Our previous post about members of Gen Y facing the choice of growing up or becomig a byword gave rise to incisive commentary. Here, in no particular order, are the editor's pick of the comments.
First, a diagnosis of what ails Generation Y by author JD Cowan:
When I wrote my piece called Ten Years Gone, it was a reflection on how much things changed since 2013, especially compared to, say, 2003 to 2013. I still go back to the piece I’m quoting every now and then
Gen Y’s slow slide into insanity started in the aftermath of 9/11 when the last of them graduated high school and spent the 2000s trying to be the perfect consumers their parents taught them to be. They still had some semblance of self-awareness, still under the illusion that the boring life the Baby Boomers promised them and Gen X made fun of as dull would naturally come to them. When it didn’t, and when they had to accept everything they were raised on wasn’t even so much a lie but not sustainable and was never going to happen, they had the choice to accept it and adapt or rage against reality itself. That is pretty much what the two sides of the last ten years were. That’s where the spike in suicides, depression, and bitterness, came from.
But now that it’s been that long, and especially after lockdown world successfully pushed the remnants of their sanity over the edge, we are in the comedown stage. Gen Y isn’t young anymore, nor are they immortal, as 2020 showed. The ones who made it through aren’t normal anymore, because the old normality is gone.
At this point, I don’t see people like the old version of Pat around anymore. It’s either one direction or the other, and the two sides are not going to come together, as designed by those in charge.
We either become the Gen Y that fulfills our potential and our role, or we implode into a scrap heap of insular rage at reality. There does not seem to be a middleground beyond that anymore.
It’s like Dave Greene said, the Kids Who Read aren’t kids anymore (and they don’t even read anymore either, from my experience), and what they are becoming is currently being decided at this very moment. It will absolutely not be like it is now in 2034. What it will be like then is up to what we do now.
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The Simpsons: 20th Century Fox[/caption]
Related: Generation Y—A Warning to Others
Reader Alex reminisces:
In retrospect it’s pretty remarkable how much everyone just got along in a lukewarm pool as late as the early 2010s. We subsisted on the same slop like the Daily Show, Game of Thrones and the NFL. We enjoyed the same memes like, “Winning!”, Rebecca Black and Gangnam Style.
To me there were 3 major events that severed the bloated Pop Cult into either turning to Jesus Christ or the Death Cult.
1. Gamergate: The public got a major expose on how much feminists and anti-racists were injecting propaganda into entertainment. The term “SJW” entered into the public vernacular. The transgender movement is starting to gain traction with public figures like Brianna Wu.
2. Trump’s election: Permanently shattered public trust in mainstream news. For the first time major conservative voices started being outright censored on social media platforms. Terms like “alt-right”, “woke”, and “white nationalist” start circulating widely. The transgender movement becomes fully mainstream with Bruce Jenner winning “Woman of the Year.”
3. The cataclysm of 2020. Lockdowns, social distancing and vaccine debates destroy friendships and families. George Floyd/BLM/DEI effectively legislates the demonization of white people, OnlyFans emerges making pornography a non-stigmatized career choice for young women, transgenderism explodes within Gen Z, the media goes from mocking conservatives to calling for their arrests and deaths following January 6, the Groyper movement changes the dynamic of the conservative movement, “Return to Tradition/Reject Modernity” gains traction among young men with things like traditional Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Islam and stoicism.
The early 2010s was the dying gasp of “go along to get along.”
Related: SBI BTFO by Brazilian Vidya Curator
Last but not least, commenter Rudolph Harrier observes:
Elsewhere I put 2013 as the year where it was impossible to pretend like the Gen Y dream of “everything will stay the same, except with better tech” was still alive. Reasons included the internet being gobbled up by a few big companies, (indirectly showing that streaming was just going to become cable) social media becoming unavoidable, a set of lackluster console releases, the war in Libya, the George Zimmerman trial and the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. At that point two things were obvious:
1.) The “everyday is Christmas” level of technological development was over, especially in the entertainment industry.
2.) It was no longer possible to just have everyone get along. (Not that it really had been in the 90’s or 00’s either if you were paying attention, but it was possible to not pay attention back then.)
But it wasn’t yet obvious how dire things were. I think that most people in Gen Y thought that we’d just kind of coast along with the good stuff maintaining where it was, and perhaps politics getting more heated but nothing too serious. It wasn’t until the events you mention that it became obvious that politics had went from “we have serious disagreements” to “we want you to die and your entire culture to be erased from history.”
