# Why do Gen Z and Millennials not engage with the past so much?



## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 10, 2022)

In past generations, you'd have thinkers and philosophers quote the Greek and Roman greats, or playrights, poets, thinkers, so on.  You had people reading a wealth of philosophy and history to understand how we got to the ever-present "NOW" from the "THEN."  But now Millennials... they don't seem to care much about what happened before their lifetime.  They know about WWII, have a vague understanding of the Vietnam war, probably don't even know the Korean war was a thing, and just sort of live in an eternal childhood where their interests are the exact same as they were when they were kids.  Grown "men" are playing pokemon and watching anime no less when they were 16 years old, and the content they consume is largely the same quality.

I think since the 80s we've been massively going downhill in most popular forms of music.  Movies today are worse than they've ever been, and the literature world is now dominated by the same socially-conscious messages that are repeated ad nauseum despite never containing or saying anything new, or even offering any new insights, just recontextualizing things into the worst and least charitable form of oppression, endlessly.

The best you sometimes get is some nerd that tries to resurrect "natural law" because they have a hard on for Enlightenment-era thinking and think philosophy ended where their high school education left off.


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## Red Hood (Jan 10, 2022)

Because the past is RACIST and SEXIST and triggers them too much. 

But seriously, consumerist pop culture ultimately cultivates a goldfish mentality. They want you to like NEW THING. How can you spend your pitiful disposable income on NEW THING if you're busy engaging with OLD THING? I wouldn't be surprised if it's all intentional. Destroy the old unless it can prey on nostalgia.


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## keyboredsm4shthe2nd (Jan 10, 2022)

Because it has truths that make them uncomfortable.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 10, 2022)

Just finding millennials into music, books, and movies prior the 90s that isn't shit like Led Zeppelin or Terminator feels like a rare occurrence.  Am I exaggerating?


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## Wormy (Jan 10, 2022)

Doesn't help that we can't even agree on WHAT the past was anymore, when you have not just the usual suspects doing "Hiter/Stalin/Pol Pot/ect DID NUTHIN WRONG!"  and "ALIENS DID IT!" but you also get new retards pushing "The Roman Empire didn't exist!" The waters are muddy as fuck. I wouldn't blame any soul not wanting that headache.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Just finding millennials into music, books, and movies prior the 90s that isn't shit like Led Zeppelin or Terminator feels like a rare occurrence. Am I exaggerating?


Yes, but the level of acceptance is still unacceptable.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 10, 2022)

MT Foxtrot said:


> Doesn't help that we can't even agree on WHAT the past was anymore, when you have not just the usual suspects doing "Hiter/Stalin/Pol Pot/ect DID NUTHIN WRONG!"  and "ALIENS DID IT!" but you also get new retards pushing "The Roman Empire didn't exist!" The waters are muddy as fuck. I wouldn't blame any soul not wanting that headache.
> 
> 
> Yes, but the level of acceptance is still unacceptable.



I just have been developing an interest in, well, everything.  Music from past generations, history, literature.  The stuff you have to dig to find, the truly good stuff.  There's so much wealth to choose from.

The one boon my mother did as a child was get me reading and get me reading a LOT when I was young. I was reading sociology, psychology, philosophy (the real stuff) at a young age, partially to resolve discrepancies in the worldviews of different things I was reading.  So I've always investigated the past for ideas as well as the present.  And in recent times I've entered a semi-retirement due to careful planning in my "younger" years and have used the time to self-educate a bit more.  As time goes on, I develop more interests in things outside of what is contemporary.  I end up distant from others where I can't connect on a basic level.  Imagine, I live among a generation that thought Lady Gaga was avant-garde.  Look at my fucking avatar; I know better.  Dates, a trip to the bar, whatever; it's always the new "big" thing that has no substance to it.  How do you talk to people in this world?  They're entirely made up of "the last 10 years."  None of them have a personality beyond that.  They're soulless reflections of current trends.


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## Agent Abe Caprine (Jan 11, 2022)

The average person doesn't really care about things that came before them. Try asking a boomer what their favorite movie from the 1930's was. Most common answer will probably be Wizard of Oz.


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## Wormy (Jan 11, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> The stuff you have to dig to find, the truly good stuff. There's so much wealth to choose from.


Oh no doubt, though I confess my digging is piecemeal into niche phenomenon or eras (The Sengoku Jidai, the youth culture gangs and subsequent advent of Punk in the UK, the immigrant gang violence in 19th century America, you get the idea)


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Agent Abe Caprine said:


> The average person doesn't really care about things that came before them. Try asking a boomer what their favorite movie from the 1930's was. Most common answer will probably be Wizard of Oz.


If I said I don't have a favorite 1930s movie but I enjoy _Cœur fidèle_ from 1923 for its rather experimental cinematography for the time?  Do I get bonus hipster points for it being a subtitled French film too?

Well, I do have Dark Victory (1939) slated to watch.

But seriously, I can give a pass due to the very early nature of the medium on movies.  But imagine never reading a classic novel out of personal enjoyment.  I couldn't understand that.



MT Foxtrot said:


> Oh no doubt, though I confess my digging is piecemeal into niche phenomenon or eras (The Sengoku Jidai, the youth culture gangs and subsequent advent of Punk in the UK, the immigrant gang violence in 19th century America, you get the idea)



So is mine.  It's like we all have the souls of scribes and the torchbearers from generations past, but modern decline of the human spirit has set us without use or purpose, despite how integral our missions are for the human race.  I'm being hyperbolic, of course, but I do see that the Farms are surprisingly cultured for being full of right-leaning Millennials.  Shockingly so, as what's posted in the music and movie threads is very atypical of many things other Millenials and Gen Zers look into, even supposedly "artsy" liberals.


