David Carr of Samizdata.net has lost touch with Youth Culture
I think the actual epiphany came about two years when I managed to get myself caught up in some sort of street festival on my way home from work one night. Not even for a fleeting second did the idea of joining in occur to me. Finding myself in the midst of a gang of teen-somethings gyrating furiously to some noise or other reminiscent of a car alarm, my overwhelming desire was to be somewhere else. I was tired, I was hungry and I really, really wanted to be home.
Over on Blogcritics, Michele follows a similar theme, and compares the music today’s teenagers listen to with the music of her own generation, and states that 25 years ago, punk was punkier, heavy metal was heaver, and everything was superior to the manufactured plastic pap today’s music industry churns out.
And it’s not just the musical forms of heavy metal! On the ModMod mailing list, devoted to trains, we get comments like this, from my good friend and fellow railway modeller Alan Monk.
Don’t ask me to go later than that, I lost interest in the real thing circa 1990, so all these new fangled bogie hoppers and boxes just go straight over my bonce. What are these horrid new engines anyway, and where have all those nice blue ones with the arrows on the sides gone??
And even this:
Mmmmmm, Shackletons
One of the RAFs best aircraft (Vulcan, Victor, Canberra and Lightnings being the others). I used to do all the airshows in the 1980s (before it all went plastic….sound familiar?
I think it’s just called ‘getting old’. Every generation thought it’s music (and trains and planes?) were better than what came before or after. So if today’s teenages insist on liking Nu Metal and Virgin Voyagers, who are we to criticise?
