Thread: Boomer Woes

Originally Posted by Mantis

I think you're an honorary boomer. You have many of the same ideals despite being a little younger than the typical age. Plus, you do like some modern games which is normal anyway. However, I think what sets you apart somewhat is your attitude towards film and TV. A problem I have with youngsters (here I'm talking about watching with teenagers in my family) is that they don't really want to watch anything nowadays. Be that a classic film or a critically acclaimed TV show, they just miss out on something great which is sad. When I was a teenager I watched all sorts of TV, but I think more and more often now they'd rather spend any time gaming or on social media, etc.

Netflix has gone to shit so it's usually up to me to find something great, but I have a large(ish) family and adults are nearly always the ones who want to sit down and watch a good film. (Well, unless it's something like a cartoon with the younger kids.) Yeah, I'm rambling. It's just another activity that I think has been practically ruined in modern years. What I blame? Cinema, or lack thereof. They're usually almost empty and I'm not just talking about Captain Marvel. When I was a younger teenager I went to watch a film with friends most weekends. Of course, with our coats stuffed with sweets and chocolate to avoid extortion. I think that cinema is what got me into films. I dunno, it sounds like a minor point, but I just think it's sad how so many won't know that or might even miss the best film and TV altogether.

I'll end my rant there. Just, if you're a parent, take your kids to the fucking cinema. And try some multiplayer gaming. Online gaming is much more addictive (speaking with first-hand experience) and will never beat local.

I was gonna quote each point as i address them, but I don't have that much time this morning so I will just go through chronologically. I agree on the first part, I definitely have boomer qualities but I absolutely miss the mark regarding the media that those qualities surround. To genuinely fit in with the meme I'd need to be an 80's movie buff (or live-action media consumer in general), listen to certain music, and have a deeper history with a subset of classic PC games. It's almost a little more concerning that I appear to be some sort of Newtype Boomer that has an even narrower subset of media to whinge about. Where I differ significantly is consuming something because it's "classic" or "critically acclaimed". Fortnite and Marvel movies are critically acclaimed but I'd rather sit on a sandpaper traffic-cone than spend time on them (or even having to hear about them anymore, really).

That's not to say I didn't have plenty of good movie-going experiences, and I've even been to the cinema several times this year. I just...don't enjoy it like others do and maybe 1% of the movies I've seen mean anything to me. I've definitely done the candy in the pockets thing quite a few times as well, haha. I now the film thing wasn't directed at me (you know I can't change) and your point of view is 100000% valid on kids missing out if they or their parents don't at least try attending the cinema. Make sure they experience it but if they don't like it, stop forcing them. I must have spent several hundred hours of my life watching things to appease people and I appreciate them wanting to bring me in but I wish they'd have listened to me.

While I did play Doom/Quake/Duke Nukem 3D I was like 3-5 years old and it was just a few minutes with my dad. Wish I could be 100% on-board with those but I'd be faking a history I just don't have. Thankfully, the realm of media that classifies a meme-style Boomer is rather broad.

Originally Posted by KorinKitty

What I find funny is that I grew up being made fun of for liking video games

I know this is gonna be unpopular and I am wrong about this, but I feel like I should make fun of superhero movies and their fans. I got teased for liking video games as I'm sure we all did as kids/teens and now I feel this urge to not see adults who enjoy Marvel movies as real adults. I've come to understand the mindset of wanting to put down people for "childish" hobbies and that makes me as Boomer as possible, in a way. I can't fathom how superheroes remain interesting past the age of 5, but I know from the BILLIONS OF $$$DOLLARS$$$ they make that I'm wrong. Do people live vicariously through the characters on-screen and beat up the bad guys in their head? Are they invested in the story and do they really worry that Spiderman won't beat the bad guy? I feel so confused and left out, and I don't know if I'm just stupid or ??? Somebody help me.

Someone mentioned Fortnite and I found...

I'm fucking crying with laughter at this.

A bit off topic: What are those memes called? I see them more and more now. Did they start on 4chan or something? Some of them are hilarious. I just want to look at more of them now.

Do you mean Wojak?

Tfw just barely a boomer (born in '98).

