As an art degree kid myself trying to survive in this cold dead economy, your analysis is immaculate. The be chill quote feels like a vital lifeline. Roadtrips on the west coast are the best, especially on the 101 which passes through my town! I live in the pnw, and it’s super fun to read about you traveling up here. Some of the best music I’ve found is new tracks I hear on Kexp in Seattle and college radio in Oly (an antidote to the homogenized poptimistic music hellscape imo.) I loved reading this, and I’m cheering for your zine project!
"It makes sense that those same sad Millennials might want to emotionally cash in on how much the current culture, on the other hand, loooooves Gen Z and for some reason always has."
This is a great point, I remember a few years ago there was some basic headline like "Managers finding it hard to communicate with Gen Z workers" and I remember friends and peers and comments all alike lit up with "Don't you fucking dare pull that generational shit with Gen Z, Millennials already spent their whole lives getting shit on." I don't know if Gen X got treated the same way but I feel like Boomers did too and that's one reason why they're so fucking brittle about aging, at least the Boomers I know and pay attention to (anywhere from family members to the ones in politics and media).
It might be a cyclical thing, one generation gets constantly shit on for being young, becomes age obsessed, decides they won't pull that shit on the next generation, and that generation then feels like they're pretty widely accepted as cool so when things change they shit on the next generation? Maybe? I don't want to cling too hard to that notion because that's about as far as I get before I remind myself that generations don't exist except as marketing devices and identity politics, two of the most poisonous things to the modern efforts of living together respectfully in a pluralistic society.
So anyway I'm choosing the live and let live approach. Let the Gen Z kids like stuff I don't like, enjoy the Gen Z stuff I like, and don't bother to try to understand it more than just have my own opinions on it. Gen Z "gets a pass" I never did (I mean seriously, grown ass adults were lecturing me about how garbage my generation was when I was like 11 and 12 years old) but I feel like Millennials are getting a little defensive about that and should let it go rather than percolate in resentment. Whatever, our elders treated us like garbage. No reason we should either feel like garbage or treat others like garbage. Let's just improve the world.
So these wider "poptimism" debates tend not to be very interesting to me, but when you've framed it as you have here I at least have some access to what may be really being discussed.
that's such an interesting point. i think you're on to something.....every generation can only really learn from its lived experience, and cycles cycle on..... i also wonder if gen z was put on a pedestal because they were/are coming up right as shit is hitting the fan environmentally, politically (in the US), and culturally (tech/AI/social media), so older generations were hoping that gen z would be the hero generation that would save them
This is an interesting point. Perhaps it can be explained by generational size? Boomers, as their name implies, far outnumbered their Silent predecessors. And Millennials, by virtue of being the children of Boomers, also outnumber Gen X.
As an art degree kid myself trying to survive in this cold dead economy, your analysis is immaculate. The be chill quote feels like a vital lifeline. Roadtrips on the west coast are the best, especially on the 101 which passes through my town! I live in the pnw, and it’s super fun to read about you traveling up here. Some of the best music I’ve found is new tracks I hear on Kexp in Seattle and college radio in Oly (an antidote to the homogenized poptimistic music hellscape imo.) I loved reading this, and I’m cheering for your zine project!
thanks for reading <3 radio summer pt 2 is all about a roadtrip to oregon and a great station I found up there - hope you'll read it!
"It makes sense that those same sad Millennials might want to emotionally cash in on how much the current culture, on the other hand, loooooves Gen Z and for some reason always has."
This is a great point, I remember a few years ago there was some basic headline like "Managers finding it hard to communicate with Gen Z workers" and I remember friends and peers and comments all alike lit up with "Don't you fucking dare pull that generational shit with Gen Z, Millennials already spent their whole lives getting shit on." I don't know if Gen X got treated the same way but I feel like Boomers did too and that's one reason why they're so fucking brittle about aging, at least the Boomers I know and pay attention to (anywhere from family members to the ones in politics and media).
It might be a cyclical thing, one generation gets constantly shit on for being young, becomes age obsessed, decides they won't pull that shit on the next generation, and that generation then feels like they're pretty widely accepted as cool so when things change they shit on the next generation? Maybe? I don't want to cling too hard to that notion because that's about as far as I get before I remind myself that generations don't exist except as marketing devices and identity politics, two of the most poisonous things to the modern efforts of living together respectfully in a pluralistic society.
So anyway I'm choosing the live and let live approach. Let the Gen Z kids like stuff I don't like, enjoy the Gen Z stuff I like, and don't bother to try to understand it more than just have my own opinions on it. Gen Z "gets a pass" I never did (I mean seriously, grown ass adults were lecturing me about how garbage my generation was when I was like 11 and 12 years old) but I feel like Millennials are getting a little defensive about that and should let it go rather than percolate in resentment. Whatever, our elders treated us like garbage. No reason we should either feel like garbage or treat others like garbage. Let's just improve the world.
So these wider "poptimism" debates tend not to be very interesting to me, but when you've framed it as you have here I at least have some access to what may be really being discussed.
that's such an interesting point. i think you're on to something.....every generation can only really learn from its lived experience, and cycles cycle on..... i also wonder if gen z was put on a pedestal because they were/are coming up right as shit is hitting the fan environmentally, politically (in the US), and culturally (tech/AI/social media), so older generations were hoping that gen z would be the hero generation that would save them
pitching “the over-anticipated clean-up crew” as gen z’s catchy colloquial name
This is an interesting point. Perhaps it can be explained by generational size? Boomers, as their name implies, far outnumbered their Silent predecessors. And Millennials, by virtue of being the children of Boomers, also outnumber Gen X.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/blogs/2015/05/talkin-bout-our-generations-will-millennials-have-a-similar-impact-on-americas-institutions-as-the-baby-boomers/Gens1.png
I love KEXP!
the best!
You either die a SpongeBob, or live long enough to see yourself become the Squidward
My apologies for the Workday billboard 😬
HAHA as long as you yourself didn’t make it, I can’t hold it against you