A series of comments on yesterday’s post by neopatron Bayou Bomber struck a chord with multiple readers.
In the interest of giving the people what they want, here are his insights on the successive deaths of hipsterism and nerdery, slightly rearranged for ease of reading.
A couple of thoughts:
1) “I was dragged to some fashion-world event in the Bowery in New York: the room was full of cool young people there to be seen, and they were listening to a playlist of Top-40 pop music curated for them by a proprietary mathematical equation. As someone who had grown up in the hipster age, all these people seemed incredibly lame. The world had been given over to the nerds.”I’ve worked in the restaurants and been in enough retail stores to know how lame and frustrating the music selection is. Kid you not, went on a trip to the beach with some friends and every radio station was playing the same 6 to 8 songs. We’d swap from one station to another just to escape a specific song(s) only to hear it soon after swapping stations. The distribution industry for music (and entertainment as a whole) is broken.
Related: Did Nerds Destroy Hipsters?
The songs on the radio I hear all the time date back from 2006-2012, depending on the station.
It’s an odd phenomenon that zoomers have latched onto the 90’s as their decade of choice to build an identity around. I had some as subordinates and they threw a fit if the 90’s station wasn’t on. I have a zoomer office aid now who plays the game of “have you head of this word or phrase?” thinking I’m too old to know what it is. Sometimes I won’t, but other times I laugh because it’s just an old 90’s word or phrase being recycled in the current year.
2) A good theme for everything now is “inflation”. Financially we are inflated, morally inflated, politically inflated, culturally inflated. It never sat right with me that nerd stuff like comic books and anime got huge. I think 20- years ago, it was at a fine size, just large enough to warrant shelf space in a book store, but not large enough to occupy a whole wall. It flew a bit under the radar, sure most people would see it, but they wouldn’t think much of it. Now everyone knows about it and wants to jump on the bandwagon – inflation.
I don’t think it will all come crashing down like people think think it will, I just see a nicely paced deflation, bringing us back to a healthy equilibrium.
The inflation is a product of the bankruptcy. “We don’t have enough of the valuable thing so we need to [make] more of that thing!”
At least with bankruptcy, assets are seized to try and balance the books. But what will be taken from this inflation? Nothing of value. At least with our current cultural deflation, we will see all the waste get flushed and it will allow the opportunity for something better to take its place.
And what of the generation that presided over all the fake money shenanigans?
The clock is ticking for Boomers. Each day we make it forward, is another day closer they are to the grave or nursing home or irrelevancy. It’s a small bit, but deflation is happening now. Just give it some more time.
My comment:
It’s a sad but true fact of life that change happens one funeral and retirement party at a time.
That dynamic holds true across every field of human endeavor. The theory of plate techtonics didn’t gain dominance until all the geologists who opposed it exited the stage.
Some say that intergenerational conflicts waste time. But it can’t be denied that the social upheavals that ushered in Clown World occurred during the rise of the Baby Boomers. And they’ve perpetuated the cultural degeneration even since.
That’s not even to blame most of them. Old habits die hard, and neuroplasticity decreases with age. That’s why you always have to wait for the old boss to bow out before the fresh blood can effect any real changes.
Right now, the Boomers are in the middle of their less-than-graceful exit. And we’re already seeing signs of a major correction. That’s especially true in the Church.
- Eucharistic processions are drawing record crowds during a heat wave
- Millennial priests are more doctrinally conservative than Silent Generation priests.
- Traditional Catholic universities are full to the rafters with new students.
The era of guitar masses, felt banners, and self-worship is coming to its end.
Catholic live streamer Pinesap documents more of the Boomer-abetted crisis and represents the dawning renewal in his recent tour de force against Modernism.
Watch it here:
All I can say after watching that stream is we’re getting a confessional integralist state, and there’s nothing the Death Cult can do to stop it.
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“The era of guitar masses, felt banners, and self-worship is coming to its end.”
Canon Lawyer Ed Peters calls it the “Burlap and Butterflies” era. Also, I’ve heard one priest call the traditional trend in the Church the “seminaries and cemeteries” solution.
Grim but true.
“The era of guitar masses, felt banners, and self-worship is coming to its end.”
About dang time!
The most beautiful rendition of the Agnus Dei that I heard was a modern arrange at my old campus parish. The women sang every verse in English, and the men joined in with a Latin harmony during the final verse. The piano also sounded like it was playing for an “updated” Mass for a change instead of a concert.