I admit, I didn't really grow up with stuff like games (aside from plug-n-play consoles), but I don't feel like I fit in with millennials/zoomers that much either. I dress kinda conservatively and appreciate older anime aesthetics (and the general aesthetics of previous decades in general.) Hell, I even write on typewriters that I've collected over the years.

What we have now in terms of entertainment seems very...distant from me. Hollow, dry, uninteresting. Not all of it, mind you, but a lot of the mainstream entertainment outlets are bland to me. Perhaps this sounds childish, but I sometimes like to retreat into my little corner of old anime, old music, and old literature and recuperate from the stuff I go through some days. Sometimes I feel like I should go out and embrace what there is now, but I have no clue where to start. A big example is games. I never played games as a regular hobby as a kid, so idk where to start now. The one game I can think of that I love is Okami, and I want to get the remastered version of that for PC (once I actually get a PC that doesn't suck ass like this Chromebook does.)

I feel like I'm kinda stuck in the past, partly by my own volition. I grew up with a lot of older media, and that's what I know, so I stick with it most of the time. Those were the days, it seems... *sip*

Pfff, we all know that zoomers are first and foremost much younger. The 'Z' refers to "Generation Z", birth from mid-90s until present day. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, "Boomer: 1970-1994" (obviously the meme definition, not baby) and "Zoomer: 1995-2019", or something like that.

I do find it difficult to introduce most zoomers to retro games and films, but I admit that I envy zoomers who have boomer ideals. Give me some of your years!

Can I just say that I had a particularly "Boomer woes" morning driving to work today? I had the most intense longing to play Dark Cloud (that's Dark Chronicle for you Euroboys) and listened to a bunch of the music from the games and even watched 2 reviews of it (i have a long commute). I made alot of friends back in the day that I still know 15 years later due to Dark Cloud in late elementary school. (Born in late 1992 so adjust your Boomer scale accordingly to accommodate for an early PS2 game causing Boomer woes).

As the waves of emotion for Dark Cloud started to relax, I revved up the old Megaman Legends playlist but then I arrived at work which brought me back to reality so harshly.

more meme images, but i don't want to ruin the thread

I was born in '92, so even though I'm still fairly young compared to some other "boomers" (I guess I'd be considered one? The cutoff seems to be 94 or so these days. I have many vivid memories of Blockbuster, if that proves me worthy...), I definitely feel like kids today are much different than I was, and there seems to have been a paradigm shift in culture over the last 20 years. On the note of music, there is no doubt that music has gone down the shitter. When I listen to stuff like Sublime, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Elliott Smith, any of that type of edgy 90s music, or even older stuff like Led Zeppelin or Queen, I have a hard time understanding how someone would rather listen to modern rap. The sad thing is, there is actually still some decent music being made (check out Borderline by King Krule and Seven Feathers by Nahko), but it's so ridiculously outweighed by the garbage pop/hip-hop music that it's extremely difficult to find.

I don't think everything has gotten worse necessarily. Things are definitely easier than they used to be in some ways -- such as how easy and cheap it is to watch and listen to whatever you want, when you want. However, there seems to be something of a "soul" missing in many things. Anime is a perfect example. When I watch something like Outlaw Star, the hand-drawn quality of the art, funky intro sequence and excellent character chemistry is something you just don't see anymore. Animes today seem to largely have crappy j-rock intros and computer-animated graphics that look too clean and fake. The stories too, seem to center around stupid things like some high school kid that's actually a 6000 year old demon, rather than examine anything interesting. You just don't find a cast of likeable, soulful characters anymore, not like you would in something like Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop or Trigun. I really don't know what it is, but those kind of shows just fell off the face of the planet, seemingly overnight.

Maybe one day we'll get back to basics, and things like music, anime and video games will become passion projects created by talented people again, rather than money-grubbing schemes created by marketing teams. If this day really is yet to come, it can't come soon enough.

Originally Posted by StarDood64

I was born in '92, so even though I'm still fairly young compared to some other "boomers" (I guess I'd be considered one? The cutoff seems to be 94 or so these days. I have many vivid memories of Blockbuster, if that proves me worthy...), I definitely feel like kids today are much different than I was, and there seems to have been a paradigm shift in culture over the last 20 years. On the note of music, there is no doubt that music has gone down the shitter. When I listen to stuff like Sublime, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Elliott Smith, any of that type of edgy 90s music, or even older stuff like Led Zeppelin or Queen, I have a hard time understanding how someone would rather listen to modern rap. The sad thing is, there is actually still some decent music being made (check out Borderline by King Krule and Seven Feathers by Nahko), but it's so ridiculously outweighed by the garbage pop/hip-hop music that it's extremely difficult to find.

