"I was born in the wrong generation."

I see this phrase everywhere, especially on music vids on youtube, constantly repeated like some kind of millennial mantra. "I was born in the wrong era for music." "I was born in the wrong generation for head-wear, classy dressing, etc." "I wish I'd been born in an era when women respected themselves and didn't dress like sluts." The list goes on and on.

I'm aware it's a thing that goes back thousands of years (even the ancient philosophers mourned a fictional Golden Age of human civilization that had faded away into the "cultural detrius" of their own era), but what spurs it on amongst so many young people today? Isolation? Loneliness? Cynicism? What kind of mindset is needed for it to foster and why is it so common?

arseholes

Cracks me up when kids are like this on youtube comments, in response to, like, Tarzan Boy or something.

Nostalgia as mediated by '10s culture so it erases the more questionable parts of the era it's looking back at.

i-guess-i-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times.jpg

i mean, i think it's just... kids? 'i have identified an aesthetic that feels cool and also absolutely appropriate to my self-conception, imagine there was a time when this aesthetic determined everything, i wish i lived in it'.

I wish I'd been born in the '50s so I could make a jukebox play by hitting it and then take a trip through time with my dog, Mr. Cool.

it's important to wonder whether its salience in e.g. youtube comments doesn't mark it so much as a "millenial" thing as that when "millenials" just casually say a thing on the internet it's preserved like it's an important statement and not just a passing thought that any young person might have.

"Nostalgia as mediated by '10s culture so it erases the more questionable parts of the era it's looking back at.

― Murgatroid, Monday, 9 December 2013 17:16"

OTM - I've never heard a black person openly yearn for the good old days of, say, 1955. It seems primarily to be a young, white phenomenon.

well, yes, it is easy to mentally associate yourself with the ruling class of a previous generation when you are white and have not thought about it very hard.

there's that common line, isn't there - everyone thinks they were cleopatra in a past life.

See also 'Chap' magazine aesthetic, parties in twenties fancy dress, etc

By some metrics this is the first recent generation that can expect a lower standard of living than their parents (obviously not true if you don't happen to be male / white). I'm currently reading the Taschen books about mid-century adverts and the skewed image of the 50s and 60s (prosperity, big houses, big cars, the nuclear family, a job for life, easy foreign travel, etc) they present is incredibly seductive. There's more to it than just aesthetics, i think. It's economic uncertainty and fear of the future that's driving a lot of this.

xp, or this, in short:

well, yes, it is easy to mentally associate yourself with the ruling class of a previous generation when you are white and have not thought about it very hard.

OTM - I've never heard a black person openly yearn for the good old days of, say, 1955.

eh, but what about the '70s, or the early '90s? i see these comments a lot on youtube, whether it's for funk bands, guitar bands, or kids pining for the heyday of 'real hip-hop'.

Artistically it's easier to align yourself with an aesthetic that has already been completed and defined than slot yourself into an aesthetic that's still forming and nebulous - it's easier to say what that definition means to your identity. That's why you see this statement a lot with teenagers/college kids who are still struggling with defining themselves.

kids have always enjoyed wearing costumes
i think it's just easier for us to see it on display now, and they have easier access to a wider variety of costumes and unlimited access to inspirational images

they want all the positives of the art and culture of an era that's been filtered through the lens of nostalgia, but probably not the negatives

there's always a romance to "elsewhere"

kids appropriating or just riffing on the styles/culture of the 90s is a thing, now

there are probably some kids right now wishing that they were teens in 1990

I heard this sooo much in the 80's about the 60's

on the other side of the looking glass: older people who go on about how different their lives would have been if they'd had the Internet when they were kids

oh yeah, "you kids these days don't realize how good you've got it" is a classic

well, to be fair, when I've heard older people using Brad C's line, it's been mostly about how much harder they think kids have it today. as in, "man, I'm so glad we didn't have the internet when I was growing up".

ppl love talking about how bad things have gotten, even if it's completely unjustified. you can pretty much say about anything "it isn't as good as it used to be," and ppl will agree with you. furniture, movies, music, kids' television, anything.

