So... there's no rebellious counterculture for the younger generation this time around, then?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Since I’m now officially an old fart, it’s my turn to yell at the youngsters camping out on my lawn, and tell them to get their shit together. The only problem is… generally speaking, they already seem to have their shit together. At least a lot more than my generation did. I find this unsettling. Could we possibly be raising the first generation since who knows when who are obviously going to be better than their parents?

They don’t listen to strange, subversive music. Instead, they’re mostly into mainstream stuff. They dress nice. They wear expensive sneakers. Instead of being long-haired and scruffy, they’re all quaffed and washed.

They don’t smoke or drink (much). They don’t do drugs (much). They seem to be mostly into going to the gym and playing sports. They get up in the morning. As far as I can tell, they’re mostly going to grow up to be ridiculously well-educated, with masters’ degrees coming out the wazoo.

They’re more conservative than my generation was when it comes to sex and relationships. Modesty seems to be back in vogue. Only it’s a peculiar kind of conservatism, that sees gay and minority rights, a multicultural society and equal rights and opportunities for women as given and as good things. Wowza.

The worst thing I can say about them, I guess, is that they’re materialistic and superficial, and spend all their time on that newfangled Twitter thing. And, well, they have tattoos. At least some do.

But, yeah, when these guys grow up, I think they’re going to make the current crop of adults look like lazy, unwashed idiots. Actually, they’re kind of doing that already. I’m partly impressed and partly scared by this. Whatever happened to hippies and punks, and driving your parents crazy?

Am I just imagining this? Or maybe it just applies to my particular neck of the woods?

Your thoughts?

2

But they all live with their parents for way longer than anyone else (except those of us who also did), are under-employed or un-employed and will be paying off their student loans forever.

They’re too depressed to rebel.

3

OP, some of that you’re right on. But I don’t see how you came up with the one about “modesty being back in vogue.” Teenage girls seem to think that it’s their God-given right to parade around wearing shorts that are SO short, that they are essentially wearing underwear with pockets.

Mind you, they’re taught from a very early age that it’s perfectly fine to go half-naked in public. If there were any significant return to modesty, you wouldn’t see things like this–

4

I think you’re off base with the drugs and sex thing, drug use is more accepted than ever among young people and more varied than ever. Every week sees a new “research chemical” hit the market from labs in China, synthetic cannabinoids and stimulants are all over the place.

Sex is just different in the post HIV era, less promiscuous but also less inhibited.

5

I really don’t see what you’re on about with these photo links, especially the first one. These are the shorts that you find indecently short? Are you kidding?

Not that I don’t think that young women (and some not so young women) dress way too provocatively, but if you were going for examples of that, then I’m afraid you failed.

6

At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, it is not necessarily a virtue to have a young generation that is unquestioningly obedient to authority.

7

I think you have been exposed to a biased subsample of the given cohort. Recently I’ve been exposed to a quite different subsample which left me with the distinct impression that American society was going to suddenly collapse upon itself in about five years. Basically, people who seemed to have no plans, or ambition, to do anything – ever – except play video games all day. And I could kind of understand it, because the sort of entry-level jobs that used to be there for “average” high school grads when I was their age seem to have mostly gone overseas.

8

Strange, subversive music is a bad thing? And the mainstream is good? Black Sabbath bad, Miley Cyrus good? Dubstep? Expensive sneakers are an intrinsically good thing (and wasn’t that a 90s thing anyway)? Nitpick: coiffed, although that term’s something I associate with the 50s and Brylcreem.

Cigarette smoking is down. The other things are not. Yes, calling someone a faggot is much less acceptable. Short shorts have been a thing for decades, but I’m pretty sure I could find more modestly dressed young women and some with much less on.

Living with parents is two phenomena: mid to late 20 somethings who never moved out of their homes, and mid to late 20 somethings who had to move back home for financial reasons. The second may be a product of our time, the first is probably not a good thing

If I read Messr. Strauss and Howe right (and I don’t particularly ascribe to the theory), the current generation is of a similar mindset.

Every generation is worse than the last. Every generation is better than the last.

9

Counter culture among the youth is still there, but mostly happens on their cell phones and on discussion boards.

10

Things like kids having a lemonade stand?

As far as the others, I’m not saying the shorts aren’t short, but they certainly aren’t any shorter than what was common in the 70s, 80s, 90s+ I was expecting to see cheeks hanging out or something.

11

Remember “Purple People Eater”? (Sheb Wooley, 1958, IIRC)
“Who wears short shorts?
We wear short shorts”…

Those have been around several generations, and still, somehow, civilization muddles on…

12

Remember they wont have the paper thin bodies to wear such short-shorts for very long. After about age 16 the hips get rounder and after 18 the weight starts to come on strong if you dont work hard at keeping it off.

Now what is bad is when older women think they still have the bodies of teenagers and go around wearing this stuff.

13

Strange, subversive music is mainstream now.

I don’t know how old you are, but here’s what you’re missing about millennials: our subversive, parent-irritating tendency is not drugs or free love or protesting. It’s an extended childhood. Partly this has been forced on many of us by a job market we were told would be rosy and turned out to be pretty crappy. Partly we’ve adopted it because… I’m not sure why, exactly. But it might be because we’ve followed the Baby Boomers, the most thoroughly spoiled people in the history of the world.

14

Most kids don’t rebel. Never have either.

I think that the increased ease of communication has allowed today’s young people the opportunity to find their peers wherever they may be instead of joining in with the local “troublemakers.” Youth culture is much more fragmented than it was back in my day, kids have more choices in how to display their individuality.

They will probably convince themselves that they were all in the same culture one day. About the time they start wondering what their kids are up to.

15

But for males, on the other hand…

Modesty’s been way in vogue for decades now.

16

I thought the current music for old farts to get mad about was rap? See, for example, the comments tothis rather tame reference.

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Rap’s been around since the late 1970’s - my first exposure to it was Rapper’s Delight (1979), which swept our (very white) school like nothing else. You have to be older than 50 to say “They didn’t play that crap while I was growing up!”

ETA: And after I wrote the above, I looked at the Pearls Before Swine strip… LOL @ myself. :smiley:

18

Unless this is some kind of whoosh, most of those girls wouldn’t have been out of place when I was growing up in the 1950s.

Like this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

19

I think nowadays you have alot of parents who still live the counter culture life or do many “bad” things like smoke pot or lead sexually wild lifestyles that it can be hard for a kid to actually be rebellious and if they are, its the parents who will tease them for being “goody 2 shoes”.

20

yeah there is

there’s occupy wall street