The tradeoff was that Agnus Dei was the only good part. The Mass as a whole sounded like an insipid modern musical.
“Traditional Catholic universities are full to the rafters with new students.”
And there’s faculty to teach them. I was talking to a professor from one of those universities a couple of weeks ago, and he said that there are enough talented, orthodox, teaching-focused Ph.Ds out there to staff five such schools.
Can confirm. If the supply of theologians with advanced degrees didn’t exceed demand, I wouldn’t be here writing this.
Too funny. 🙂
“Old habits die hard, and neuroplasticity decreases with age. That’s why you always have to wait for the old boss to bow out before the fresh blood can effect any real changes.”
More Popes should exercise their right to retire like Benedict XVI.
There are solid arguments for the pope to be an old man who should be in retirement. Peter is usually picked as at least middle age when he becomes an apostle. It’s not the CEO of a company.
Didn’t persistent rumor about 5-10 years ago have it that Francis would follow suit, or did I dream it?
It was definitely being talked about, and some of Francis’ offhand comments that he’d consider it fueled the speculation.
I don’t think it’s a good idea for several reasons.
Do tell.
The reasons? I think papal retirements should be the exception rather than the rule, and doing two back to back would set expectations for the latter.
Also, Benedict XVI never wanted to be pope (or even part of the Curia), and I think he was perfectly happy in retirement and would have been happier if people hadn’t tried to drag him back into the limelight. I don’t think Francis is cut from the same cloth.
Our Pope Francis seems to have a great deal of the OG Peter about him, except being Italian of course.
From a distance, Benedict seemed to be more the quiet academic type.
Last year, I read the book “Iron John” by Robert Bly which talked about Jungian psychology and a version of the masculine journey. I liked it and found it insightful. One thing I got out of that book with is a better understanding of why boomerism started. While I bash on boomers as much as the next person, I do also have equal amounts of pity on them. They’re the generation that saw their fathers come home from war ‘changed’. Reduced to traumatized shut down statues incapable of showing emotion or love that children need in their formative years. On top of that, when your parents are called “the greatest generation”, how can you not expect to develop an inferiority complex from that? In response, Boomers armed with the pain of daddy issues, set out to build a world that would make themselves seem greater than their fathers. There were no more wars to fight, but industry was ripe for the taking, so they did. To solidify their legacy, they took to Bathorian (Elizabeth Bathory) practices, sacrificing the young to preserve their longevity. I don’t condone what that generation did, but I understand it.
We are seeing the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. I deem the Eucharistic revival as a sign that God still loves us enough to not wipe us out just yet. He’d rather stir the hearts of the faithful to turn the tide. If there is any one thing to point to as a sign of a hopeful future it’s that. Many faithful have endured, God has prepared their hearts, and now He’s letting them have their time to shine.
“They’re the generation that saw their fathers come home from war ‘changed’.”
The Boomers are born after the end of WWII. They never knew any other parents. The Silents may have seen some of that.
“On top of that, when your parents are called “the greatest generation”, how can you not expect to develop an inferiority complex from that? ”
The Boomers called them “the greatest generation”, coined by a Boomer pundit whose name escapes me. It was a weepy book he wrote. The WWII generation did not call themselves that. Personally, I tend to believe it’s a narcissistic trait of the Boomers to alternately idolize and demonize their parents.
“Boomers armed with the pain of daddy issues, set out to build a world that would make themselves seem greater than their fathers.”
The Boomers do seem to have an incredible amount of Daddy issues. The people I remember in my family from the WWII generation were not overly warm people. I’m sure that’s a part of it. They were also prone to using the TV as babysitter, the first generation to do so. That said, the issue with Daddy issues is that it is infantile in an adult. At some point you grow up and forgive your parents for their less than perfection.
The Boomers were not really interested in building things that were bigger than their parents of the “Greatest Generation”. What you see post 1980’s on is a begruding investment into existing infrastructure and money spent on “cool”. Technology is cool. Compared to previous generations as group, Boomers are cheap when it comes to big scale projects. ROI was their watch word and big civilization projects like making to the moon have no ROI. Some of the largest cruise ships that have ever been built exist right now, but that involves ROI.
“I don’t condone what that generation did, but I understand it.”
