Baby Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials

She said the term was invented in 1983, then expressed some doubt about the extent the practice of BDSM existed prior to that. The doubt was unmerited, but there's no reason to make her sound more clueless than what she actually said.

i don't think moore is a generally clueless person and i've enjoyed a story or two of hers in the past. the point is that, like nearly all discourse around cultural generations over the past oh 60 years, the scope of the supplied bitter generalizations doesn't even extend beyond a small, privileged class of straw people - upper/upper-middle class, white, and in this specific case, heterosexual to the point where leather bars are thought to be a fairly recent invention

if these are the only people that make up your world then sure go off i guess. what's the point in even reacting to this stuff, it's just kayfabe entertainment for a very specific brand of person

i do love the "millennials had harry potter boomers had old yeller" line - my boomer mom once told me that in high school every girl walked around with a copy of catcher in the rye and every boy walked around with a copy of lord of the rings

yeah this is ludicrous, I mean They seem like nice people. But not normal. is a wholly deranged thing to say about a whole "generation"

She's right about one thing though, millennial's music kinda sucks, if you're talking about the new music their generation likes. They do have excellent taste in old music, though.

Gen X musical taste is more offensive than either boomers or millennials

Gen Z who knows but 100 gecs are pretty cool

Gen X musical taste is more offensive than either boomers or millennials

Fair enough. Whatever the generation was that was making music in the '70s and early '80s. That was the best time for music.

Generations schmenerations but Lorrie Moore rules and her sentences are great whether true or false

100 gecs are pretty cool

This group is my "your taste is garbage - never talk to me about art or culture again" litmus test.

Lorrie Moore is kind of overrated IMHO. I read Alice Munro for my uptight boomer fiction

But yeah, she can go off all she wants and she'll be dead soon, and many of those who will ever care about what she did will soon follow. It's like great yr bitter that you lack understanding of contemporary culture, you could also shit the fuck up

This group is my "your taste is garbage - never talk to me about art or culture again" litmus test.

Don't break your hip, grandpa

money machine is one of the greatest songs/videos ever

Lorrie Moore is kind of overrated IMHO. I read Alice Munro for my uptight boomer fiction

― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, July 17, 2020 6:29 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm. i think who will run the frog hospital is great tho. her more annoying stylistic tics started outweighing the good stuff circa gate at the stairs imo, and i found bark nigh-unreadable

When I say Lorrie Moore is great I am not talking about "Gate at the Stairs" any more than when I say REM is great I am talking about "Reveal," and yes, Alice Munro is better, but if I didn't read anyone who wasn't as good as Alice Munro I would barely read

i have no idea who any of these people are -- except for REM and older generations' favorite young adult "climate activist Greta Thunberg" -- i remember seeing the movie of Old Yeller in 2nd grade on monthly movie day, the month after they showed us Free to Be You And Me ... this was a few years before FTBY&M star, and noteworthy Boomer, Michael Jackson became known as a pedophile ...

When I say Lorrie Moore is great I am not talking about "Gate at the Stairs"

ok but are we not talking about something lorrie moore wrote like recently. her sentences don't rule forever

Harry Potter also gave young millennials the idea that everyone has a superpower that only has to be discovered. Hence the rudderless waiting.

See, this is quite a good summary of my life, but I'm an xennial, too old for Potter to have been formative, so I'm p sure it doesn't come from there.

Also (as someone who hasn't read all the books so I may be way off here) isn't HP quite clear that Harry only has special powers because he is the special son of an unknowingly special lineage, and the boring normy kids don't get superpowers?

Boomers tended to blame their parents for only what their parents did and were [not what the Boomers did and were]

Hmm this does not fit with the things I've heard my parents' generation say about their upbringing at all at all

but OK, I'm bored of reading this now, whatever, I only liked the part that sounded like it was about me - generationally psychogeneralise that (ornate Japanese shrug emoji here)

the idea that 'i could secretly be a special person with superpowers' is kind of the whole conceit behind Star Wars too. And I guess most superhero comics too, so it goes for the Silent Generation. Trying to think of what the Boomer equivalent is

Matilda, the book, was also very impressionable on me as a kid in this respect

"my real father was the king but he hid me away for plot reasons" is hardly a new idea in storytelling

isn't HP quite clear that Harry only has special powers because he is the special son of an unknowingly special lineage, and the boring normy kids don't get superpowers?

not exactly - Hermione's parents being normy is an important point in the books iirc

we better not tell this person when the X-Men debuted

that article is stupid, and a majority of the people i know haven't read harry potter and don't know anything about it. born in 84.

I'm Oct 1980, so I fall bang in the Xennial hinterland. Always found it strange that Star Wars never impacted my social group as a kid, despite some current friends being agog at the idea that I only first watched them in their 1997 remixed forms. Seemed to be more of an 'older sibling' obession. As for HP, I read the first four books and watched the first four films, but it always felt more of a 'kid sister' thing than anything I can really call mine.

i was a snobby piece of shit even as a kid, so i refused all 'kid stuff' after about the age of twelve.

like, i've never seen The Lion King lol.

Obvious dearth of hakuna matata

"Harry Potter also gave young millennials the idea that everyone has a superpower that only has to be discovered. Hence the rudderless waiting."

and that superpower turns out to be the power to tell the author of your favorite books to go fuck herself

a majority of the people i know haven't read harry potter and don't know anything about it. born in 84.