Every conservative movement relies on an imagined/idealist past as a basis for its attacks on elements of contemporary society that it opposes.

i should have been born in the 14th century tbh

It also depends on what kind of clothes are at the thrift store. In my day, you could find some serious 50s/60s/70s attire if you knew what you were looking for. But now there's etsy/eBay for those with the cash and 90s revivalism for those willing to brave today's thrift store. Now there's a whole economy of vintage/thrift costuming. I mean duh but it's true.

I have never found any pre-Christian druid attire at the thrift store, much to my disappointment. Had to settle for a sweater with a hood.

I wish I'd been born in caveman days so I could ride a sweet dinosaur and wear a pelt and die at age 19.

this kind of thinking ignores the fact that there is never a better time to be a flapper or an obnoxious rockabilly stan than the present

http://tjthesportsgeek.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/pepsimj.png

btw does ilx automatically misspell detritus?

apparently not

I don't think this is necessarily conservative, it's just an interest in the exotic. Same thing really as somebody wishing they were born in Paris, or daydreaming about living in Hawaii.

Not inherently conservative, but certainly the root and the lifeblood of conservativism. Particularly with respect to that blindered perspective of a particular era/place/scene.

Correction: "Not inherently conservative (like humor)..."

for middle school/high school kids being into music of the past is more of a counter-cultural or niche thing than any sort of conservatism

yeah, I don't think you can make any logical connection between political conservatism and retro nostalgia for art, fashion and design. the latter tends to seek out novelty, strangeness, and anything that seems totally "other" to current mainstream culture, while political conservatism is about resisting social change or undoing social progress. they seem to me to come from totally opposite impulses.

what does it mean to want to go backwards to a time that was more progressive? I think a lot of retro design fetishism is rooted in that nostalgia for an era in america when most everyday objects were union made in the U.S. is that a conservative impulse?

conservative how?

I know this is hugely reductive, but I think of conservativism in this context less as "let's go back to the days of the New Deal" than as "let's go back to the days when The Donna Reed Show was a mirror for what I mistakenly think life was actually like".

Definitely felt like this when i was a teenager in the 90s and thought no good music had ever been made past the 60s. Now i sort of wish I was living in pre-recorded music era as a travelling musician or silent film pianist or something.

In my my youth I had house/techno and the golden age of hip hop, followed by the golden age of piracy from which I tapped into every other golden age for free and will probably be in the ground by the time the big die-off comes, so no complaints.

I was born at the wrong time, I should have been born in 2032

"let's go back to the days when The Donna Reed Show was a mirror for what I mistakenly think life was actually like"

who does that though? most '50s nostalgia is of the rockabilly/hot rod/betty page/sailor tattoos variety, and celebrates niche things that seemed to be ahead of their time.

I think there *is* a fair amount of that inplicit in conservative thinking among older people, though: Focus On The Family, in which dad was the breadwinner, mom stayed home, ethnics stayed in their own neighborhoods and gay people pretty much didn't exist.

conservative how?

I don't know, I don't really think cultural nostalgia really correlates with politics in any meaningful way. I don't think art progresses either, so looking backwards to earlier art eras can never be considered conservative imo.

I think there *is* a fair amount of that inplicit in conservative thinking among older people, though:

well yeah, that's an entirely different thing than young people being all "i just wasn't made for these times" about youtube videos from before they were born.

Eh, those kids just need another war to toughen them up.

tbf the Focus on the Family types are idealizing a vision that didn't really exist in a completely different way from the people who idealize music/fashion of yesteryear

then came Dinnerladies...

I dunno. I like a huge amount of British comedy from the 80s, mostly by the alternative up-and-comers, e.g. Blackadder, The Young Ones, Spitting Image, etc. But the 90s stuff I've never got into.

As for the 2000s, there's been a lot more good stuff, such as The Office, Peep Show, Shameless, Mighty Boosh, Black Books, and so on. Lots of crap like Little Britain, the I.T. Crowd, Dead Ringers, etc, but that's to be expected.

The 90s seems very limited. In retrospect, lots of it was crap (Spice Girls, Aqua and other lame Scandinavian pop), but I don't feel entitled to comment, seeing as how I was born in 1990. I feel nostalgia for the 2000s, but not in the sense that I'd place it above all other decades as being the pinnacle of human existence. But neither would I say previous decades were better (although probably a damn sight better than future decades will be, but we'll see...).

