# For those angry at vapid consumer culture, why not just opt out? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 19, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593 "2015-07-19T10:42:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/81 "2015-07-22T16:49:43Z")
> [@analogqueen](#): > > Disagree on the “cultural diversity” part. I see no diversity whatsoever. I see the same type of “culture”, and zero diversity. If by “diverse” do you mean the true sense of the word? I am over forty and remember pre-internet days. I also remember people, of all ages and colors and creeds, having actual real honest-to-God cultural differences in tastes in music, books, art and so on. The white stoner kids listened to metal, the urban or black kids listened to disco or R&B, the olds listened to oldies, smart kids would practice Chopin. Music and arts tastes could be defined- they had hues and flavors that were practically diametrically opposed, and nary the twain shall meet. Music now almost is all the same, in that all the same genre’- it all kind of blends into itself- I mean the popular stuff that is well known. No one seems to subscribe to particular genre, as in it is all kind of “mixed up”. EVERY one has been to a Starbucks- so how is that “diversity”? no one particular culture is an “Apple” culture, or a Honda culture, we’re all kind of in this weird, homogenous “Global Awareness” kinda thing. I’m over 60, from the pre-VCR days. I suspect there are more targeted radio stations today back than in the AM radio days, when it was either music from my mother’s era, classical, or rock - and not even album rock, which came in with FM. Not to mention that then you bought records or listened to the radio - you didn’t have streaming services targeting music for your tastes. As for rock, we had Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys being played on the same station. > [@](#): > > Someone said something about people being hanged for blasphemy in old days too- that was before my time. I don’t remember any of that. I DO remember when you could tell a Ford from a Chevy just by looking at it. How? They both had tailfins. Now if you want to say the ugliest cars today are uglier than cars back then, that I can buy. > [@](#): > > I do remember TV being _smarter_. I think someone is putting something in the (bottled?) water, or I have gotten crotchety in my old age- because everything in media seems so banal, uninspired, well- kinda dumb! The music sounds all the same. The books out now are awful- unless the good ones just don’t have good PR agents… Maybe in the very early 1950s where TV owners scaled richer and more cultured. Sure back then we had Rod Serling but today we’ve got even more good stuff, and the writers today don’t have to pussyfoot around controversial issues. I was going to say that nothing today is as bad as “My Mother, the Car,” but we have reality shows. But the larger amount of programming today means that you can create a far better diet for yourself than we could back then. I lived in New York where we had seven stations, more than just about anyone, but half of them spent their programming day showing old movies. Hell, I have a DVD set of commercials from the '50s, and on average even the commercials today are better. Sorry, this geezer likes what we have now better than during my childhood. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/82 "2015-07-23T14:50:12Z")
I agree that TV is saturated with commercials-all urging us to buy stuff. In particular, the car ads are annoying-showing people diliriously happy over leasing anew car. If you object to that, just do what i do-hit the “Mute” button. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/83 "2015-07-23T15:33:39Z")
> [@grude](#): > > My point is…WHO CARES! I don’t know. Why do YOU care what people are angry about? The problem is that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to “opt out”: Economies of scale practically ensure that outside of major cities that can support niche markets, it is nearly impossible to find stores, restaurants and services that aren’t generic chains with their identical selection of products, lattes and gigantic appetizers. Media company mergers have now ensured that during a 4 hour drive to my inlaws, I will hear a steady rotation of the same 10 songs by the likes of Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars and Sia, regardless of what station I turn to. How many damn films about superheroes, dystopian societies serving as thin metaphors for teenage social angst or remakes of 80s and 90s classics must I ignore? Do people not experience peer pressure to look, dress, act and otherwise confirm to norms established by what the other interchangeable carbon blobs have viewed on their idiot screens? Even the internet has become tedious because you have to wade through all sorts of embedded sponsored content to actually find real news. Here’s something I didn’t know. Studies have shown that people respond to longer add names. That’s why sponsored ads now have titles like “Major companies hate what this guy is doing to save money on toilet paper costs!” ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/84 "2015-07-23T19:38:50Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Anyone else reminded of the goth kids on _South Park_? Not that I like, know who they are. What the fuck is a “South Park”? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/85 "2015-07-23T21:29:35Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Unless we are all reading Cicero in contemporary latin then I guess we are all consumers of pop culture. I don’t think that’s a helpful term. > > I’ve pulled a straw poll of the people around me in the office. And asked them what they think “pop culture means” with the following answers. “celebrities, tabloid newspapers, talent shows, reality shows, chart music, twitter, facebook” No-one even mentioned Radio 4’s “the moral maze” let alone “the Reith Lectures” I think your distinctions answer more to the question posed by the OP - probably my comments are straying off the path. We are specifically talking more about _vapid_ consumer culture and I don’t think Radio 4 falls into that. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/86 "2015-07-24T22:06:04Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Ziggy Azalea DUH! It’s **Iggy** Azalea, old man. Get a life. :rolleyes: I’m sad that I know that. On the bright side, I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/87 "2015-07-28T12:26:00Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > What the fuck is a “South Park”? Is this a serious question? I feel like it would be hard to not to have some level of awareness of one of the most popular television shows for the past 18 years. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/88 "2015-07-28T19:24:39Z")
> [@grude](#): > > You see a lot of media targetted at angry 20 somethings with this anti-mainstream/anti-vapid consumer culture message. And glob knows I see a LOT of wasted emotion getting angry at Kardashians or the boy band du jour or having a mainstream life etc. > . > . > . > > You don’t HAVE TO buy anything, listen to anything, watch anything, do anything. > > I Just find this like getting angry because other people enjoy something you don’t. > > :mad:How dare anyone like this stupid thing! But that’s how they establish their sense of identity, by saying I don’t like this or that. They want to separate themselves from the unwashed masses, unless they don’t wash due to environmental concerns, then they want to separate themselves from the washed masses, like the Dr. Seuss sneetches. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593/89 "2015-07-29T04:02:50Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Is this a serious question? I feel like it would be hard to not to have some level of awareness of one of the most popular television shows for the past 18 years. Based on my level of awareness of **Drunky Smurf** , it’s definitely not a serious question. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-angry-at-vapid-consumer-culture-why-not-just-opt-out/725593.md?page=4)