She's in love with Angela, she wants to be Angela!" is a line that is really in the show. At the same time, I think this ep shows again Rayanne's maturity level: she's gossiping with her mom, showing her Jordan's picture in the yearbook, talking all the time about Angela... I've always been close to my mom too, but there's an unfiltered quality about Rayanne that just strikes me as...unformed. I also think we see her being a pretty good actress (with the counselor) but at the same time, I think her disinterest in the gun threat or the gossip threat is genuine. She's in full protection mode of bot Rickie and Angela, but she's not scared.

Hmmmmm I am fading fast. No idea if any of that made sense, but I gotta take a shower and get some sleep! I think I'm sufficiently over my bug that I can no longer make excuses for myself re: not doing stuff. Time to get rested.