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## Law (Jan 11, 2022)

I recently consoooomed an content from Marcus Aurelius, it was this book called Meditations, very cool. Gonna have to get the Funko pop of him for sure.


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## Red Hood (Jan 11, 2022)

I suppose there's also, kids today, the oldest generation they know are the boomers. I (a millennial) grew up with grandparents of the WWII generation. I watched 30's monster movies and listened to old time radio programs my grandma had on tape.

What's funny is that this stuff is available at an instant now. I spent a huge chunk of allowance as a teenager hunting down collections of The Shadow on cassette tape. You can go on YouTube or whatever now and find decent recordings of old time radio. Whatever music you want, it's right at your fingertips. You just have to go looking.

But, I think that most people in most generations are unremarkable and only interested in the now. Keep in mind that when we look at older generations we're filtering through the common rube and viewing the most exceptional (in the real sense, not the Kiwi Farms meme sense) people of that generation.

Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

And he who controls the past, controls the present.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

The Shadow said:


> I suppose there's also, kids today, the oldest generation they know are the boomers. I (a millennial) grew up with grandparents of the WWII generation. I watched 30's monster movies and listened to old time radio programs my grandma had on tape.
> 
> What's funny is that this stuff is available at an instant now. I spent a huge chunk of allowance as a teenager hunting down collections of The Shadow on cassette tape. You can go on YouTube or whatever now and find decent recordings of old time radio. Whatever music you want, it's right at your fingertips. You just have to go looking.
> 
> But, I think that most people in most generations are unremarkable and only interested in the now. Keep in mind that when we look at older generations we're filtering through the common rube and viewing the most exceptional (in the real sense, not the Kiwi Farms meme sense) people of that generation.


True, but things today have to be worse.  The literature of our generation is Harry Potter and there are probably more good movies in the 80s alone than have come out in the last 20 years.


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## From The Uncanny Valley (Jan 11, 2022)

I honestly don't think they can remember that long.


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## Creep3r (Jan 11, 2022)

The Shadow said:


> Because the past is RACIST and SEXIST and triggers them too much.
> 
> But seriously, consumerist pop culture ultimately cultivates a goldfish mentality. They want you to like NEW THING. How can you spend your pitiful disposable income on NEW THING if you're busy engaging with OLD THING? I wouldn't be surprised if it's all intentional. Destroy the old unless it can prey on nostalgia.


This, and much like with half of Gen Y and part of Gen X, they lack the attention span, imagination and patience to read books unless its Harry Potter e-books.


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## millais (Jan 11, 2022)

They have been trained by modern forms of media and internet to chase the dopamine hit of easily consoomable content. Now only autists and spergs will read the history of what came before, and even then only because they found it through memes and anime version.


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## Pixy (Jan 11, 2022)

The problem would be the accessibility of _too much _information via the internet. Society is now capable of producing spergs who hyperfocus on one thing, and never go outside of their bubble, thanks to the internet. 

One could spend hours going through some fandom wiki, as we see with the relationship between the 'new wave' of weens and the Cwcki, or even KF's own users, trawling through dozens of pages on threads/subforums for an individual lolcow.

With so much information readily accessible, and so little time, there's a bountiful number of rabbit holes anyone can get sucked into. Sure, you _could_ read about history, watch documentaries and videos of dubious accuracy and truthfulness (hence why there are so many young wehraboos), but you could also read about this super-obscure thing on the internet.

The latter would seem more interesting.


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## Quijibo69 (Jan 11, 2022)

Everything sucked after the year 2000.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Quijibo69 said:


> Everything sucked after the year 2000.


That really feels like the cut off point.  The 90s were getting bad already, but by 2000 it was a new world, and the internet starting making its babysteps to the dystopia we have today.

Remember when the Farms would have just been another community on the internet? Now it's one of the largest forums that I know of where you can just discuss shit.  Everything has been consolidated.



Pixy said:


> The problem would be the accessibility of _too much _information via the internet. Society is now capable of producing spergs who hyperfocus on one thing, and never go outside of their bubble, thanks to the internet.
> 
> One could spend hours going through some fandom wiki, as we see with the relationship between the 'new wave' of weens and the Cwcki, or even KF's own users, trawling through dozens of pages on threads/subforums for an individual lolcow.
> 
> ...



The problem is, there is so much history and they still seem to focus on the last 10 years. It seems like even Gen Xers engaged with Baby Boomer music.  Millennials barely know of any greats past The Beatles and Nirvana (not that I'd say Nirvana is great) and such.  Agreed about the wehraboos, that's another symptom--if people know anything of the past, it's WWII or some very popular topic.  (Interest in Ancient Romans gets a pass since that really is when the Western tradition starts and I think schools should put greater focus on it).

People mark me as "sperg" and stuff (usually women and anime avatars...but I repeat myself) but I've been thinking a lot about where we are now and where we are headed and struggle as I try to find some streak of optimism, I just find new depths of bleakness.   With the internet now we should be having a Renaissance explosion of culture and new ideas--like when the Gutenberg printing press was invented. Instead we've seen the opposite.