'85 here. I don't know anyone who's read it either, although several of my friends have seen the films. I definitely felt too old for that shit when it came out and even as a longtime high fantasy enthusiast it was off-putting to me because its core cast of characters consists of kids. I didn't care for kid protagonists in these kinds of settings when I was a toddler so I obviously wasn't going to change my mind at the age of 12-13, which is when I first got wind of the franchise. Chalk one up for 'I never liked Rowling anyway' (I'm very good at living up to this particular cliché).

'Harry Potter? Oh you mean that kids' film?' is an effective declaration of war which I like to employ on occasion

'Harry Potter? Oh you mean that kids' film?' is an effective declaration of war which I like to employ on occasion

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

as someone who is not unfamiliar with rather more literal effective declarations of war of late, i would question your approach here. first, dismissing something as being "for kids", or "infantile", or "babyish", or whatever, is not a good dismissal because there is nothing wrong with children's entertainment. second, even if that was a good dismissal, telling people something they love is shit... if you think someone is shit, and you can't think of better reasons why they're shit than the entertainment they enjoy, perhaps you don't have very good reason for thinking they're shit.

also just like, not that fun of a conversational gambit.

born 81 here, got into the Potter books while working at a bookstore in 2000 (the local paper photographed me in Harry getup promoting the midnight launch of Book 4), enjoyed them thoroughly with some reservations towards the end. i do get the sense of slight distance from the kids who *grew up* with them, for whom the characters are universally known archetypes and references (as Star Wars was for, yeah, my older siblings' generation) --- "that guy was such a Horace Slughorn" etc. but that's just how time works. some of the same youth have told me they're jealous i was a teen in the 90s, when music was great. same ol story!

but c'mon, they're very very entertaining boarding-school adventure/mystery books plus a fun melange of magic tropes with a generous dash of Matilda to kick things off. as harry ages they trend more towards lore-heavy, long-term payoff YA melodrama, which also works well. there are some interesting ideas sprinkled around, and a nice eye for everyday types of villainy and cowardice; if The Youth learned from these books to be bolder and braver, then right on.

they also turned *bajillions* of kids into lifelong readers. immeasurable effects there imo. i steered SO many parents towards dahl, l'engle, lloyd alexander, and i can't even remember what else, based on their descriptions of the things about harry potter that their kids responded to. some of that i'm sure just turned into sales of shlock for adults! but idk i think they helped raise reading's profile as a popular and not-just-for-weirdos activity.

Born in the early 70s and I think everybody my age I know has both read HP, is very familiar with the characters/mythos, and was so before we all had kids! Maybe there's a kind of valley effect where people in their 30s can read kids' books but adolescents / recent college grades can't or won't?

born in early 70s, has never read Harry Potter, seen any Harry Potter movies or Lion King -- though a few years back I was in a band with a millenial who once brought a grade school friend home to watch their VHS of the Lion King after school and half-way through they discovered his dad had overdubbed porn onto the tape -- and that is my Lion King story

no that's how the actual lion king goes

Rule 34.

born in 90, basically everyone i know has read the potter books (well, everyone who read books at all) with varying degrees of love/obsession. i have a friend who re-reads all seven books every summer.

born in 86, nearly everyone i know has read the potter books (well, everyone who read books at all) with varying degrees of love/obsession. I have not read them nor seen the movies, and recoiled from the whole phenomenon while it was still new. I wish I could say it was for better reasons than simple kneejerk elitism but hey sometimes that pays off in the long run

tbh I was very much pushed into a certain track and was also a weird little punk kid. I got arrested for the first time for protesting when I was 15. Deeply weird and obsessive and opposed to what i termed "mainstream culture."

avoiding all art is a good way to make sure you don't have any problematic faves

Born in 1971. Never saw The Lion King until this year. Was turned off to everything Harry Potter by an asshole co-worker circa 2000-2005 who was obsessed with the books. Nobody I've met IRL since who's heavily into that stuff has come off like anyone I'd want to hang out with or talk about...anything, really.

spoken like a true gryffindor

born in early 70s, has never read Harry Potter, seen any Harry Potter movies or Lion King

same. i was working in bookstores when the first few came out, though, and it was pretty cool to see all the kids fucking stoked to read these increasingly huge books

i find the 'which school/house/whatever they're called would X get sent to' stuff tedious but tbh i come across HP references far less often than stupid star wars references

everyone i know has read the potter books (well, everyone who read books at all)

Ime HP clicked with the 'I don't really like reading but I like this' crowd above all.

also lol at table using rejection of harry potter to establish teen punk cred

I was born in '75 and have read a few HP books and seen Lion King, although I attribute both to parenthood. Most everyone I know has also read these godawful books.

whats harry potter

Born 1979. I saw the original Star Wars movies as a kid on VHS but didn't develop any attachment to them and, even though I knew the movies were a big deal, I'm not sure I truly understood until college that they were objects of obsessive interest to some of my peers. They just weren't really a part of my immediate world.

I did see The Lion King and all of the other major Disney movies from 1989 to 1996, but I think I was too old to be obsessed with them. In my view, they were generally just well-reviewed movies with good songs. IIRC, I saw The Lion King with a couple of female friends (it was the summer after sophomore year), and then we probably played mini-golf or got ice cream afterwards. Haven't seen it since.

By the time the Harry Potter books came out, I was in college and had no interest whatsoever in reading anything marketed to children. (I'm not as much of a snob as I was then, but I'm still not particularly interested in Harry Potter.)

At age ~10, the narrative series I was most into was probably the King's Quest computer games.