I have been observing the Boomers for as long as I have been able to observe. I understand some of the factors that shape their attitudes, but in general they remain a mystery to me. The treating of tradition/religion/God as a grand joke, the odd insistence they were going to die any minute and simultaneous expectation of good health/life eternal, the gross indifference to their children, the obsession with the 1960’s/WWII…the list goes on and on. None of it makes any sense, unless most of them are trapped at a selfish 14 years of age.
That said, I’m sure that I am just as much a mystery to my in laws.
I’ve noted that many of the boomers complaints about younger generations could be from a realization that they repeated the mistakes of their parents but since their whole identity is not being the old man, they cannot admit it. Boomers complain about the younger generations being raised by TV, but a.) they did that too and b.) as you note they were the first generation to be raised by TV and indeed are the only generation that still regularly watches broadcast TV. Similarly they criticize younger generations for getting participation trophies but a.) they were the ones handing out the trophies and b.) most of them had their parents guide them into the family business, a good house, etc. regardless of the merits of the boomers in question. They complain about not being understood, but they show no concern for their descendants (just like their parents were emotionally distant with them.)
The resolution of the film Network involves Max Schuhmacher (William Holden’s character) dressing down Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway’s character) due to her not being able to process a reality outside of TV. Nowadays this would be viewed as a smack against millennials but an up and coming 30 or so exec like Diana would be a baby boomer (Faye Dunaway is a bit older, but the character is probably meant to be a little younger than her.) Max is then playing the role of the Greatest Generation talking about how the baby boomers are screwing things up just as they are gaining power.
There’s a similar them going on in the later movie Scrooged with a baby boomer exec raised by TV and with no conception of reality outside of it, but this one focuses more on the emptiness of that existence (with hope for redemption.) Note that the director, Richard Donner, is at the tail end of the greatest generation. If you want this complaint from when boomers were kids, take Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. While it’s British so I don’t know if the same cultural notes apply, Roald Dahl is greatest generation and Mike Teavee would be a baby boomer. It’s not until the Baby Boomers got full control of mass media in the 90’s that “raised by TV” meant Gen Y or Millennials.
I will give the boomers this: being criticized for watching too much TV by the very people who sat you down in front of the TV in the first place and made the shows for you to watch isn’t fair or easy to take. Too bad that they didn’t learn any lessons from it though.
I also find the Boomers a mystery at the end of the day. I’ve watched their parents age and die with dignity as time played out normally only to see them simultaneously fall apart physically while aging backwards into acting as spoiled teenagers ignoring the world around them, especially their kids and grandkids. This isn’t to say they have ALL done this, but it is a pattern I’ve noticed happening more than once, especially once their parents were no longer around.
I think the truth of it is that a large chunk had never actually grown up, as without authority figures they immediately regressed into a child without a bedtime that has unlimited access to the ice cream in the freezer. It really shows how much mass media has really screwed with people’s heads and expectations.
Agree that other people are not defined by their disorders, and they should be prayed for. That said, the term “Greatest Generation” wasn’t popularized until 1998, when the Boomers’ parents started bequeathing them their stuff. Before that, the WWII generation were largely vilified as “stiffs” and “squares”.
A shame it had to happen this way. Their parents retired way back in the 1980s which means almost everyone under 50 has never even known a world where Boomers were not in charge. Unfortunately, that generation bowed out when they should have while their kids instead clung to power and continued to destroy everything as well as themselves long after they should have hung it up. I would have much preferred not having to wait for them to be gone first, but that’s just the way it’s going to have to be.
Hopefully we don’t make this same mistake again.
The only reason I could see the younger generations hanging on longer than they should would be financial reasons. Just how much generational damage has been done to people’s bank accounts? How long will people be working just to live or pay off debts?
It wouldn’t be a hanging on out of pride, but necessity.
Retirement for the masses is not the historical norm. It only appears in the 20th century, as a benefit of the state. It looks like a lack of retirement is going to make a comeback.
JD
Cultural ground zero occurred when the boomers should’ve retire. The frozen in amber/stagnation dates from then. I felt something snap in 96 but couldn’t put my finger. Now I know. The boomers didn’t relinquish their hold to make way for Gen X. Disordering the generational passing of the baton.
xavier
Interesting observation.
One that runs up against a numbers problem on further investigation. The Boomers are those born from 1945-1955. That makes their first retirement year 2010.
However, Cultural Ground Zero did coincide with the Boomers entering their prime. So right around 1997 is when they first took charge of everything.
We were too young to pass the baton in 1996. It should have happened about 2006/2020 or so, or about 15 years ago.
