Yes, this definitely qualifies as a “macro” shift in culture. It would be like a very large subset of youth in 1965 having easy access to, and a large portion actively seeking out and listening to, stuff created in 1910. There weren’t that many Tin Pan Alley fans back then and they certainly couldn’t create playlists of their favorites along with their favorite Beatles and Stones.
That’s not hard. Didn’t those bands not get super popular until the 80s? I think of each of them as 80s bands even if they had plenty of material in the 70s. Maybe I’m just wrong.
When I asked the same question on my ham radio, I got lots of 1970s answers, too. Try making a TikTok that poses the same question.
Weird, I asked it in a print newspaper and got lots of old answers too. It’s almost like asking about cultural changes in dated media that younger people tend to avoid leads you to not get answers from younger people!
Also, ‘favorite’ is kind of a weird bar - if you’re just asking someone to name a ‘top few X’, they’re kind of likely to pick something they consider classics. If you were asking people in the 80s (especially people over 40, which is likely where forums skew today) what their favorite movie was, would it really surprise you to get a lot of answers like Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, and others from previous decades?
Like, I’m too old to be a Tiktokker, but it’s a fascinating new medium, in which the artists are mostly teenagers, and the art created is primarily silly and surreal, and is hugely responsive to what other people are making. It’s more of a community art model than the rock superstar model of the mid-twentieth century. AFAICT there’s nothing really like it in human history, unless you slow the speed down by a factor of 10,000 and compare it to folk songs of the pre-industrial age.
Maybe graffiti artists? They share the anonymity and desire to reach a large audience.
Interesting! Yeah, I could see that. TikTok is geographically unmoored, though, whereas graffiti is among the most geographically anchored art forms imaginable (topiary and possibly architecture are similarly anchored). TikTok’s ability to gain a worldwide audience within hours, even for previously-unknown artists, is pretty remarkable.
So last night’s Emmys reiterates the idea that I had that TV has moved on from the sole anti-hero dramas of the 00s - the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men listed earlier up thread. Succession, following Game of Thrones, were ensemble dramas - where the individuals engage in competition or cooperation among themselves as opposed to the most highly acclaimed shows following one flawed white man. The only highly acclaimed shows that follow the Sopranos/Breaking Bad/Mad Men sort of formula is Better Call Saul, which is a prequal to Breaking Bad (and has some differences to the early 00s mold).
What showcased this most to me is the show Halt and Catch Fire (which came out a year after Breaking Bad ended). It was supposed to be the next great AMC show - and in the first season they basically tried to make it a Mad Men in the software industry in the 1980s, with Lee Pace’s Joe MacMillan as the new Don Draper. But they realized it wasn’t working, so midway through the 1st season they quickly switched gears to make it an ensemble drama. By the 2nd season, Kerry Bishe and Mackenzie Davis’s characters (Donna Clark and Cameron Howe respectively) were arguable more central to the plot than Lee Pace’s character. And that’s when it started becoming critically lauded.
So I’d argue the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men may have kicked off this era of prestige TV, but those models aren’t the ones being followed these days. And is a big difference between 2000s TV and 2010s TV (at least at the end of the decade)
Do you not live in a place with trains?
I mean, sure, and they’re generally tagged to hell and back. But most of the graffiti I see is on a building. And even a trainside mural is far more anchored than a TikTok video.
That’s a really interesting point. The shows I’ve really enjoyed in the past few years –The Good Place, The Expanse, Watchmen, Teenage Bounty Hunters, Brooklyn 99–have been a lot less interested in the white dude antihero. No shame on that early-millennial game, there were some great stories told on those prestige shows; but I’m kind of over them. (Even in Watchmen the stories of the antihero dude were the least interesting part of the show).
Mostly 20s and 30s, but a few outliers.
Okay, so, you have folks in their 20s and 30s naming their favorite:
- Music, and they’re not talking about Kendrick Lamar, or Adele, or Janelle Monae, or Beyonce, or Kanye West, or Rihanna–or even Taylor Swift or Carly Rae Jepsen or Bruno Mars or Nicki Minaj?
- Movies, and they’re not talking about the Marvel movies, or Tarantino movies, or Pixar movies, or the Lord of the Rings movies or some of the smaller gems like Knives Out or Get Out or Sorry to Bother You?
- Comedy, and they’re not talking about John Mulaney, or Ali Wong, or Trevor Noah, or even cringe Louis CK? If you mean TV shows, they’re not talking about Brooklyn 99 or The Good Place or Schitt’s Creek?
- Literature, and Harry Potter doesn’t come up? Among millennials? Are you freaking kidding me?
Were these “multiple forums” all dedicated to Glenn Miller fans or something? Because I love me some Glenn Miller, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t find your results persuasive.
Heck I’m 40, and my friends are totally into Harry Potter - we all know our House. As for music, it definitely depends on which genre they are into. If they are into rock, then they are more inclined to listen to previous decades (because rock just isn’t that big in the mainstream anymore). Folks into pop or hiphop will focus on current music. I will note that when Beyoncé released Lemonade my social media went OFF.