What a fantastic website.
And fwiw, people in the 90s looked back on the 50s and thought “oh what a simpler, happier time.”
It’s a filtered lens you’re using and you are deluding yourself if you think that any time before you had it simpler and happier simply because they did not have “X” or “Y” that you do today.
How about date rape epidemics in the 90s? And women’s right and outlook for careers and equal pay?
LGBTQ rights? Hahahahahah
I mean, I can go on if you want?
I’m guessing you were a kid in 90s so things were simpler and happier for YOU because you did not have to worry about adult problems?
The reason 90s were much simpler times were because all we had was the TV, mainstream news media outlets, which we know today as far removed from actual journalism. You could turn it off and read a book or play video games (which also suffer from the curse of connectivity today and makes multiplayer a lot more toxic experience).
“Oh pity us, we got it so bad and they didn’t!!!”
It’s being removed enough to forget the painful parts, but being aware enough at the time of the good parts.
The painful parts decay faster than the good part memories, but schooling pain lasts forever! So the crossover seems to be in people’s early 20s
Being objective about your personal history is really hard - but it drives a lot of decisions today, so it’s good to at least revisit those “good times” to put them into the relevant context (too few people do this!)
Probably a difference in human and emotional education. Times were slightly rougher in the 60-80s.. people may have had thicker skin and more social skills.
All in all it might just be a natural cycle of sclerosis, not help by the internet amplifier.
ps YouTube suggested some letterman shows with meg parsont (a random employee working in front of the studio building) I felt Dave was a bit intrusive if not bullish on her. Made me feel conflicted, as I hold the dude and show very high in mind.
To me, everything changed with the internet, and especially with smart phones + social media.
I was an adult for a period before all of this, and definitely still feel those were much “simpler times” vs. when all these things came about.
Information spreading literally at the speed of light has changed everything. And not all for the worse, but it’s definitely been a double-edged sword.
I am regularly watching historic news footage (1950s and 1960s) from the archives of my local TV station. While the people are indeed friendlier than today (and much more eloquent), they don't seem happier. They don't seem less stressed. The general problems are the same. I watched a bit from 1961 about the growing problem of extreme weather events (they discussed whether the atomic bomb was responsible). Another bit from 1962 reported youth crime at an all time high and blamed alcohol, sex and movies. They showed 15 years old tricking themselves into student clubs in Heidelberg to consume alcohol and drugs. A few weeks ago, I watched a bit about the Hong Kong flu pandemic in 1969 (40.000 deaths in Germany alone) where they discussed countermeasures like quarantine and closing schools.
Also, a national TV station here shows "News from 20 years ago", where they just show the entire evening news from exactly 20 years ago. I have been watching this for years now, often while I am walking around the room. Just from the audio, it is often very hard to decide whether the news is from today or from the 90ies. The topics are often the same: politicians accusing each other of X, party Y announcing they now do X, violent conflicts in X, latest election polls, fear of war in Y.
When I watch these bits, I often think of these lines from the Joan Baez song "Hello in There" [0]:
Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more
She sits and stares through the back door screen
All the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen
At any rate, it is broadly true that the 90s was a happier time than present.
Today, people can't let you enjoy reminiscing about a period in time without bringing up everything horrible or sub optimal about that time.
It's a pervasive cynicism that wasn't broadly shared then. I was a kid in the 90s exploring AOL chat rooms, forums, the web, etc. It was a very groovy time. Lots of discussions about politics, but it wasn't toxic like today. There are sharp lines today and if you are right of center you're either being deplatformed or shadow banned or called a neo-Nazi.
I mean, you mention gay rights. AOL, the most mainstream internet app had a prominent Gay & Lesbian section and a chat room for folks to meet or discuss commonalities. Nobody was canceling AOL over it. It was just another interest group next to Sports, Video Games, Politics, Religion, etc. You'd wind up meeting gay people through some discussions on the various chat rooms. And we'd honestly debate about whether homosexuality was a choice or not. And in my naivete I took one side of that issue and a gay boy that posted in that vg forum took the other side. It taught me how to understand them. Today, if someone says something outside of whatever the prevailing dogma is, they are treated like they're terrible people. Experiences like that are how you grow as a person. And we cut that off at the knees today trying to make sure no one's feelings are hurt. But all that does is create resentment and divide.
I do have some great memories from the 90s, but for a few years I lived in a town south of Chicago that was heavy in gangs where I would regularly hear semi-automatic gun fire, see the river getting trolled for bodies and lived next to a professional bike thief. My father's truck was robbed of tools, my bike was stolen, my friends were poor as dirt and I couldn't play in their yards because I am white and they were afraid their neighbors would beat the shit out of me or kill me, and one of those friends was in a gang (learned that 15 years later). I remember lots of good things, but my 90s experience wasn't all that pleasant.
It’s so easy to lose the context of our place in history when there’s a constant stream of voices all pointing and screaming at the “now”.
The idea of time travel being a fun concept, especially in recent history has very real implications if you go anywhere in the world where you're a minority or not from a colonial power subjecting people to your will.
Wow... the first channel I landed was CBS from 1992 with coverage of the recession with the day labor for manual workers in Los Angeles with white guys next to Mexican laborers, and then as if that wasn't absurd enough the next segment for the 'Michelangelo virus' with John Mcaffee (the guy who I saw said he'd eat his dick if BTC didn't reach $1 million [0]) was pumping his anti-virus software in Santa Clara like it was the pre-cursor to Y2k or something. And then wrapped up with the breaking up of the Soviet Union's Red Army military disbanding to serve as local counterprts for now independent soviet satellite nations.
I'm not sure why I felt I was watching all of this like it it was the first time, even though I lived all of through this and saw a lot of it in TV first hand back then... it was incredibly surreal.
0 https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/john-mcafee-dick-bitcoin-bet...
Never followed Letterman's work as I never found him funny and it always felt like a used car salemen's type shtick, I was more likely to watch Jay Leno due to him being in LA and loving cars. Honestly Simpsons or Married with Children re-runs were more entertaining than both to me...
But, I watched that Comedy Store documentary from last year and heard from guys like Chris Rock in other interviews throughout the years that Letterman was generally known to be a total miserable grump when not on stage.
His persona and his real life demeanor were 180s of each other, which kind of makes sense the more you learn about how messed up psychologically and emotionally comedians often are and given how much time the spent on Freddy Prince's suicide, it really drove the point home that they are often just broken toys with a narrow focus on doing something to east their deep pain. And Letterman was from that era of comedians and was around the store back then.
What are you trying to say by mentioning that white people "were not offensive" about the oj simpson trial? That is not the same thing as a black person getting beat and mamed _on video_, then having the four people responsible get _acquitted_ of wrong doing.
> I'm hoping 2021 can be the year that empathy and unity starts making a comeback in America.
You might have to first realize why some people would feel there are massive systemic injustices. It might have felt simpler and happier when you didn't have to confront extreme imbalances of justice. If you want "empathy and unity" then be part of the solution.
Gay people got screwed not matter the race, tho.
The Rodney King verdict started the riots, I didn't say anything about anyone in the riots. Go back, read everything again and try to follow along this time so you don't hallucinate what people are saying.