The 90s seems very limited.

pretty astounded by this. can't think of a single cultural facet where it may apply. born before the 80s tho.

Lee & herring u cunts

seeing as how I was born in 1990

this can't be right

decade/two decades before you were born -> wow this is so great, such creativity, not like now
decade before your teens -> so limited, semi-ironic attachment to things you liked
decade of your teens -> not quite worth nostalgia yet, obviously things that were worthwhile
early 20s -> oh hey not bad, this is some good stuff
later -> all crap

xxpost: I was thinking in terms of comedy, but then that's purely a personal aesthetic. It may also have to do with the fact that my parents were early Boomers (not sure if there's a British equivalent, but they were very influenced by America, having lived there in the 70s) and my upbringing was heavily influenced by 60s, 70s and 80s media.

Something about the 90s gives me genuine creeps, although I was a happy kid during it.

sleepingbag: expand on that please?

artistically speaking, that is

socio-political climate depends on your ethnicity, class, age, and location

nbd it just seems like an incorrect year to have been born is all

haha, I kind of get what you mean. 1981-1983 and 1998 seem like "incorrect years" to me.

inevitably because enough time has passed since and there being evidently such an overbearing market for 90s musical things (countless reformed bands, nostalgia for specific subgenres and sounds) and as 90s icons are absorbed into the wider 'always on' nostalgia base the backlash accordingly can also be seen as at its strongest yet.

I've lived through a lot of decades and haven't liked any of them. I think I disliked the '70s the least, but that could be due to the time interval enhancing their charm somehow. I fondly remember moments and people and places but not long stretches of time.

I'm glad I don't see "Early American" decor anymore - such an ugly look and it was actually more prevalent than the cool Mid-Century Modern/Mad Men style.

The 90s was a sick decade if u liked cool shit, also pitting 10yr periods against each other is a fucking moronic thing for an adult to do

I never got to try OK Cola

I thought the eighties were a blast!! But it was a personal blast, mainly out of rebellion against a majority who seemed miserable.

Most emotions have some survival value. Nostalgia just seems fucking useless.

Cheers banaka

I think the lack of canned laughter and the fly-on-the-wall style did confuse a few parents at first.

Just as an aside, but what British sitcoms ever used canned laughter pre-1990s? Men Behaving badly and AbFab didn't, for a start. It's certainly used now though.

Not really sure where doglatin is getting that canned laughter thing tbh.

I assume what he actually means is no audience laughter.

Anyway, as is often the case with doglatin (bless him), I think he's seeing great tectonic shifts when they weren't actually that great

imo dog latin is making a subtle point about how our understanding of the past, whether positive or negative, is not based so much in clear memory as in the convenient shorthand we use that designates "good version of thing" and "bad version of thing"

Most emotions have some survival value. Nostalgia just seems fucking useless.

not really
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/07/10/the-rehabilitation-of-an-old-emotion-a-new-science-of-nostalgia/

god, I _wish_ banaka was around

Yeah canned laughter = I meant audience laughter

I just watched the World's End (which was filmed in and around the town I grew up in). Seemed like a bit of a comment on retro mania, and nineties retro especially, even if it was playing on its tropes for nostalgic kicks.

I actually do wish I'd been an adult in the 80's. I have an 80's fetish. But it would have probably pissed me off. Although a close friend of mine was in his 20's in the 80's and his stories are INCREDIBLE. Like Bret Easton Ellis shit. Wearing Versace suits and doing tons of blow and seeing INXS play and getting lots of BABES.

is there a Bret Easton Ellis novel where at least one of the characters doesn't die

I mean, where there are zero characters that die

I have fond memories of the early 90's and watching 120 minutes and dialing the OK soda hotline over and over again and being a depeche mode superfan.

Maybe the ultimate wish for some people (i.e. pop culture fans) is to have been twenty years old at every point in time since 1956.

I mean, I was 9 years old in 1990 and listened to chart radio and watched the ITV Chart Show and loved Altern-8, the Prodigy, KLF etc but I had no idea what raving was all about short of an episode of Morse and a few ads on the radio. Actually ads on the radio taught me more than anything. I thought AIDS was an airborne disease and a condom was a device you kept in your house like a smoke detector that filtered out AIDS germs. Cue some narrowly-avoided awkward questions with my parents.

