The long read: From the generic hipster cafe to the ‘Instagram wall’, the internet has pushed us towards a kind of global ubiquity – and this phenomenon is only going to intensify
In general, it’s a very older-gen (boomer/x-gen) point to make at the moment, but it’s probably one of the nostalgic points worth taking seriously. I’m sure today there are certainly counter cultures. My bet is that compared to the past, they’re harder to find, generally more numerous and probably more nebulous and hard to pin down unless you’re “in them”, and, problematically, I’d imagine they tend to be “thinner” and more fragile … less “alternative world views” and more “particular vibe specific to a time and place”. Genuinely curious topic for me though.
I never thought about this but it certainly feels true. The vibe I mostly get from young people is a lot of resentment of boomers (understandable) and a general hopelessness / nihilism (also understandable) and a desire for inclusion and diversity (positives) but not a lot of cohesive fighting spirit.
There have been some serious efforts (protests about school shootings, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, ANTIFA, Greta, etc) but they all kind of fizzle out when the next big culture war diversion comes along. The establishment has mastered their ability to divide and conquer working class folks. As easy as it is to hold contempt for boomers, the hippie counterculture did have a massive impact.
As easy as it is to hold contempt for boomers, the hippie counterculture did have a massive impact.
Resonates with my personal critique of my generation (millennial) … however “unlucky” we are to suffer the transition out of the post-war period and “suffer” the boomers … we’re a relatively ineffectual and entitled bunch TBH, however much that is our fault or our circumstances.
We’re the generation that have gone ahead and made a bunch of life decisions because it was what we were “supposed” to do. We’re the generation that trusted and to some extent still trusts the system, and, expects there to be a system that is trust worthy … which aren’t bad virtues or expectations, but certainly helps explain how a generation can share a ubiquitous dissatisfaction with how the world ends up working and the future we’re heading toward but still struggle to work up the motivation to get up and do something about it. In a way, we’ve been betrayed by our elders and we don’t know what to do about it and how sad we and empty we feel about it.
And simultaneously, we’re the generation that’s as plugged in to consuming and responding to the input of big giant systems as ever. (Over-)Education[1], TV, Internet, social media, 24hr news, globalisation. Our attention spans are short, our concerns our ephemeral or fed to us by the mainstream, and we feel smaller and smaller against the great tide of content and input over which have no control and in which even less stakes. We’re the “stay in your lane” and doom-scroll generation … which makes us ill-prepared and ill-suited for changing the kind of systems we rely on. When something feels too big or too hard, we’re more likely to sit alone, pick up our phones and doom-scroll for some dopamine than we are to look around to our peers sitting next to us for support and dig in together.
And to bring this back to the fediverse … many on here celebrate how it feels like the old internet that the remember (old twitter or usenet). I’ve always personally found that problematic.
On a basic level, nostalgia can be dangerous in its indifference to the present … old twitter and usenet and the old internet are kinda dead and the fediverse should lean in to being its own thing, however much that borrows from what once was.
More specifically, social media for the younger generation is a different thing … they didn’t use the internet in the 90s and never will. Some of them have only seen twitter, youtube and tiktok and can’t help but compare anything like the fediverse, however much they might be interested in its ideas, to the social media they know.
So for me, us millennials, I think we’re kind of broken, and heading into the physical age where we’re custodians of our experience and the lessons that ought to have been learnt from it, and no longer “the generation” that the world should care about and be making social media platforms for.
We should be making an internet for the younger generations, one that is better than what our X-gen/Boomer capitalist seniors gave them and gives them a chance to understand and use the knowledge sharing, exploration and independence the technology can provide.
I’ve got nothing against education per se, but I feel that a lot of education is rather shallow, manufactured and focused on “certification” rather than useful and meaningful understandings, ideas and skills. ↩︎
I think when we discuss generations, a trap we all fall into (including me) is stereotyping. We tend to think of each generation as a monolith.
Within my own generation (X) I grew up with people who were extremely pro-establishment, people who were extremely anti-establishment, and many in the middle.
I agree that Millenials are better educated. As for the overall quality of that educational content, your criticism could apply to almost all of us. When I was in public school, you would barely know that other countries even exist. Geography, world history, and global subjects were barely covered. US “exceptionalism” eclipsed all of it.
The boomers outnumbered the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation. And they were louder per pound, too. They still dominate in many ways (especially government and board rooms) even though they are quite old and 1/3 of them are gone.