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## Ike Aim (Jan 11, 2022)

The Internet. There's simply too much media/information, too accessible, all the time. It's particularly bad with the advent of the "feed", with unstructured, poorly-structured, or crypto-structured information being blasted at media-consumers 24/7. The thing is, I don't think those Millennials or Zoomers have much of an understanding of society and culture post-internet, either.  I don't think anyone does. It's all part of The End of History, the eternal now. It's just that Millennials and Zoomers get it doubly-bad because unlike Gen-X and the oldest Millennials, they don't have any real experience of a time when there was a unified, coherent cultural and historical canon, either.


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## Grub (Jan 11, 2022)

This thread reminds me of when I was 20 and all the 30 year olds didn't seem to care about all the cool old shit I'd 'discovered' that 'nobody else appreciated'.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 10, 2022)

In past generations, you'd have thinkers and philosophers quote the Greek and Roman greats, or playrights, poets, thinkers, so on.  You had people reading a wealth of philosophy and history to understand how we got to the ever-present "NOW" from the "THEN."  But now Millennials... they don't seem to care much about what happened before their lifetime.  They know about WWII, have a vague understanding of the Vietnam war, probably don't even know the Korean war was a thing, and just sort of live in an eternal childhood where their interests are the exact same as they were when they were kids.  Grown "men" are playing pokemon and watching anime no less when they were 16 years old, and the content they consume is largely the same quality.

I think since the 80s we've been massively going downhill in most popular forms of music.  Movies today are worse than they've ever been, and the literature world is now dominated by the same socially-conscious messages that are repeated ad nauseum despite never containing or saying anything new, or even offering any new insights, just recontextualizing things into the worst and least charitable form of oppression, endlessly.

The best you sometimes get is some nerd that tries to resurrect "natural law" because they have a hard on for Enlightenment-era thinking and think philosophy ended where their high school education left off.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Ike Aim said:


> The Internet. There's simply too much media/information, too accessible, all the time. It's particularly bad with the advent of the "feed", with unstructured, poorly-structured, or crypto-structured information being blasted at media-consumers 24/7. The thing is, I don't think those Millennials or Zoomers have much of an understanding of society and culture post-internet, either.  I don't think anyone does cultural and historical canon, either.


The problem is it is too structured. The Almighty Algorithm prioritizes the NOW and the NEW.



> It's all part of The End of History, the eternal now. It's just that Millennials and Zoomers get it doubly-bad because unlike Gen-X and the oldest Millennials, they don't have any real experience of a time when there was a unified, coherent cultural and historical canon, either.


The evil of globalism, in my eyes, isn't what everyone else focuses on. It's the homogenization of the human spirit.  Diversity is wonderful, but real diversity, not the "stick humans in a blender and drink the results" that liberals believe in.  I am fascinated by European culture.  I am fascinated by African culture.  I am fascinated by all the subcultures that have existed, modern ones, and ones people have forgotten about (dandies, muscadins, incroyables--look it up, history is full of hidden things to provide insights).  We NEED isolated segments of society for advancement and differentiation.  Think of evolution--we need pockets of different populations with their own characters just so people somewhere can be a little different somewhere else.  The left used to believe in this, before the migrant crises. They'd point to corporations, like Starbucks, for tearing down the quaint little coffee cafes (not true in America, where Starbucks created the demand for coffee drinks nearly single-handedly and actually helped prop up the indie companies too, but I digress).   Now that there's a racial dimension with migrants though, you no longer hear those arguments except from the right wing.  Other people forget, with their perpetual entrapment in the Now, but I don't.

I have a long memory.  I remember when social security would be a hot button issue, until it wasn't.  Remember when social security would pop up as a big issue in the media, never get resolved, and then disappear?  I did, I always found that VERY interesting...



Grub said:


> This thread reminds me of when I was 20 and all the 30 year olds didn't seem to care about all the cool old shit I'd 'discovered' that 'nobody else appreciated'.


I don't know how old you are, so I can't comment.  But I am in my 30s, and I know my peers.  I know my generation, and I have talked to many people online.  My real friends end up always being either hip Gen Xer, a few artistic Baby Boomers, and the occasional disgruntled Millennial  like you'd find on the farms.  I still remember the internet when it was far more janky and basic.  When bugs were the norm and everything was chaotic, but fun.  When you could stumble on a random geocities page by some random asshole that contained some random program that let you wreck havoc on your AOL buddies or just contained a random video game cheat code nobody else posted about anywhere else.  I remember the human interaction on the internet then, those days, and how easy it was to make a new online friend.  These days, we're more connected as ever and it's more difficult than ever. Everything I believed in as a youth with the Internet was proven wrong with time, and I think most of us on the Farms are confronting that in our middle adult years or even middle age--the false promise of the Internet.  It's a wonderful archival tool, especially now that data is cheap and broadband is nearly ubiquitous.  But the surge of information did not revitalize culture.  It should have, _a priori_, but it did not.  Either something in our culture interfered, or I was wrong, and I suspect my premise was wrong.


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## CaptainNiemand (Jan 11, 2022)

The Shadow said:


> But, I think that most people in most generations are unremarkable and only interested in the now. Keep in mind that when we look at older generations we're filtering through the common rube and viewing the most exceptional (in the real sense, not the Kiwi Farms meme sense) people of that generation.



There's the rub. 

I'm bonafide Boomer, sixty-something vintage.

And I grew up in Silicon Valley.

Even back then, in places reputed to be more sophisticated than average you, as a peer, couldn't get most kids of high school age or younger to watch old movies, or TV shows, or listen to old music. The ones that did, wouldn't admit to having done so. I'm not surprised that I simply despise most teenagers to the same degree as I did when I actually was one ...


