So as We discuss, I’m refining my crotchetiness….I think the issue is threefold:
I don’t know if “crazy” amount of time is necessarily true. I don’t find too much in the way of trouble finding good, new video games if I bother to go look- it’s usually just a handful of minutes and I can find something I’d be willing to try out.
The trick, I think is being tuned into the communities and places to find stuff. For example, the Dope is a gold mine for science fiction novel recommendations, I find. Same for TV shows. Not so much video games, but that’s probably because I have a better line on finding them (I have a friend who used to work in the AAA video game industry).
I also think that to some degree we (collectively) were less discerning because we couldn’t afford to be. I mean, there were only SO many movies at the cinema at any given time, and video rental places didn’t necessarily have the movie you wanted, either in-stock or at all. So we made do with what was available. Same thing with video games- you went to Babbage’s or Fry’s or wherever, and perused what was out every so often, and bought what grabbed you. Maybe you looked at PC Gamer ahead of time to get an idea of what was and wasn’t good. But you were limited by what was literally on the shelves within whatever range you were willing to cover to find games. Same thing with music, books, etc…
Now with the advent of the internet, nearly everything is constantly available, so the question becomes less of finding the best of a limited selection, and more of finding something truly good out of all the various sources that are out there now.
Which is a tougher climb in some ways, in that you KNOW there’s something good out there, and there’s concern that you might not find it, as opposed to being somewhat resigned in the knowledge that you’ll watch/play/read a fair deal of crap like we used to.
People who buy tiny homes do so because they want a very minimalist lifestyle. It’s NOT a good way to save money. There’s a whole lot of zoning and other issues that come along with it.
I think that those of us who grew up in a highly curated environment are often disconcerted by the lack of middlemen in entertainment, media and art. Back in the day, if a select group of cognoscenti didn’t like a given artist or work then nobody’s going to see it–lack of access to the audience directly because the gatekeepers are busily winnowing away at the talent pool. Only a band who could score a label contract would be heard no matter how good they might be. Books had to be sold to a publisher and an editor had to sign off to allow it to be presented to the public. There were a handful of TV studios and movie producers who had to buy your concept or you’re dead in the water. So yeah, there’s a lot more crap but that’s just because the barriers to access are basically gone. There are no gatekeepers. Which means a lot of sifting to find the good stuff, but places like Reddit are really good at crowdsourcing the classification of classic or crap.
Me, I just try to stay good at defining search terms to get what I need. I’m medium crotchety so I’m fine with waiting a decade to see what art is still considered worthy–I’m not too concerned with staying au courant on every genre. It’s pretty hard to be bored though, unless I’m just being resistant to trying something new. There’s plenty of cool shit out there to find out about.
As for computer games, my take on it is while we are young our brains are being wired to our world, so there is a compelling reason and thus desire to explore while our brains are ‘pliable’, and that can make exploring games very much fun and very easy to get lost in that world. But once those neural pathways are pretty much complete, the brain is done incorporating new stuff into its version of reality and the desire to explore new stuff goes down. By that age the person should have enough understanding of the world from life experiences to fill out the rest of its years and no reason to use resources in further development of it’s understanding of reality. Additionally new games usually involved innovation, doing stuff that was not done that way before, so this new ‘reality’ a younger brain develops the ability to incorporate it into it’s understanding of reality. But it’s just foreign and forever will be foreign to an older brain which will no longer try to figure it out.
That is….a disturbingly astute observation…
I don’t think its any much better today. “You kids are great, but while Duke Moldyfig is in decline, he’s still an established brand, and a safer bet” The fact that real paper is no longer needed for novels nor vinyl for music is only part of it
In fact, a significant portion of authors of the Lost through Greatest generations could be depended upon to drink themselves into early graves, as would a good percent of Baby Boomer musicians. But eminent Millennials will live on wheat grass superfoods forever, hold forth at college campuses and score with undergrads as yet unborn.
I haven’t had Crotchety in so long, I’m not even sure if I’ll get Hardity anymore.
I read that first as Hannity and I shivered so badly I sent my laptop flying to the floor.
CGI effects in movies started out as a way to promote the story without the elaborate use of models and practical effects. But it still was about moving the story along. It quickly moved on into a laziness form of story telling where the effects become the story.
The viewing public is mainly to blame. They no longer have the time or attention span to follow a plot and let it develop, they will get bored, so you need an explosion, an impossible car wreak or chase, comic book super heroes, etc. Because that is what will sell with your audience on Adderall . We end up with flash bang movies that are “blockbusters” and soon as forgettable as Tuesday’s Chinese take out food.
Major movies from even a few years ago would not be made today. Oscar award winning movies would just tank. Movies and comic books used to be separate venues but no longer. The viewing public will not sit still for plot development.
I can hardly wait for Fast and Furious 12, Drifting on the Moon.
Plus the oneupsmanship that you needed for each summer blockbuster…we blew up the White House….we blew up New York and LA….we Blew up the northern Continent….we blew up the moon and THEN hit the planet so hard there wouldn’t have been any kind of atmosphere yet.
Why would anyone waste their time answering you? You’ve already decided everything that you don’t like is crap.
(Old man continuing to yell at cloud)
There was a tactile aspect of pawing through a (granted limited) selection of cassettes, LP’s 8-tracks, Minidiscs, TransFlashes, MiniDV’s at the local music store…and an excitement in going to ‘the big city’ to see the establishment that was ‘at least twice as big as the store back home’… that you just don’t get in the curated front page of the music streaming services. There’s a definite band of music that I like, and will always like, but don’t think in the moment to hit the 
favorite tag so that they get incorporated into my favorites list.
Further, Apple’s curated music front page (which is what I’m most familiar with…cuz walled garden and sticky subscriptions…shows me entirely too much mumble-rap for my tastes…so I don’t go there much…and there’s a distinct endorphin hit in listing to ‘the music of my youth.’
(Though I’ll admit, Post Modern Jukebox is scratching an itch I didn’t even know I had.)
What, this again!? Stop yer bitch in’, already.
Me, no, I’m not crotchety, why you ask?