Well, what I do find hard to understand about youth’s aesthetics for the last decade or so is that it’s so samey. There is just no one really sticking out. All the subcultures (be it punks, metalheads, hip hop, emo, what have you) have all but vanished, giving way to… Well… Nothing really. It’s not that “the youths are bad and weird” no. It’s that the youth is not weirdenough for my liking.
OMG so this! I was rocking out to some old NIN in the car and my 10 year old tells me to “turn it down please.” He also prefers button shirts. Did we somehow raise a bunch of straightedge squares? Is it now cool to not be cool?
It wasn’t about it being boring, he legitimately acts like an 80 year old man yelling about his lawn when it comes to stuff I used to think was cool. He’d say the same to those genres.
You’re not wrong there. I was a leader for youth summer camps from 2007 to now. When I went to them myself as a kid and then until 2015 or so, there was this ongoing discussion when each age group had to go to bed. Then, something changed. Nowadays, when I stand up from the campfire to see the 11 to 14 year olds to bed at 23:00 for example, I’ll get a weird look and get told that all of them had brushed their teeth, put sleeping clothes on and went to bed an hour ago all by themselves. On the one hand, that’s really self-caring and responsible of them. On the other hand it’s fucking self-caring and responsible go play in the mud already!
Well, what I do find hard to understand about youth’s aesthetics for the last decade or so is that it’s so samey. There is just no one really sticking out. All the subcultures (be it punks, metalheads, hip hop, emo, what have you) have all but vanished, giving way to… Well… Nothing really. It’s not that “the youths are bad and weird” no. It’s that the youth is not weirdenough for my liking.
OMG so this! I was rocking out to some old NIN in the car and my 10 year old tells me to “turn it down please.” He also prefers button shirts. Did we somehow raise a bunch of straightedge squares? Is it now cool to not be cool?
NIN always bored me too, though. Maybe try some Deathcore or Black Metal?
It wasn’t about it being boring, he legitimately acts like an 80 year old man yelling about his lawn when it comes to stuff I used to think was cool. He’d say the same to those genres.
You’re not wrong there. I was a leader for youth summer camps from 2007 to now. When I went to them myself as a kid and then until 2015 or so, there was this ongoing discussion when each age group had to go to bed. Then, something changed. Nowadays, when I stand up from the campfire to see the 11 to 14 year olds to bed at 23:00 for example, I’ll get a weird look and get told that all of them had brushed their teeth, put sleeping clothes on and went to bed an hour ago all by themselves. On the one hand, that’s really self-caring and responsible of them. On the other hand it’s fucking self-caring and responsible go play in the mud already!