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## A Rastafarian Skeleton (Jan 11, 2022)

No idea, I spend little time worrying about the likes and interests of millennials.


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## Nonconsentual Pronouns (Jan 11, 2022)

Narcissism in the way we know it now started with boomers, carried through gen-x, snowballed with milennials and is at an all- time high now with zoomers. The modern narc simply isn't capable of caring about anything that isn't about themselves. That's why the cinema is now nothing but modern-set power fantasies of uwu so relatable self-insert garbage. Narcs generally don't give a fuck about anything they don't personally relate to. These motherfuckers usually can't so much as have a genuine admiration for an animal unless it's some kind of grand statement to elevate themselves, or they have one as a pet. 

TL;DR - They're narcs and the past isn't about them.


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## Sage In All Fields (Jan 11, 2022)

I don't see what you mean, alot of zoomer aesthetic & fashion trends are borne out of stuff from the 70s or earlier. You've got stuff like cottagecore, synthwave. I feel like on the contrary gen z only has the past, because since the advent of the internet culture's sort of gotten stuck in a time loop where new things become old and then old things become new perpetually with only minor variation.


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## Red Hood (Jan 11, 2022)

Sage In All Fields said:


> I don't see what you mean, alot of zoomer aesthetic & fashion trends are borne out of stuff from the 70s or earlier. You've got stuff like cottagecore, synthwave. I feel like on the contrary gen z only has the past, because since the advent of the internet culture's sort of gotten stuck in a time loop where new things become old and then old things become new perpetually with only minor variation.


A lot of that shit is just bastardized takes on the past by people that aren't examining it in detail and weren't around for it. It's beyond even the Sir Walter Scott "Merrie Olde England" (Scott at least understood the departures from the historical past and used the concept to present a somewhat idealized past, though one that didn't gloss over some of the seedier shit), it's a Disney Park version of the past that's only appropriated for its aesthetic value.

It makes me think of Kung Fury, which to me made me think of a millenial's half-remembered conception of what a Van Damme movie might have been combined with a bunch of dumb "throw it in, that's totally badass" Joss Whedon on a shoestring budget bullshit. It feels entirely artificial.


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## Ike Aim (Jan 11, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> The problem is it is too structured.


Unstructured from the point of view of the user. Media algorithms are notoriously byzantine and in combination with other services and streams it's just a flood of chaotic content and information all vying for little bits of your attention. The worst that prior generations had were magazine stands and 100 cable tv channels. I agree that there is a ryhme to the reason on the backend for all of these internet platforms.


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## Leopold II of Belgium (Jan 11, 2022)

Because social media dopamine rushes are obviously more important than personal development. 
Probably something about wanting to keep up with peers and supposed societal trends too.

Personally I live under a rock and I like it here. No pop culture and modern standards ruining my enjoyment.


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## Grub (Jan 11, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> I don't know how old you are, so I can't comment. But I am in my 30s, and I know my peers. I know my generation, and I have talked to many people online. My real friends end up always being either hip Gen Xer, a few artistic Baby Boomers, and the occasional disgruntled Millennial like you'd find on the farms. I still remember the internet when it was far more janky and basic. When bugs were the norm and everything was chaotic, but fun. When you could stumble on a random geocities page by some random asshole that contained some random program that let you wreck havoc on your AOL buddies or just contained a random video game cheat code nobody else posted about anywhere else. I remember the human interaction on the internet then, those days, and how easy it was to make a new online friend. These days, we're more connected as ever and it's more difficult than ever. Everything I believed in as a youth with the Internet was proven wrong with time, and I think most of us on the Farms are confronting that in our middle adult years or even middle age--the false promise of the Internet. It's a wonderful archival tool, especially now that data is cheap and broadband is nearly ubiquitous. But the surge of information did not revitalize culture. It should have, _a priori_, but it did not. Either something in our culture interfered, or I was wrong, and I suspect my premise was wrong.


This seems like a different complaint than the one in your op that's not really related. The internet changed because corporations took over and made it accessible as a method of easy media and content delivery for the masses to consume.

As for millenials and the internet, you gotta remember, there were a lot of people that age that didn't grow up on the internet or didn't even have a computer until the 2000's. I remember being one of the few kids where I lived that even had a computer and the internet in the 90's. By the time the mid 2000's hit, the old internet was already starting to disappear.


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## Madre Muerte (Jan 11, 2022)

They have a fascination with vinyl, Nintendo games, 80's horror movies, Dungeons and Dragons, and religious history. I think you're just not engaging with those generations.


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## SexPistol (Jan 11, 2022)

Millennials are pussies who like big hug boxes and hide themselves away from normal society while whining about how old they are getting while accomplishing nothing.

I have so many friends who are depressed working their dead end job at Daily’s while Zoomers excel passed them in every way financially with crypto or easily accessible college degrees.

They want to watch anime and feel good and never have confrontation with anyone. Bringing up anything that makes them mildly feel outside their comfort box short circuits their brain and triggers them back to their abysmal childhoods.

Zoomers like Tiktok. I have a bunch of zoomer friends who get hyped for the newest thing and then drops it less than a week later and never talks about it again. Having conversations with them is hard because they only know how to talk about what’s hip and now, so that leaves me out of 70 percent of their conversations. It’s crazy watching them migrate to new social media platforms too. Did I mention they love talking about themselves? One of my girl friends literally dissociates if she hears someone talking longer than 30 seconds and it doesn’t involve her.