My theory about cultural ground zero was that the 20th century was a very special century in human history. It was a sloppy 100 years where God allowed some special forces to sweep over the globe, possibly in part to finish spreading the Good News and reset everyone’s clocks to Christ. But that’s pure speculation, inside even more more speculation.
At any rate, those special forces had an expiration date, and it was generally the end of the 20th century. The generation of the Boomers was not helpful, but not really the cause of it. It would have stopped anyway, by my wildly speculative theory.
I think that cultural ground zero really has to be understood in two parts. 1997, where innovation took a nose dive and consolidation of radio stations and whatnot homogenized things, and then 2007 where it truly became “present year” forever. To put things another way, in 1997 the returns were quickly diminishing, but in 2007 they were practically nonexistant.
It’s not just gaming; in the recent conversations about music in stores multiple people reported hearing music from the early 00’s, but no one (including myself) has heard music from post 2010. In movies things got lazier, more aimed at the lowest common denominator and more gimmicky post 1997, but 2008 gave us the MCU (and equivalents) forever. I guess you might have the final year be 2010, since you do hear some songs from the late 00’s and Pixar’s fall from grace happened after Toy Story 3 (2010). But in any case there is a two step process: the first where the decay is obvious, and the second when all we have is a shambling corpse.
Tying this back to baby boomers, 1997 would be when boomers lost their creative passion that brought so many classics in the 80’s, and rather than getting input from the new generations decided make fiction purely a business. For example this is about when Bob Iger rose to prominence at Disney with the mantra of “what properties can we acquire” instead of “what can we create.” In a normal world Boomers would instead have worked in collaboration with Generation X during this time. 2010 corresponds to when they normally would have stepped down from day to day operations or retired entirely.
“In a normal world Boomers would instead have worked in collaboration with Generation X during this time. 2010 corresponds to when they normally would have stepped down from day to day operations or retired entirely.”
Yes, agree. This never happened and thus we live in 1997 until further notice.
“The era of guitar masses, felt banners, and self-worship is coming to its end.”
I’m afraid that arguing on the Internet has at least temporarily ruined me on this topic. 🙂 We are blessed to have a fair amount of good parishes near us. One very near us is liberal/older average age and our parish, which is also run by a Boomer, is very traditional using the current missal.
Beauty at Mass is better, along with more reverence. We live it every week by driving past what would be our home parish in our diocese for a parish 15 minutes away. I get it.
However, by my online travels, aesthetic improvements don’t necessarily improve the self-worship part. There’s Boomer like troubles out there in the traditionalist movement. The insistence on Latin/Georgian chant and quite often the indifference to the need to pray with the liturgy is pretty similar to insisting on guitar music while ignoring the need to pray with the liturgy, looking for an emotional experience.
By my real world experience, utopia didn’t break out our reverent parish. Neither did we get an explosion of converts/etc. In fact thanks to staff issues, our older youth formation is at almost complete collapse. We are not really training any new altar servers, regardless of gender. We chased away a lot of volunteers as well. We have the “traditionalist” effect of people driving way too far to access 11AM mass, but are unable to participate in parish life.
Plus, I have been at Masses where we were blessed to have even a guitar. The overall objection is that where there was choice, adults insisted on subpar music for essentially emotional/hipster reasons. But it seems that can easily morph into not appreciating Mass in less than wealthy/ideal circumstances. I grew up in a parish that only had access to my elementary school’s gymnasium for years. (Really!) While I still don’t like worship in gymnasiums and the like, I’ve learned to appreciate the Jesus that shows up in the less than ideal circumstances.
“All I can say after watching that stream is we’re getting a confessional integralist state, and there’s nothing the Death Cult can do to stop it.”
There’s compelling reason to believe that Catholic integralism is a controlled opposition op from the Powers That Be (or the Death Cult, as you like to call them). It’s pushed by people with questionable pasts in strategically-placed positions, with no discernable pushback.
Aaron Renn made a good video about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Un2_FDQLLY
The fatal flaw with that kind of genetic fallacy is it can be used to disqualify any position, since fallen human nature guarantees there’s no shortage of scoundrels among the adherents of any given idea.
Renn is peddling a diluted version of the same canard wignats deploy to disqualify Christinaity as a whole. Their argument is just less arbitrary.
When we dispense with the sophistry and cosnider integralism on its merits, we soon find that it’s nothing more or less than Catholic social teaching applied culture-wide with consistency. Which is the diametric opposite of the Death Cult.