So it’s not entirely learned helplessness among the young. It’s a true power imbalance.
Just hope it’s not too late after their power finally crumbles.
Its also societal construction and built environment issues. There is a genuine lack of agency in the Millenial generation, and likely less again in the younger generations.
Take the built environment, its unfriendly to those with low resources, leading to isolation or dependency on those with resources, often boomer parents. The suburbs stretch on and on, all services public or private have been bundled together more and more, think super hospitals. Then they are placed further away because they now serve vast areas, there is also a fragility in these cost cutting ‘efficiencies’. If your one hospital is out of action what do you do?
Even down to ever wider roads for ever larger cars, this impacts other activities an area could be engaging in.
Societal construction has undermined any civic engagement organisations that don’t have a pro-owner slant. Its telling that unions have been smashed, but chambers of commerce? They are basically unions for business owners.
It’s also an unwillingness of boomers to let go of power in certain community groups. How many of these locak groups are almost exclusively full of very mature age people?
My last point i think ties into the above though. The X’ers, Millenials, and younger are getting hit progressively harder by the wage worker depression, while no risk financial speculation, and asset driven wealth inflation, line the beds of those with the means to participate. Usually the older, or children with inherited wealth. This means longer working hours for less relative income, a need to keep upgrading your ‘skillset’ to prove your value to HR, creating a poorer strata financially and in time. If the younger generations weren’t forced to change careers every six or so years to finally reach an ‘adult’ job, we would have time to participate more in our society.
I think the Millenial generation (mine) is going to be rather boring in the footnotes of history. (X’ers had a bit of punk and metal that keeps them spicy.) We won’t have the resources to be anything but rather conservative in our policies (classically so, not the radical republican-conservatism of the 80’s on).
On the bright side, in my country, Australia, the predicted shift to the ‘right’ as people get older seems to have broken. Which signals a rejection of the policies those parties stand for. Which are the policies causing the most acute problems for Millenials, and generations younger. So, maybe as the boomers fade, a generational solidarity will rise due to a union of desires, and our countrys will begin to feel less like generational trench warfare. That is my firm hope for the future of my time on this planet with you lot.
Take the built environment, its unfriendly to those with low resources
Something I’ve noticed over my 50+ years is how hostile the man-made environment has become to anyone not actively spending money and engaging in commerce. Things like loitering, sleeping, etc. are treated as crimes in almost any public space in the US. I sometimes watch stealth campers on YouTube and it’s insane how just existing somewhere, walking around on foot, or sitting in a parked car marks the person as “highly suspicious”. While ultimately it will be the police who hassle you, most citizens will be super quick to narc on you and call them on you if you look out of place. It’s been embedded into our mindset that anyone not shopping or going to an appointment is a source of “stranger danger”.
And of course, our towns and cities are all built with cars in mind over here. Car traffic, parking, etc, is the topmost concern while pedestrians are a very distant afterthought. There’s many reasons for why it developed this way. Not least of all is how powerful and influential Detroit automakers used to be. But beyond that, our oligarchs like people with vehicles because they tend to have at least some money, and they tend to not stay in one place very long. Movement and turnover is seen as profits.
I feel like the entire world is turning into something sort of like a crowded restaurant. Where you’re allowed to hang out for a little while, but only if you’re spending money, and even then you need to move on quickly so we can get more people in here spending more money. And how everything is a subscription now, and all the games they play to maximize profits with weaponized greed.
It’s a small and stupid example, but the NFL (professional gridiron football) recently caught some bad PR for showing a playoff game on a streaming service that required a subscription to watch. They already make millions on these games because of advertising. But it’s never enough. They have to constantly push for more, because their model relies on infinite growth (like cancer does). That one stupid example means nothing, but I see that sort of thing going on everywhere.
I haven’t been to the NFL, but friends took me to a baseball game while i’s there. It was a Mariners game, very fun night. But i felt the pressure to spend on everything as soon as you walked in, it felt like the stadium was incompetition against each specatator over the contents of your wallet.
Luigi Zingales, a Chicago University Economist, recently did a Q&A where he talked about the two meanings of competition that the English language roles into the one word, that of competitions to defeat an opponent, and competitions creating something in kind. There are parts of the community that have opted for the first definition and act in all times against their opponents, as you say “weaponized greed”. What they don’t realise is what makes the market a force for good is acting with competitors, following the second defintion.