One thing I noticed is that it’s just hard to talk to both of these generations about anything that isn’t internet memes, video games or anime. They know the real world sucks and are happy to live in a bubble. I think they missed the memo that there are other ways to make the world a better place outside of Twitch streaming.


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## Black Light Red Panic (Jan 11, 2022)

The future is now, old man.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Madre Muerte said:


> They have a fascination with vinyl, Nintendo games, 80's horror movies, Dungeons and Dragons, and religious history. I think you're just not engaging with those generations.


Only on a superficial level.   I agree with what The Shadow said regarding this.  The nostalgia for past generations Millennials have isn't authentic and it's not a true interest in the times.  None of these Millennials even know what "new wave" is despite defining the 80s sound.  I doubt a majority know what "synthpop" is.  Most of these Millenials think communism is a good idea even after the USSR!!! Millennials will make a point of loving things like Led Zeppelin (always fucking Led Zeppelin, always, what the fuck) and The Beatles but ask them to name any other classic rock band beyond Fleetwood Mac and that's when things get really funny.  And when they collect vinyl, they're buying every The Dear Hunter vinyl they can find.

Some of these interests align with mine, even history of religion at times.  As I am a Millennial myself I am most certainly engaging with them.  No, they do not have anything more than a very superficial interest in things. They don't read books on the subjects they purport to talk about, they call themselves "geeks"  and "experts" about topics I know more than them and would never pretend I am an expert in.



SexPistol said:


> Millennials are pussies who like big hug boxes and hide themselves away from normal society while whining about how old they are getting while accomplishing nothing.
> 
> I have so many friends who are depressed working their dead end job at Daily’s while Zoomers excel passed them in every way financially with crypto or easily accessible college degrees.
> 
> ...


This is exactly my experience.  Especially your last paragraph.  I cannot talk to anyone around me on anything that isn't memes, video games, or anime.  I can posture enough and have seen enough to provide authentic conversation, but good god damn I do NOT want to talk about which Final Fantasy was my favorite (6, obviously) any more in my life.  I'm an adult and should have power over my life, I should be doing more than mindless consumption.



CaptainNiemand said:


> There's the rub.
> 
> I'm bonafide Boomer, sixty-something vintage.
> 
> ...



Well, the movies of then were unquestionably better of the now to begin with.  If you want to watch a good movie, you're probably going to be watching something from the 90s or prior.  You cannot really compare the climate of movies today vs. then because today they are measurably worse.

And as for movies, I'd argue that the 70s were the most "experimental" and craziest period for some truly wild and strange films, The Holy Mountain and Salo being stark examples of what I mean, movies that will never be created again and certainly not with the same spirit., Boomers and Gen X had easy access to some of the best films ever made because they were made within their livetimes. That's not true of Millennials unless you really like capeshit.  I watch older films, I watch some newer films, but I always feel the 70s and 80s were the best decades for cinema.

Maybe it depends on whether you were American or elsewhere.  Maybe this is an American phenomenon.

---

I should say, the exception I've seen to this is punks and people associated with that subculture.  I'm by no means associated with them, but the punks and such I meet have genuine interests in old ska and such and I can respect that.  There are exceptions, always, of course.



Sage In All Fields said:


> I don't see what you mean, alot of zoomer aesthetic & fashion trends are borne out of stuff from the 70s or earlier. You've got stuff like cottagecore, synthwave. I feel like on the contrary gen z only has the past, because since the advent of the internet culture's sort of gotten stuck in a time loop where new things become old and then old things become new perpetually with only minor variation.



I think Zoomers have more in common with rave fashion than 70s trends...  Not sure where you're seeing real 70s style unless you're confusing it with something.  I've never met a Zoomer that knew anything much prior their generation.



The Shadow said:


> Because the past is RACIST and SEXIST and triggers them too much.
> 
> But seriously, consumerist pop culture ultimately cultivates a goldfish mentality. They want you to like NEW THING. How can you spend your pitiful disposable income on NEW THING if you're busy engaging with OLD THING? I wouldn't be surprised if it's all intentional. Destroy the old unless it can prey on nostalgia.



I'm quoting this again, The Shadow, because I copied and pasted your post to a Gen X friend of mine who is an actual artist and she loved it.  We agree you're probably dead on here.



Commander Panic said:


> The future is now, old man.



There is no future.  Only an eternity of Spongebob Squarepants memes, anime, and ROY G BIV fashion.  MANGIA! MANGIA! MANGIALO!


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## Nonconsentual Pronouns (Jan 11, 2022)

Sage In All Fields said:


> I don't see what you mean, alot of zoomer aesthetic & fashion trends are borne out of stuff from the 70s or earlier. You've got stuff like cottagecore, synthwave. I feel like on the contrary gen z only has the past, because since the advent of the internet culture's sort of gotten stuck in a time loop where new things become old and then old things become new perpetually with only minor variation.


Plucking a "look" out of the past, bastardizing it and renaming it to pretend it's 100% theirs isn't exactly engaging with the past. They know nothing about the "look" aside from their cherrypicked interpretation of it's aesthetic that pleases them. Nothing about the history, the people, the methods, the reasoning, no nothing.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Nonconsentual Pronouns said:


> Plucking a "look" out of the past, bastardizing it and renaming it to pretend it's 100% theirs isn't exactly engaging with the past. They know nothing about the "look" aside from their cherrypicked interpretation of it's aesthetic that pleases them. Nothing about the history, the people, the methods, the reasoning, no nothing.