It's sad if 20-year-olds now feel like they're in the wrong era because the music you hear between 15 and 25 will mark you like nothing else so embrace it. In the west, in cultural terms (piling on the qualifiers there), it is never a bad time to be that age.

I remember reading (when I was 20 in fact) Goethe describing the phenomenon of the "nachkommling" or aftercomer, who began writing after Shakespeare and therefore felt there was "nothing more to do". I think people have always been prone to thinking they were born too late.

what do the 20yos like in 2013? mumford + sons?

Yeah but at 20 (must've been 1999?) I do remember thinking the majority of current music was shit and, other than a few IDM and post-rock releases, ended up delving into the past a lot more for many of my musical kicks. I don't really regret it - I was much happier discovering the Beach Boys than listening to Travis, but I do also remember imagining that 1968 would have been a great time to be alive.

i've got a pretty serious nostalgia crush on the UK c. 1945-60 but it's mostly bugger all to do with your so-called pop music tbh

UK c. 1945-60 mostly just the goon show and hanging iirc

brylcreem and a working class with actual work to do

Great as long as you weren't female, gay or of colour.

Not that I think you yearn for the criminalisation of homosexuality and "no blacks, no Irish, no dogs" signs obvs, NV

of course not and i hope i don't labour under any illusions, tho the role of women in working class households is probably more complex than the simple domestic subjugation people envisage pre-60s struggles. i think what i imagine is a form of community that got pulled down some time around 1983.

imagined communities. like most of them i guess.

I used to pine for the 80s as a kid growing up in the 90s, and feel cheated that I had missed out on all the best pop music/fashion/design. I don't really feel cheated now, I think because the internet (and that I'm old enough to go to second hand shops) mean so much of this stuff is accessible again.

i think part of my fantasy is stronger localization and pre media saturation too

Anyone else hearing the thread title as sung by Richard Hell?

If I imagine living in the 80s (or whatever era of the past) I imagine it being like living in a film, everything having a unified aesthetic, a sense of having been designed, rather than just looking like a random mix like now, but obviously it only looks that way in retrospect, it wouldn't have done so for the people at the time?

what do the 20yos like in 2013? mumford + sons?

― Mordy , Wednesday, December 11, 2013 10:54 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the other day I was out for lunch with a friend who's 20 years old and he asked me if i knew any good remixes of 90s dance pop.

(i made some noises about motiv8 and fatboy slim and things and he was like: no, more recent ones, i mean your nineties nonsense is good and all but really where's the drop and then he laughed at my horrified face)

If I imagine living in the 80s (or whatever era of the past) I imagine it being like living in a film, everything having a unified aesthetic, a sense of having been designed, rather than just looking like a random mix like now, but obviously it only looks that way in retrospect, it wouldn't have done so for the people at the time?

Having lived through the '80s, it didn't seem at all that way to me. As much as there were new design aesthetics coming through (the first thing that springs to mind is the graphic design in magazines like The Face and Smash Hits), overall it just felt like a continuation of (or evolution from) the '70s. Also, you could look around and see all kinds of things that were survivals from the '50s and '60s (shopfronts, pub interiors etc.) that have pretty much disappeared today.

Having said that, I do remember meeting a friend in a pub by the river Thames (perhaps at 'Hay's Galleria' or somewhere like that between London Bridge and Tower Bridge) c. 1987, and we both deplored the way the pub had been newly done out in a fake, wooden retro-pub-interior style. I guess it was the beginning of what you can still see today in many branches of Wetherspoon's. Is that not the start of the "random mix", as you put it?

Yeah modern retro "80s style" or "90s style" are pretty abstracted and watered down to a very specific aesthetic that I sort of remember but it's also like some other alternate reality, a mainstream definition of the 80s, exists alongside my own nostalgia. I mostly remember shag carpet and wood paneling. Not everything was neon over a black background.

This thread reminded me of a part in Beastmaster 2 where someone is complaining about how fake music sounds nowadays and says oh let me play some REAL rock n roll and then turns on some 80s song that is supposed to be a 50s throwback but has all these weird synth sounds in it.

Yeah it's a romanticised version of the decades. The kids who walk down the street wearing soft grunge styles dress like people in magazines did in the 90s, not how people really dressed.