literally every reaction I have to "the current culture" I try to gut check against this trend - ThreadSky

jacobgeller.com • 167 days ago

literally every reaction I have to "the current culture" I try to gut check against this trend

Great data journalism: people report “best times” is when they were 10-15 yo

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Comments

beexcellentpartyon.bsky.social•167 days ago

“I’m aware of my surroundings and can independently operate but I’m not financially responsible for myself or anyone else for that matter.”

daltimusprime.bsky.social•167 days ago

Olay, I see your point, but Kingdom Hearts II came out when I was 10 and I think it's pretty hard to argue that we as a culture haven't been downhill ever since.

theladyophelia.bsky.social•166 days ago

Interesting that “best music” has the most exaggerated peak. We often forget how influential music is for most humans.

seraphell.bsky.social•167 days ago

Not me, I'm like the opposite of this trend opinions wise. Except TV, the TV one is correct.

jacenat.bsky.social•167 days ago

This graph works strange for Europeans who got US TV shows anywhere from 3 to 7 years later back in the day.
I remember watching Knight Rider and it blowing up on merch here ... In the early 90s.

atomicsilver.bsky.social•167 days ago

Ha, thanks to my abusive upbringing, I have no nostalgic best time to look back on!

Oh. Crap.

dennywhere.bsky.social•167 days ago

Same! We're so lucky*!

But hey maybe the best time is today and maybe the worst is long since over. :)

kensakitataki.bsky.social•167 days ago

what’s nuts is that i was NOT having a good time from 10 - 15 and it seemed like i hated everything around me/everything sucked, but i guarantee nostalgia is gonna hit me like a truck in another 5 years 😭

epicopenworld.bsky.social•167 days ago

This is why every games person on a podcast says whatever console was out when they were kids is their favorite and games they played in that age range are there favorites

jacenat.bsky.social•167 days ago

The best years for gaming so far were 2004 (when I was 22) and 2023 (when I was 41).
Lots of really good shit in between, but the releases in these years were truly exceptional.
The PS4 and PS5 are the best consoles so far. I owned a PS1 when I was 15. It wasnt good in hindsight.

20goto10.xyz•167 days ago

The Dreamcast came out and died while I was still in diapers and I maintain that it was the peak of the gaming industry

leifolsen.bsky.social•167 days ago

Curious how much resistance us the years 2016-2021 will give us '06 kids to this

jeffbach.bsky.social•167 days ago

Probably not much tbh. You/they might remember Shitty Meme President but the underlying truth (developing independence/tastes, still not ground down with Adultness) is still there in most part

luansoliveira.bsky.social•167 days ago

the replies blatantly missing the point are making me feral

mjcounsellor.bsky.social•167 days ago

Checks what games were released when I was 15…

Silent Hill
Planescape Torment
Age of Empires II
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Unreal Tournament
Final Fantasy VIII
System Shock 2

Theory checks out.

Movies are similar…

Matrix
The Mummy
10 Things I Hate About You
Green Mile
Toy Story 2
6th Sense

sirvenus.bsky.social•167 days ago

I was a teenager in the early 2000s. Even my nostalgia-addled brain isn't powerful enough to erase just how awful the popular music scene was (popular rock music especially).

mattsteg.bsky.social•167 days ago

As an early-20s guy in that time period it wasn't nearly that bad predominantly due to the carryovers from the 90s.

maskedmatician.bsky.social•167 days ago

The normal distribution on that best music curve is impressive

tofubl00d.bsky.social•167 days ago

So I guess 50 is where everything starts to suck

starstormx1.bsky.social•146 days ago

...wow, my 10-15 was 2005-2011. Explains my bias towards the X360/PS3/Wii era of gaming (including DS and PSP), Windows Vista and 7, etc. Provided, I don't hate newer stuff myself, but it's interesting how well I respond to pop culture in that year range...

starstormx1.bsky.social•146 days ago

Provided, in my case, there were other factors that did make things worse for me (namely, my father losing his old job around that timeframe and moving near the end of it), so not everything was perfect at the time. I wonder if it's because our brains were prone to absorption of what's going on then

robosllim.bsky.social•167 days ago

The fun thing to notice is that I agree the best music was from my early teens to early 20s, but I don't really seek out new stuff much these days.