You know how many Millenials and Gen Zers I know that say they like synthpop and don't even know who Gary Numan is?


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## Black Light Red Panic (Jan 11, 2022)

I guess this is the boomer hate thread cope thread. Bunch of old fags whinging about the kids don't like playing with the same toys as they did.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Commander Panic said:


> I guess this is the boomer hate thread cope thread. Bunch of old fags whinging about the kids don't like playing with the same toys as they did.


Almost none of us here are "Boomers" and the OK Boomer meme is Millennial shit blaming other people for spending all their money on Funko pops and Marvel merch.  Millennials refuse to grow up.  Not all of us want to wear Rick and Morty graphic T shirts as adults.

It's always amusing seeing Millennials bitch about how hard they have it when I know exactly what their spending habits are.


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## lurk_moar (Jan 11, 2022)

I am a lot more concerned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, climate change disasters, future pandemics, and the dystopian reality we live in than those who came before me thought about.


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## Nonconsentual Pronouns (Jan 11, 2022)

lurk_moar said:


> I am a lot more concerned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, climate change disasters, future pandemics, and the dystopian reality we live in than those who came before me thought about.


It's possible to be concerned with both, regardless of age.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Nonconsentual Pronouns said:


> It's possible to be concerned with both, regardless of age.


They aren't wrong, but they don't realize how bad what they said actually is, because we have a generation demanding radical solutions to problems they barely understand in the first place with absolutely no grasp of history or how those same "radical solutions" were worse than the problems themselves.  Indeed, the second the world seems to start shrugging off the horrors of socialism, here come the Millennials thinking that shit is the answer again because they are too fucking stupid to know what happened before them outside of their "entertaining" commentators half-understood propaganda.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 10, 2022)

In past generations, you'd have thinkers and philosophers quote the Greek and Roman greats, or playrights, poets, thinkers, so on.  You had people reading a wealth of philosophy and history to understand how we got to the ever-present "NOW" from the "THEN."  But now Millennials... they don't seem to care much about what happened before their lifetime.  They know about WWII, have a vague understanding of the Vietnam war, probably don't even know the Korean war was a thing, and just sort of live in an eternal childhood where their interests are the exact same as they were when they were kids.  Grown "men" are playing pokemon and watching anime no less when they were 16 years old, and the content they consume is largely the same quality.

I think since the 80s we've been massively going downhill in most popular forms of music.  Movies today are worse than they've ever been, and the literature world is now dominated by the same socially-conscious messages that are repeated ad nauseum despite never containing or saying anything new, or even offering any new insights, just recontextualizing things into the worst and least charitable form of oppression, endlessly.

The best you sometimes get is some nerd that tries to resurrect "natural law" because they have a hard on for Enlightenment-era thinking and think philosophy ended where their high school education left off.


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## Black Light Red Panic (Jan 11, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Almost none of us here are "Boomers" and the OK Boomer meme is Millennial shit blaming other people for spending all their money on Funko pops and Marvel merch.  Millennials refuse to grow up.  Not all of us want to wear Rick and Morty graphic T shirts as adults.
> 
> It's always amusing seeing Millennials bitch about how hard they have it when I know exactly what their spending habits are.


Ok boomer


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## SnowBall (Jan 11, 2022)

I completely forgot how “le wrong generation” Millennials were the worst, most insufferable kind of Millennials until I read this thread.


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## Manul Otocolobus (Jan 11, 2022)

lurk_moar said:


> I am a lot more concerned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, climate change disasters, future pandemics, and the dystopian reality we live in than those who came before me thought about.


That's a good point. I think younger people (defined in this instances as younger Millennials, and Zoomers, since I am a Millennial myself) are more future facing then being concerned about the past. Although, as we all know, those ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it, so a healthy respect and understand of the past is important.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 11, 2022)

Manul Otocolobus said:


> That's a good point. I think younger people (defined in this instances as younger Millennials, and Zoomers, since I am a Millennial myself) are more future facing then being concerned about the past. Although, as we all know, those ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it, so a healthy respect and understand of the past is important.


What's the point of worrying about survival when our culture and reasons for living are near non-existent? Everything is infantile shit.  The weebs are pleased with how things turned out, but everyone else...


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## Anti-Intellectual (Jan 12, 2022)

OP: I think you need some friends who aren't facile, jabbering idiots invested in the [current year] gobbledygook.

I have a close circle of friends who can discuss politics, history, literature, philosophy, and popular media without feeling deprived of stimulation in everyday life. You could make that your goal, and don't let your projections (to be fair they're accurate) become an obstacle towards it. There are genuinely interesting people IRL, it just takes extra effort to find them.


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## Bad Gateway (Jan 12, 2022)

@Harbinger of Kali Yuga  Holy shit what kind of blind, deaf, dumb, and illiterate retard ARE you to be fucking out of touch enough to think this is anything CLOSE to the reality of the world?


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## What the shit (Jan 12, 2022)

Maybe because they have their own fucking culture they grew up with you dumb fuck?


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## Travoltron (Jan 12, 2022)

I'm on that weird border between Gen X and Millennials. Sometimes I feel like I got the worst of both worlds. 

I was ignorant when I was young, but at least I felt shame about it. 

The only incident I can remember clearly was when I was making some statement about how groundbreaking "The Simpsons" was and how it was the first prime-time animated program. An older person somewhat brusquely informed me that, NO IT WASN'T the first, that The Flintstones had already done it back in 1960. I remember feeling like such a moron for running my mouth without knowing the facts. 

