Trains and Traditions

Trains and Traditions

Say what you will about the MAGA movement. A necessary premise of its core argument is that America was once a great nation, but somewhere along the line we lost our way. The fact that this message resonated with half the country should sound alarm bells. An older thread from…
December 8, 202012 Comments
Forensic Geekery

Forensic Geekery

Spend enough time on this blog, and you'll soon discover that contextualizing the generations, especially in regard to pop culture, gets a lot of page space. The memory-holing of Generation Y that came down from Madison Avenue at the turn of the millennium and only recently fell out of fashion…
November 10, 202022 Comments
Anime Back in the Day

Anime Back in the Day

Back in high school and college when I was first getting into the anime scene, I came to notice a recurring and highly vexing phenomenon. Bootleg VHS tapes were still the main source of new stuff from Japan back then. Getting our fix legit meant sending away via a mail…
October 22, 202025 Comments
Bizarro America

Bizarro America

We talk about generations as if they're clearly defined categories, but in reality the gaps between generational cohorts are pretty ambiguous. Being Gen Y, my perspective on current intergenerational conflicts is as close to objective as anyone but a member of the dwindling Greatest Generation. If you've been paying even…
October 7, 202022 Comments

Deracinated Horror

Horror stories give special insight into a culture's belief system. Since they serve as cautionary tales more than any other type of story, they tend to embody their native society's moral code. Throughout the lifespan of Western civilization, nearly all horror stories incorporated Christian beliefs or were at least rooted…
August 24, 202026 Comments
GenerationalWealth

The Generational Wealth Gap

A common criticism levied at the Baby Boomers by members of younger generations is that Boomers as a group have hoarded disproportionate wealth while leaving their posterity only crumbs. Now Business Insider has provided data showing that not only are younger generations' suspicions of having been robbed correct, the generational…
August 7, 202014 Comments
A Better Model

A Better Model

This generation chart was brought to my attention on Twitter: On the plus side, this model includes Generation Y. On the downside, it makes the common mistake of identifying Gen Y with the Millennials. A closer look also shows the tail end of Generation Jones appended to Generation X, the…
July 31, 202012 Comments
Don't Give Money to People Who Hate You

Generational Wealth

A commenter writes: Are the elites who are running this of the same quality of mind as their great and great great grandparents who started much of this at the turn of the century? My impression is the current crop is lacking in patience, and is not as equipped as…
July 16, 202011 Comments
Generational Memory Hole

Generational Memory Hole

If you frequent social media and counterculture blogs, it's hard to escape the phenomenon of people wising up to generational differences. Much is made of Strauss-Howe generational theory. Some claim they can predict where the country's heading based on the age of the people in charge cross-referenced with the general…
June 23, 202012 Comments
early 80s

The High 90s

A raging debate between members of Generation Y and the Millennials revolves around this question: Which decade was superior--the 1980s or the 1990s? As with the prevailing generational models themselves, cultural eras defy easy sorting into neat and tidy boxes. What we tend to think of as 1960s culture, for…
May 23, 202069 Comments