Getting mugged by reality is a definitive experience of Generation Y. The last cohort with personal memories of the pre-9/11 world, Ys have entered middle age in a state of deep confusion regarding their place in society. So far, the story of their lives has been “Stuff yourself on fast food, watch after-school cartoons, and play Nintendo.”
Is all that’s left for them dying alone and forgotten?
Not necessarily. I’ve argued before that fading out isolated, befuddled, and unmourned need not be Gen Y’s final fate.
It is true that the Strauss-Howe cycle is broken. Generation X were supposed to be the heroes we needed. Dereliction of parental duty on Boomers’ part destroyed Gen X’s vocation.
But some Ys are striving to fill their role as artists and mentors to younger generations. While attaining leadership positions isn’t in the cards, Gen Y seems to be working out its cultural calling: Preserving knowledge of what the world was like before the Internet and passing it down to Zoomers and Gen Alphas.
Gen Y remembers the promised potential of the worldwide web. It would decentralize commerce and politics to bring the world together. Having all the information ever just a click away would reinvent education and make people smarter, more capable, and more free.
As it turned out, the internet was mostly used for porn. A distant second use was for geeks to debate ad infinitum about corporate skinsuit IP ephemera.
And that was before the government colluded with Big Tech to kill the whole experiment and use it to bug everyone 24/7 for the intel agencies.
Related: A CIA Internal Matter
As society barrels headlong into a tyrannical era when the ruling Death Cult knows everything about everyone and uses that knowledge to control what they see, Gen Y’s living archive of the pre-internet age will become a precious resource.
The following are just a few reminders about how the world differed from Current Year when Gen Y was coming of age.
Less, but better, entertainment
Today, megacorp-owned streaming services offer constant access to pretty much any movie or TV show you’d want to watch.
But unlimited quantity has come with a steep decline in quality. If a film maker in the 1980s hated his audience, he at least had to play coy about it. Now, blockbuster movies outright attack their viewers.
The differences go beyond movies’ content and messages. People consumed movies in substantially different ways. The switch to streaming has wiped out entire distribution and exhibition channels.
Related: Blockbuster Bellwether
With movie theaters on the ropes, it’s hard to imagine a time when seeing movies in the cinema was still the default way to consume films. Theaters with more than a screen or two were still rarities in many locales as recently as the 1990s. If you wanted to see the latest entry in your friend group’s favorite slasher series, you went to the local theater. There, you’d enjoy the movie with people who shared your baseline cultural outlook.
Movie theaters were also the main option for rewatching movies. With video stores still in their infancy, most movies had longer theater runs. Even mid-tier flicks might run for a month or more. And popular films would be re-released from time to time.
That meant rewatching your favorite movie often depended on agreements between the studios, distributors, and theaters. That clunky arrangement left an opening that the video rental market arose to exploit. The weekend trip to the video store became a ritual in most families. Not even a rental membership guaranteed you’d get the movie you wanted, since each store could only stock so many tapes. Limited supply meant you had to come prepared with a second, or even third, choice. Snagging that hot new release meant staying abreast of rumors about which store had the exclusive and adjusting your timing to beat the crowd. But the element of competition added savor to each success.
Vidya was a social activity
Before the internet brought us MMOs and online shooters, multi-player gaming meant playing with your friends in person. Whether hanging out at the arcade or gathering in front of the console TV in your buddy’s living room, vidya had a physical and social element that’s been all but lost.
If you can recall any of the following:
- Pressing right on controller 2 so your friend could jump super high in Megam Man 3
- placing a token on the Mortal Kombat cabinet to claim your spot in line
- going for 100% in Metroid while a friend looked up the item locations in Nintendo Power
Then you’re probably Gen Y.
Communicating was harder, which was awesome
Related: Grandma’s Phone
The same tech advances that ruined social gaming also let you reach pretty much everyone at all times. Not only do we all carry cell phones, most of these are smartphones that multiply lines of communication a hundredfold. If someone’s not calling you, texting you, or messaging you on social media, chacnes are you’re dead or in jail.
In the old days, reaching out to someone required knowing his phone number and dialing it by hand. Getting a hold of your party meant calling while he was at home or in the office. If you missed him, you had to play phone tag with answering machines—or your moms or secretaries—and wait for the stars to align.
Sometimes you’d have better luck just dropping by your friend’s home or place of business. That degree of uncertainty made the neighborhood social hub, such as the local arcade, an invaluable resource for making plans and getting the word out.
All of these lines of communication interwove in ways that instant, reliable communication has all but erased from modern life.
Imagine it’s some long-lost Saturday in the 1980s. You want to see the new Schwarzenegger flick with your pal Kevin. So you ring his house, and his mom answers. She says Kevin’s not there, and she’s not sure where he went or when he’ll be back. Your next move is swing by the mall and pop into the arcade, where Kev was likely to show up at some point. After a few rounds at the six player X-Men cabinet with a couple of other friends, Kev would walk in, and the four of you would grab an Orange Juluius before proceeding to the mall’s movie theater.
Nobody could track your moves. No one was breathing down your neck. Big Brother was busy with the Russkies, and helicopter moms were a decade in the future. Adults extended kids a modicum of trust a and gave them a degree of responsibility.
Post your pre-internet reminiscences in the comments.
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