A good example is the downtown nightlife district of a city. Alone those bars and eateries might be nice establishments, but if they’re the only option in town their product offering can become stale, but together in competition with each other they act to collectively create this fantastic and flexible destination for a night out.
As for hostile public spaces the same happens here l, in Australia, so so much. I even have to catch myself and correct my preconceived notions when i see someone laying in a park. I suppose the only difference is the economic interests are more evenly weighted, due to no detroit-like lobbyists.
Another weird thing that’s happened in recent NFL games…fans have been asked to help shovel snow out of the stadiums.
I honestly don’t know what I think about that. I’m sure the underpaid and overworked stadium staff appreciates the help. It’s a massive job.
On the other hand, it reminds me that these pro teams are always expecting subsidies of various types from the taxpayers and local communities, while vacuuming up almost all of the money to the pockets of the owners.
Wow. That takes self serve to whole other level. I get the stadiums are big, but that kind of request needs to come with consideration, even reduced ticket prices could do the teick if they’re asking fans.
Or yeah, they could just pay fair value for services rendered, i know alien concept isn’t it! Lol
You make very well expressed and thought provoking arguments!
And while I can recognise myself in a lot of what you’re saying, I think that us millennials are just now beginning to reach the age (28 to 42 this year, by the definition I follow) where we have some weight to affect that system from the position in it that we grew up in.
Any of us who wants to make our own space: work on a good website, start a coffee shop the way we want it, run a node in a federated social network… I feel it’s not until now that any of us have had the skillset, long-term motivation and economical position to be able to do any of those things seriously. Building a better internet is what we are doing right here and now :)
From a millennial perspective, the next 10-20 years are certainly going to be “our moment” … and yea, I’m personally interested in and looking forward to seeing how much the vibe shifts from a boomer dominated to millennial dominated world. Without wanting to shit on boomers or anything, I’d guess that it’ll be a mixed bag. There will be real sigh of relief as we shake off some simply old, privileged and egocentric perspectives … but also some frustrations as we have to face our own versions “douche bag” and shitty systems.
There have been some serious efforts (protests about school shootings, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, ANTIFA, Greta, etc) but they all kind of fizzle out when the next big culture war diversion comes along.
Either that or maybe the FBI has just gotten really good at disrupting them.
Seems relevant … Ted Gioia’s article on “Signs you’re living in a world without a counter culture”: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/14-warning-signs-that-you-are-living
In general, it’s a very older-gen (boomer/x-gen) point to make at the moment, but it’s probably one of the nostalgic points worth taking seriously. I’m sure today there are certainly counter cultures. My bet is that compared to the past, they’re harder to find, generally more numerous and probably more nebulous and hard to pin down unless you’re “in them”, and, problematically, I’d imagine they tend to be “thinner” and more fragile … less “alternative world views” and more “particular vibe specific to a time and place”. Genuinely curious topic for me though.
I never thought about this but it certainly feels true. The vibe I mostly get from young people is a lot of resentment of boomers (understandable) and a general hopelessness / nihilism (also understandable) and a desire for inclusion and diversity (positives) but not a lot of cohesive fighting spirit.
There have been some serious efforts (protests about school shootings, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, ANTIFA, Greta, etc) but they all kind of fizzle out when the next big culture war diversion comes along. The establishment has mastered their ability to divide and conquer working class folks. As easy as it is to hold contempt for boomers, the hippie counterculture did have a massive impact.
Resonates with my personal critique of my generation (millennial) … however “unlucky” we are to suffer the transition out of the post-war period and “suffer” the boomers … we’re a relatively ineffectual and entitled bunch TBH, however much that is our fault or our circumstances.
We’re the generation that have gone ahead and made a bunch of life decisions because it was what we were “supposed” to do. We’re the generation that trusted and to some extent still trusts the system, and, expects there to be a system that is trust worthy … which aren’t bad virtues or expectations, but certainly helps explain how a generation can share a ubiquitous dissatisfaction with how the world ends up working and the future we’re heading toward but still struggle to work up the motivation to get up and do something about it. In a way, we’ve been betrayed by our elders and we don’t know what to do about it and how sad we and empty we feel about it.