I watch a shitload of movies from every decade though, so I have no strong attachment to a specific era.

New experiences dampen feelings of nostalgia?

kayla.inarizushi.club•167 days ago

not my fault i was born in the correct year

dysparadia.bsky.social•167 days ago

I think about this exact thing a lot. It also reminds me of the occasional post I’ll see on the Red Dead Redemption 2 subreddit of people saying they wish they lived in the 18-1900s, before getting lightly roasted in the comments.

tyschalter.com•167 days ago

man i love that tv was always best when we were 10 and sports were always best when we were 20.

love this for us

vgto.bsky.social•167 days ago

But like the PS1 was good Jacob. Let me love stuff! I’m old, it’s all I have. lol

jacenat.bsky.social•167 days ago

I really dislike that this is how most people operate. I tend to connect with people that show very weak traditional nostalgia. And those are few and often because of trauma.

jcrmxyz.bsky.social•167 days ago

Y'know I was about to push against this, but when I was a teenager I bought Dishonoured and Human Revolution and the "summer of stealth action" is the best summer I've ever had. So yeah they got something here.

dominictarason.com•167 days ago

Man, when I think back to the games I was playing age 10-15, it was the tail end of the DOS era/start of wildly overpriced 3D acceleration and honestly things were pretty shit for the most part.

Some gems in there of course, but so much frustration and ALL the technical issues.

paulpower.bsky.social•167 days ago

10-15 would be 1995-2000 to me. Which does kinda check out, I've got Theme Hospital, the early Worms games, Total Annihilation, SimCity 3000.

There's a lot of stuff I've loved more since, but if nothing else it's probably keyed in an aesthetic preference for high-def pixel art.

gabjet.bsky.social•167 days ago

I would struggle so hard to answer a lot of those questions lol. When was America the most "moral society"? uh it's pretty much all bad. Best radio? Does that even still exist?

gabjet.bsky.social•167 days ago

Genuinely wonder if "I don't know/no opinion" was an option in this survey, because I don't see how that could be reflected in those graphs.

grjohnson.bsky.social•167 days ago

Im curious if there's any data on when people say pop culture was the worst. For me it was right around my own birth (early 90s) but I'd like to know if it's been studied.

jacobgeller.com•167 days ago

Obviously there are many things that are currently very bad, but it's crazy how uncritically people wax poetic about basically whenever they were 15

razbuten.bsky.social•167 days ago

Okay, but also some people’s 10-15 (ie mine) are more right

imnotjim.bsky.social•167 days ago

Went right over your head, didn't it?

pbstin.bsky.social•167 days ago

Went right over your head, didn’t it?

imnotjim.bsky.social•167 days ago

unironically yes :(

pandamonium.bsky.social•167 days ago

It will be okay.

imnotjim.bsky.social•167 days ago

Its too late for me, brother. Tell my wife I love her.

jacenat.bsky.social•167 days ago

Ooofff ... You know you should go to a sauna to cook yourself, not bsky!

imnotjim.bsky.social•167 days ago

jacobgeller.com•167 days ago

replying to an obvious joke with "went right over your head" is a rough spot to be, my condolences

imnotjim.bsky.social•167 days ago

absolutequinoa.bsky.social•167 days ago

jacenat.bsky.social•167 days ago

Boy your channel would be so different if you were born 78-84. Your "early 3d games" power would be unmatched. 😅

willk3d.com•167 days ago

Important to always check what Adults with Bills were saying at the time.

reterence.bsky.social•167 days ago

To be 15 is to think you are well versed enough about the world to be jaded without true understanding, but I would be lying if I did not feel like I felt everything so much more strongly in those times. Every song and game affecting. Every artwork a masterpiece.

reterence.bsky.social•167 days ago

I've been made to cry by so many things since then, excellent media abounds, but the endorphin highs of the teen years seem to elude me.

steelpan.dev•167 days ago

what irks me is that statistics like these more often get used to handwaive our actual current issues than as the fun tidbit that it is

it's the perfect "Actually don't worry about the nazis and global warming and housing crisis, you're just ✨ nostalgic ✨"

admiral-monke.bsky.social•167 days ago

Understanding that what motivates fascist hysteria would be comical if the consequences weren't so terrible is crucial to understanding the phenomenon.