I do agree that 2020 was the determining factor. If you refused the jab and refused to make a humiliation oath to DEI, then there’s very little after that that can sway you. This is particularly true by how utterly pathetic both of those movements look without the hysteria caused by the lockdowns and the sense of rage from the riots (though anyone who lived through the OJ Simpson trial really has no excuse for getting caught up in that.) In contrast if you bowed to those demands, you probably are still having a hard time resisting each new demand, no matter how stupid.
I would say that one of the first big events that illustrated the new reality was the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse in 2021. In the 00’s and even most of the 10’s you would expect to see people at least pretend to have some nuance when discussing the event, especially on the conservative side. Now the country is split between people who think that he was 100% in the right and narrowly avoided getting screwed over by a crooked prosecution and people who think that he should have his life ruined even IF he isn’t actually guilty of a crime (since his real crime was opposing rioters.) No one is in the middle ground.
Related: The 1990s—Decade of Despair
My comment:
From time to time, I like to check in on groups outside my immediate social scene to take the temperature of the room and get some perspective. The two key demographics I track as leading indicators are:
1) Death Cultists
2) Gen X & Y Normies
In case you missed it, a new genre of doompoasting has gained traction in online Death Cult hives. The common refrain goes: “Our spells aren’t working anymore. We used the wrong magic word somewhere in the ritual, and they’ve stopped listening to us. Now they just shrug off our most potent hexes and openly blaspheme the most sacred groups. The nonbelievers somehow don’t realize they’re free again, so there’s a slim window to retool the programming and get back on track toward utopia, but we don’t know how!”
Yes, the Death Cult’s default mode is low-grade panic. Prosecuting their infernal revolution requires that they be whipped into a near-frenzy by the looming fear that the Bogeyman is just seconds away from imposing a Pat Robertson theocracy. So I’d take their despair with a bucket of salt, if not for the talk from Normie.
In short, Normie is fed up. He’s not sure what’s going on, but he knows he’s been de facto banned from corporate jobs, his food bill has tripled, and mainstream entertainment sucks. He’s in revolt agains the tranny nonsense, waking up to his status as a racial outlaw, and even questioning the butt stuff. Sure, his rallying cry is “Bring back the 90s!” But just four years ago, it was “Progress for progress’ sake!”
The Death Cult is hyper-sensitive to shifts in the cultural current. So it’s that last item that’s got them on the verge of going Jonestown.
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I agree with other commenters. I'm not sure about the year though. I track the years between 2012 and 2015 as the period when things changed. Prior to those years, it seemed like we could disagree but mostly get along outside of politics. I haven't watched the Daily Show consistently since Craig Kilborne hosted it in the late 90's, but I could watch clips of John Stewart and it was generally informative and funny. Then all of a sudden, he went completely batshit anti-gun and became unwatchable. I also used to read Cracked.com. I knew they were liberals, but still their articles were informative and funny. Then, one day, they all became rants about how "racist" and "homophobic" the right is. It became unreadable, and I haven't been back to the site since.
Same for TV shows. Bones was great until about the 11th season when suddenly every episode because an unhinged left-wing rant about right wing issues. I never finished the show. There was some trigger during those three years where everything changed. I haven't watched Law and Order: SVU since that time period after their trans and #gamergate episodes. It used to be one of my favorite shows.
One thing that never made sense to me was how up to around 2015, Millennials got a lot of attention. All the business press ran constant articles about how workplaces need to cater to Millennial needs and preferences. Then, one day, it was all "Millennials need to STFU and just work like the rest of us!" I took three Master's degree level classes that included a component about catering to Millennials. That all went away. During one such class, they brought in a Millenial (supervised by a Boomer) to speak to us. I raised my hand and said something like "Maybe it's my GenX cynicism, but it seems like Millenials get too much attention. When we joined the workforce, we were told to shut up and work." It was an interesting discussion.
I facetiously say that Harambe was the moment when the timeline fully split and sent us spiraling into Clown World.
I find it funny that I recently turned 50 and I have Millennial friends in middle age. I have a friend 10 years younger than me that refers to himself as a "Geriatric Millennial."
The jews sublimated, going straight to "Kill Whitey" from, "White Privilege." They opened the Gates of Toledo again, in all White Nations. Egregious and obvious mistake. Now, as my White Male Colleagues, Friends and assorted acquaintances shift in to Real, Hitlerian White Nationalists, we are going to expel that filthy tribe, with extreme prejudice. No more wooden doors, and this time we count. Generational strife, religious squabbles, and who won the Nagger Bowl, will morph in to a White Megadeath Machine. And although I will die, perforated in the 1st round, it will be with a smile.
Hail Victory.