And simultaneously, we’re the generation that’s as plugged in to consuming and responding to the input of big giant systems as ever. (Over-)Education[1], TV, Internet, social media, 24hr news, globalisation. Our attention spans are short, our concerns our ephemeral or fed to us by the mainstream, and we feel smaller and smaller against the great tide of content and input over which have no control and in which even less stakes. We’re the “stay in your lane” and doom-scroll generation … which makes us ill-prepared and ill-suited for changing the kind of systems we rely on. When something feels too big or too hard, we’re more likely to sit alone, pick up our phones and doom-scroll for some dopamine than we are to look around to our peers sitting next to us for support and dig in together.
And to bring this back to the fediverse … many on here celebrate how it feels like the old internet that the remember (old twitter or usenet). I’ve always personally found that problematic.
On a basic level, nostalgia can be dangerous in its indifference to the present … old twitter and usenet and the old internet are kinda dead and the fediverse should lean in to being its own thing, however much that borrows from what once was.
More specifically, social media for the younger generation is a different thing … they didn’t use the internet in the 90s and never will. Some of them have only seen twitter, youtube and tiktok and can’t help but compare anything like the fediverse, however much they might be interested in its ideas, to the social media they know.
So for me, us millennials, I think we’re kind of broken, and heading into the physical age where we’re custodians of our experience and the lessons that ought to have been learnt from it, and no longer “the generation” that the world should care about and be making social media platforms for.
We should be making an internet for the younger generations, one that is better than what our X-gen/Boomer capitalist seniors gave them and gives them a chance to understand and use the knowledge sharing, exploration and independence the technology can provide.
I’ve got nothing against education per se, but I feel that a lot of education is rather shallow, manufactured and focused on “certification” rather than useful and meaningful understandings, ideas and skills. ↩︎
I think when we discuss generations, a trap we all fall into (including me) is stereotyping. We tend to think of each generation as a monolith.
Within my own generation (X) I grew up with people who were extremely pro-establishment, people who were extremely anti-establishment, and many in the middle.
I agree that Millenials are better educated. As for the overall quality of that educational content, your criticism could apply to almost all of us. When I was in public school, you would barely know that other countries even exist. Geography, world history, and global subjects were barely covered. US “exceptionalism” eclipsed all of it.
The boomers outnumbered the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation. And they were louder per pound, too. They still dominate in many ways (especially government and board rooms) even though they are quite old and 1/3 of them are gone.
So it’s not entirely learned helplessness among the young. It’s a true power imbalance.
Just hope it’s not too late after their power finally crumbles.
Its also societal construction and built environment issues. There is a genuine lack of agency in the Millenial generation, and likely less again in the younger generations.
Take the built environment, its unfriendly to those with low resources, leading to isolation or dependency on those with resources, often boomer parents. The suburbs stretch on and on, all services public or private have been bundled together more and more, think super hospitals. Then they are placed further away because they now serve vast areas, there is also a fragility in these cost cutting ‘efficiencies’. If your one hospital is out of action what do you do? Even down to ever wider roads for ever larger cars, this impacts other activities an area could be engaging in.
Societal construction has undermined any civic engagement organisations that don’t have a pro-owner slant. Its telling that unions have been smashed, but chambers of commerce? They are basically unions for business owners. It’s also an unwillingness of boomers to let go of power in certain community groups. How many of these locak groups are almost exclusively full of very mature age people?
My last point i think ties into the above though. The X’ers, Millenials, and younger are getting hit progressively harder by the wage worker depression, while no risk financial speculation, and asset driven wealth inflation, line the beds of those with the means to participate. Usually the older, or children with inherited wealth. This means longer working hours for less relative income, a need to keep upgrading your ‘skillset’ to prove your value to HR, creating a poorer strata financially and in time. If the younger generations weren’t forced to change careers every six or so years to finally reach an ‘adult’ job, we would have time to participate more in our society.
I think the Millenial generation (mine) is going to be rather boring in the footnotes of history. (X’ers had a bit of punk and metal that keeps them spicy.) We won’t have the resources to be anything but rather conservative in our policies (classically so, not the radical republican-conservatism of the 80’s on).
On the bright side, in my country, Australia, the predicted shift to the ‘right’ as people get older seems to have broken. Which signals a rejection of the policies those parties stand for. Which are the policies causing the most acute problems for Millenials, and generations younger. So, maybe as the boomers fade, a generational solidarity will rise due to a union of desires, and our countrys will begin to feel less like generational trench warfare. That is my firm hope for the future of my time on this planet with you lot.