It is, always, at its core, something primarily driven by the neurosis of middle class rubes.

tannerbaum.bsky.social•167 days ago

Joke's on them, my nostalgia is from the 6-10 age (N64/GC).

Which is also 20+ years ago now.

koberiddle.bsky.social•167 days ago

I think it has a lot to do with the good stuff being remembered and the bad forgotten. In a way, it shows that we have a great capacity to move on and look at the bright side, it just takes time.

fireflows.bsky.social•166 days ago

Most people remember the bad more than the good. If you're the opposite I am happy for and jealous of you.

mrskippy69.bsky.social•167 days ago

"society was at its peak when I had the best intersection of free time and autonomy to use it"

remoaugusto.bsky.social•167 days ago

📌

lumpawaroomd.bsky.social•167 days ago

Arcade Fire put out The Suburbs the year I was 15 and it would be easy to delude myself into believing it was a magical time for music except I clearly remember that 70% of the radio airtime was Tik Tok by Kesha

chatsubo.cafe•167 days ago

I'm not that surprised I guess, I'd wager most people are going to wax poetic about the time when they probably had the least amount of responsibility and stress.

reesejensen.bsky.social•167 days ago

It’s crazy how much of fascism is guys experiencing this and instead of exercising the most minimal level of self-awareness or reflection, deciding to get super racist about it

fireflows.bsky.social•166 days ago

Integration is so incredibly recent. I'm certain Trump never attended class with a nonwhite person.

I would love to see a study of the correlation between attending an all-shite High School and racial animus.

xavion251.bsky.social•166 days ago

It's pride.

milfsslayer.bsky.social•167 days ago

I actively resist any thought that contains a "nowadays" for this exact reason. Unless you've got data to show a change or trend, im gonna assume its purely nostalgia-fuelled

yaboisilkie.bsky.social•167 days ago

Too many people I know are just locked in the thought that high school created the best media they'll ever experience ever and there's no way to recapture the magic.

...

There's treasures beyond the horizon!

sheamcc2.bsky.social•167 days ago

To be fair though if you were a 12 year old boy in 2012 you did have it good.

theslopguy120.bsky.social•167 days ago

Luckily, I can't remember shit from even last year

buny.bsky.social•167 days ago

never thought about it but being trans (at least in my experience) made it so there's two of these spikes. there's the regular teen one and then it's the stuff that got burned into my brain right as I was transitioning from like 19-23

influfferious.bsky.social•167 days ago

The music one is fascinating. Especially when I feel it myself. Are we humans just built in a way that we build our life long preference for music at such a young age?

It seems to be the strongest nostalgia by far. What's about music that's so different from the other things?

emofo.bsky.social•162 days ago

Can't find it, but read an article about that phenomenon: said the rush of hormones at ~14 "makes everything that's happening feel important", espec. music. At that age you start to make your own listening choices as well, even forming an identity round it.
+ music is omnipresent, unlike other media

emofo.bsky.social•162 days ago

Like, you'll hear it in the grocery store/from your neighbor's radio/in other media/etc even if you're not personally into music.
Just a guess at why that could be

tomudev.bsky.social•167 days ago

So nostalgia peaks around the age people start having less time to find and engage with new art

nf-redux.bsky.social•167 days ago

9-to-14 for me. the era of Pretty Hate Machine to The Downward Spiral. Good times!

chelleehrhardt.bsky.social•167 days ago

Ah yes, the halcyon years of the US in 2001 - 2006

themusesappho.bsky.social•167 days ago

This just reminds me of the time when I was like 13 and I told my parents I liked a particular band and my Dad was like you'd better, you're going to be listening to them for the rest of your life.

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