I don't think everything has gotten worse necessarily. Things are definitely easier than they used to be in some ways -- such as how easy and cheap it is to watch and listen to whatever you want, when you want. However, there seems to be something of a "soul" missing in many things. Anime is a perfect example. When I watch something like Outlaw Star, the hand-drawn quality of the art, funky intro sequence and excellent character chemistry is something you just don't see anymore. Animes today seem to largely have crappy j-rock intros and computer-animated graphics that look too clean and fake. The stories too, seem to center around stupid things like some high school kid that's actually a 6000 year old demon, rather than examine anything interesting. You just don't find a cast of likeable, soulful characters anymore, not like you would in something like Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop or Trigun. I really don't know what it is, but those kind of shows just fell off the face of the planet, seemingly overnight.

Maybe one day we'll get back to basics, and things like music, anime and video games will become passion projects created by talented people again, rather than money-grubbing schemes created by marketing teams. If this day really is yet to come, it can't come soon enough.

I actually noticed that too. The lack of life really can be felt in a lot of things, including anime. I guess this is either due to anime artists losing passion or maybe some never having it to begin with (younger artists)? I grew up in the 90's and loved everything about it. I feel like it was the calm before the storm with a lot of issues of today in terms of division, politics, not great music/movies/tv, and so on. Everything just feels fake anymore.

Originally Posted by KorinKitty

I actually noticed that too. The lack of life really can be felt in a lot of things, including anime. I guess this is either due to anime artists losing passion or maybe some never having it to begin with (younger artists)? I grew up in the 90's and loved everything about it. I feel like it was the calm before the storm with a lot of issues of today in terms of division, politics, not great music/movies/tv, and so on. Everything just feels fake anymore.

I think the issue largely boils down to money. Let me give you an example: let's take video games. Many people would argue that video games from yesteryear, things like DOOM or the 2D Zelda games, are largely better games than what we have today; the kind of stuff like endless Call of Duty rehashes. Now you have to wonder, what exactly happened for us to go from these innovative, passion-driven games to these uninspired sequels? Did people with talent and passion just disappear one day? I think it comes down to a filtering process. There was a time when games were developed by people who were A) college-educated and had to be extremely skilled and intelligent to make games simply because there were far fewer resources for making them than there are today, and B) extremely passionate and creative, which again, they would have to be to go into an (at the time) fledgling industry that didn't have the promise of huge profits. Now compare that against what we have today: almost anybody can make a video game because there are millions of easy-to-use programs that let you do so (thus, talent and education are no longer required), and passion/creativity is no longer a necessity because most people who do make games are either trying to replicate the games they played in their childhood, or are working for large corporations who bottleneck their creative freedom. This is worsened by the ever-expanding budget of said games, which further prevent people from trying new things, and instead focus on marketing-driven development. Essentially, what we have now is a perfect storm of less talented individuals, less passion and creativity, and huge budgets that scare investors.

Now apply this to everything else. Movies, TV shows, music, just about anything. There are comparatively few emerging industries left in the world. Almost everything has been charted out and put on a graph. People are no longer willing to take risks, experiment or throw money at passion projects because there's no guarantee of success, and investors/marketers don't want to back something that isn't a guaranteed return. This is why there are so many Marvel movies for example -- these films are a proven design for success, and even though they have declined sharply in quality and increased greatly in quantity, they continue to be made because they were built upon a pre-defined outline. Unfortunately, the result is now a world where "soulful" things have been abandoned in favor of money. Most music is now produced largely by algorithms and focus group testing (even voices are digitally edited), television programs are extremely formulaic and almost never deviate from the trifecta of news-reality-drama -- even food has become almost entirely manufactured and created to yield the most gains with the least effort. Even the crops we use to make food are manufactured so to speak, through genetic engineering the like. In a way, our whole existence has become plastic.