These younger people seem to be _proud _to be ignorant. They don't want to learn. They want to proclaim how "their" media is so groundbreaking, when the truth is these barriers were already broken long before they were born. If you try to educate them, they try to shut you down with "____splaining" or "OK Boomer". (Again, it's ignorance to think everyone older than them are Baby Boomers, but they don't care.)


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## What the shit (Jan 12, 2022)

Travoltron said:


> I'm on that weird border between Gen X and Millennials. Sometimes I feel like I got the worst of both worlds.
> 
> I was ignorant when I was young, but at least I felt shame about it.
> 
> ...


Or maybe, they just grew up with their own culture and they feel no need to learn the past, just how older generations call the current culture retarded and how it doesn't make sense.


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## Niggernerd (Jan 12, 2022)

Have they met another millennial? Those niggas consoooooom 90s shit and wish it was the 90s again!


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## Travoltron (Jan 12, 2022)

What the shit said:


> Or maybe, they just grew up with their own culture and they feel no need to learn the past, just how older generations call the current culture retarded and how it doesn't make sense.


The more you post, the more you prove the OP correct.


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## Hollywood Hulk Hogan (Jan 12, 2022)

Okay boomer


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## Gravemind (Jan 12, 2022)

Thread in a nutshell.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 12, 2022)

This thread would have gone better if I had just cleverly disguised my intentions by saying "genderqueer weebs" instead of "Gen Z and millennials"


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## Screamer (Jan 12, 2022)

It's why they're easily able to be manipulated in assuming everyone before their generation were racist Nazi's. They know nothing about what came before.

My generation grew up watching TV shows and films from previous decades. It was old, but it gave you a connection to the past.

You'd read books or be read books from the past. People like yourself are in a different time going on adventures and having stories.

It built a connection to previous generations.

Now everything has to be for the moment. Current era. So there's no connection being built to the culture and past. They're attention spans are too short to even bother giving a lock. They don't want to. They're also bombarded with the notion that everything not current era is wrong.

It's why they don't understand anything about history, race or civil rights. It's why they think up until their generation, everyone was a white supremecist. Looking at history, seeing it's complicated challenges the ideologies they've been indoctrinated in. So they get emotional reactions when they engage with anything that isn't current era agenda and politics.

They're instructed nothing is of value unless it is. It shouldn't be consumed.


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## Cilleystring (Jan 14, 2022)

Bc they were different genders in the past and can't bare to look at their old selves


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 14, 2022)

Screamer said:


> It's why they're easily able to be manipulated in assuming everyone before their generation were racist Nazi's. They know nothing about what came before.
> 
> My generation grew up watching TV shows and films from previous decades. It was old, but it gave you a connection to the past.
> 
> ...


I concentrate on music a lot, since I like a lot of alternative music and all the good stuff is from the 80s and prior (mostly).  Gen Xers and Boomers, without the internet, still listened to things from prior generations.  Not so true with Millennials and Gen Z.  To these generations, classic rock is Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac.  

But you raise a good point, and it's a huge part of my worries--the newer generations are incredibly easy to propagandize too because of their ignorance.  They legit believe Trump is a nazi and fascist.  If you try to argue with them... just, whoa, the stupidity they spew out, you realize you can't even begin to dialogue with them because they're essentially a cultist.

Absolutely agreed on the ever-present NOW.  This is a horrible hell, nothing designed for staying power.  An era that will be blown away in the wind and forgotten.  What a terrible time to be youth and actually curious.  

You can see this with just how consumeristic the social justice milieu is.  Their spotifly playlists are last three years Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X.  Despite being anticapitalist they are the most attentive to present trends, both in cheap fashions and toys.  Marvel, Marvel, Marvel.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 14, 2022)

Another thing that worries me that nobody thinks about is the deemphasis on the empiricism vs. rationalism debate that raged on for, well, pretty much since Plato and Aristotle.  We don't discuss this anymore, and this worries me, as Science now seems to be becoming an institution and not just a method, and we see the "party of science" people using magic gemstones, astrology, tarot cards, alternative medicines, etc, and blaming the right solely for rejecting science based solely on climate change and the vaccine.


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## AbyssStarer (Jan 14, 2022)

"EvErYhInG GoT WoRsE SiNcE tHe 80'Z"
Holy shit, people need to stop nostalgiafagging for the 80's so hard. Every generation has had corruption and clownery to the point it seemed like the world is ending. Now that everybody's dumb ass is plugged into the Internetz all the time the bad things get hyperfocused because that's how (((they))) get you. Stop wallowing in what you see as all the insurmountable problems of the world and live your gay ass life while blasting whatever garbage fucking generic dadrock it is you like.


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## Screamer (Jan 14, 2022)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Another thing that worries me that nobody thinks about is the deemphasis on the empiricism vs. rationalism debate that raged on for, well, pretty much since Plato and Aristotle.  We don't discuss this anymore, and this worries me, as Science now seems to be becoming an institution and not just a method, and we see the "party of science" people using magic gemstones, astrology, tarot cards, alternative medicines, etc, and blaming the right solely for rejecting science based solely on climate change and the vaccine.



It's probably an end result of being able to look up facts on the internet. You don't figure anything out yourself. You just regurgitate when you read. Made worse with algorithmic echo-chambers and bubbles.