Something I’ve noticed over my 50+ years is how hostile the man-made environment has become to anyone not actively spending money and engaging in commerce. Things like loitering, sleeping, etc. are treated as crimes in almost any public space in the US. I sometimes watch stealth campers on YouTube and it’s insane how just existing somewhere, walking around on foot, or sitting in a parked car marks the person as “highly suspicious”. While ultimately it will be the police who hassle you, most citizens will be super quick to narc on you and call them on you if you look out of place. It’s been embedded into our mindset that anyone not shopping or going to an appointment is a source of “stranger danger”.
And of course, our towns and cities are all built with cars in mind over here. Car traffic, parking, etc, is the topmost concern while pedestrians are a very distant afterthought. There’s many reasons for why it developed this way. Not least of all is how powerful and influential Detroit automakers used to be. But beyond that, our oligarchs like people with vehicles because they tend to have at least some money, and they tend to not stay in one place very long. Movement and turnover is seen as profits.
I feel like the entire world is turning into something sort of like a crowded restaurant. Where you’re allowed to hang out for a little while, but only if you’re spending money, and even then you need to move on quickly so we can get more people in here spending more money. And how everything is a subscription now, and all the games they play to maximize profits with weaponized greed.
It’s a small and stupid example, but the NFL (professional gridiron football) recently caught some bad PR for showing a playoff game on a streaming service that required a subscription to watch. They already make millions on these games because of advertising. But it’s never enough. They have to constantly push for more, because their model relies on infinite growth (like cancer does). That one stupid example means nothing, but I see that sort of thing going on everywhere.
I haven’t been to the NFL, but friends took me to a baseball game while i’s there. It was a Mariners game, very fun night. But i felt the pressure to spend on everything as soon as you walked in, it felt like the stadium was incompetition against each specatator over the contents of your wallet.
Luigi Zingales, a Chicago University Economist, recently did a Q&A where he talked about the two meanings of competition that the English language roles into the one word, that of competitions to defeat an opponent, and competitions creating something in kind. There are parts of the community that have opted for the first definition and act in all times against their opponents, as you say “weaponized greed”. What they don’t realise is what makes the market a force for good is acting with competitors, following the second defintion.
A good example is the downtown nightlife district of a city. Alone those bars and eateries might be nice establishments, but if they’re the only option in town their product offering can become stale, but together in competition with each other they act to collectively create this fantastic and flexible destination for a night out.
As for hostile public spaces the same happens here l, in Australia, so so much. I even have to catch myself and correct my preconceived notions when i see someone laying in a park. I suppose the only difference is the economic interests are more evenly weighted, due to no detroit-like lobbyists.
Another weird thing that’s happened in recent NFL games…fans have been asked to help shovel snow out of the stadiums.
I honestly don’t know what I think about that. I’m sure the underpaid and overworked stadium staff appreciates the help. It’s a massive job.
On the other hand, it reminds me that these pro teams are always expecting subsidies of various types from the taxpayers and local communities, while vacuuming up almost all of the money to the pockets of the owners.
Wow. That takes self serve to whole other level. I get the stadiums are big, but that kind of request needs to come with consideration, even reduced ticket prices could do the teick if they’re asking fans.
Or yeah, they could just pay fair value for services rendered, i know alien concept isn’t it! Lol
Are attendees going along with it?
You make very well expressed and thought provoking arguments!
And while I can recognise myself in a lot of what you’re saying, I think that us millennials are just now beginning to reach the age (28 to 42 this year, by the definition I follow) where we have some weight to affect that system from the position in it that we grew up in.
Any of us who wants to make our own space: work on a good website, start a coffee shop the way we want it, run a node in a federated social network… I feel it’s not until now that any of us have had the skillset, long-term motivation and economical position to be able to do any of those things seriously. Building a better internet is what we are doing right here and now :)
Great response!
From a millennial perspective, the next 10-20 years are certainly going to be “our moment” … and yea, I’m personally interested in and looking forward to seeing how much the vibe shifts from a boomer dominated to millennial dominated world. Without wanting to shit on boomers or anything, I’d guess that it’ll be a mixed bag. There will be real sigh of relief as we shake off some simply old, privileged and egocentric perspectives … but also some frustrations as we have to face our own versions “douche bag” and shitty systems.
Either that or maybe the FBI has just gotten really good at disrupting them.