It is complex though. The whole, "party of science" shit did come about in large part because of science denial over issues like climate change. The problem is, where we are now is not where we were 15 years ago. Now we have so many people that look online and glance at any opinion of fact as to what to know. Not what to think, there is no thinking. The same way one may look up the date of a historical event on Wikipedia. Then assume that is 100% correct. People look up opinions and world views. Uncritically assume that is what they must know.

I find it insane, I am a generation half in / half out of this change. I know so many people who are passionate about issues, yet know fuck all about them. They know literally nothing besides what opinion to have and be passionate about.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 10, 2022)

In past generations, you'd have thinkers and philosophers quote the Greek and Roman greats, or playrights, poets, thinkers, so on.  You had people reading a wealth of philosophy and history to understand how we got to the ever-present "NOW" from the "THEN."  But now Millennials... they don't seem to care much about what happened before their lifetime.  They know about WWII, have a vague understanding of the Vietnam war, probably don't even know the Korean war was a thing, and just sort of live in an eternal childhood where their interests are the exact same as they were when they were kids.  Grown "men" are playing pokemon and watching anime no less when they were 16 years old, and the content they consume is largely the same quality.

I think since the 80s we've been massively going downhill in most popular forms of music.  Movies today are worse than they've ever been, and the literature world is now dominated by the same socially-conscious messages that are repeated ad nauseum despite never containing or saying anything new, or even offering any new insights, just recontextualizing things into the worst and least charitable form of oppression, endlessly.

The best you sometimes get is some nerd that tries to resurrect "natural law" because they have a hard on for Enlightenment-era thinking and think philosophy ended where their high school education left off.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 15, 2022)

AbyssStarer said:


> "EvErYhInG GoT WoRsE SiNcE tHe 80'Z"
> Holy shit, people need to stop nostalgiafagging for the 80's so hard. Every generation has had corruption and clownery to the point it seemed like the world is ending. Now that everybody's dumb ass is plugged into the Internetz all the time the bad things get hyperfocused because that's how (((they))) get you. Stop wallowing in what you see as all the insurmountable problems of the world and live your gay ass life while blasting whatever garbage fucking generic dadrock it is you like.


I barely post on the internet anymore, it's too shit.  I come to KF basically to get away from the wokeness and surface-level pop culture that I see everyday in a red state (with a very blue city).  Everyone fucking knows movies, music, and so many other things started getting worse in the 80s, and everyone knows things are now about the Perpetual Now moreso than they've ever been.  Unless you want to defend the endless reboots, Marvel shit, and autotune rap music that has dominated _everything _ the past 20 years then you have to admit--things are just not good right now.  Will they be better sometime?  I doubt it, but I hope so.  Millennials never grew up.  



Screamer said:


> It's probably an end result of being able to look up facts on the internet. You don't figure anything out yourself. You just regurgitate when you read. Made worse with algorithmic echo-chambers and bubbles.
> 
> It is complex though. The whole, "party of science" shit did come about in large part because of science denial over issues like climate change. The problem is, where we are now is not where we were 15 years ago. Now we have so many people that look online and glance at any opinion of fact as to what to know. Not what to think, there is no thinking. The same way one may look up the date of a historical event on Wikipedia. Then assume that is 100% correct. People look up opinions and world views. Uncritically assume that is what they must know.
> 
> I find it insane, I am a generation half in / half out of this change. I know so many people who are passionate about issues, yet know fuck all about them. They know literally nothing besides what opinion to have and be passionate about.


The problem is we have gone back to teaching things with a sense of institutional privilege and not teaching people how to be engaged, active, critical thinkers.  That's why the same people who wear lucky energy stones or whatever go "HAH, SCIENCE!" when an unusual weather pattern can be blamed on climate change (the inverse of what conservatives do on the same topic, I'd add). We've taught people they need to be activists--not in terms of self-discipline or self-improvement and bettering the world that way, _but by literally going out and combatting other people._ 

What's really disturbing is this distorted sense of history.  They barely know what happened in their own country, and they're so passionate and Dunning-Kreuger that they think their passion is wisdom.  They literally cannot see the difference between Nazis and Trump supporters.  Some demagogue makes a lame simile comparing the two and these dimwits clap like seals and Listen and Believe the Revealed scripture. They're so fucking stupid, tasteless, and ignorant, and once the economy crumbles these fucking maniacs are gonna get violent.


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## Black Light Red Panic (Jan 15, 2022)

Hah. Gotcha, kiddo. Better think twice before you come at yer betters, ha ha. You see that? I gotcha with the good old fashioned hat reaction emoji. Just like the system that brainwashed and actively controls my existence explicitly permits. Whatcha gonna do? Poopies in your diapers, kiddo? Ha. Ha. I sure gotten! Mary Lou!? Look at mah internet post! I sure did own this kiddo! I still got it! Ha. Ha. Teach you about the ranch, punk. Ha. Ha. You even have an account made after 1986. What a l o s e r.


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## Lunar Eclipse Paradox (Jan 16, 2022)

Because the past isn't as dumbed down or autistic enough for them and anything that does challenge them overwhelms them with complex topics they'll never be able to understand. They lived a life neglected by their parents where all they hear are authoritative news and McDonald's music and anything considered complex or critical is perceived by them as white supremacy. That's why those who don't yearn for the past want to rewrite it.


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## Santa Fe Swag (Jan 20, 2022)

Because their lives are bland and unfulfilling. Nobody who actually has an interesting life does that lame shit.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jan 20, 2022)

THCTard said:


> Because their lives are bland and unfulfilling. Nobody who actually has an interesting life does that lame shit.


A minority these days.


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