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Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty
So I've talked about Pop Culture Happy Hour before, and generally I really like it, but this episode made me fucking seethe.
Never have I been so fucking aware that I am a broke twenty-something and they are all upper middle class forty-somethings with stable jobs and plenty of disposable income.
Basically, in this episode, they lament the loss of physical spaces for media - the video stores, the record stores, the books stores, etc, etc. There were also a couple of digs at the desire for instant gratification.
LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU WHY THIS NOSTALGIA IS FUCKING BULLSHIT AND ALSO JUST A WEE BIT CLASSIST AND URBAN-CENTRIC.
First, this idea that everyone had access to decent bookshops and video stores is false. My mother and I abandoned the video store as fucking soon as we possibly could, because the options for physical video rental were ALL BAD. Same with the bookstores. My choices were a cover-price new book store owned by a total bitch OR a used bookstore owned by a kind of skeevy dude.
As soon as high-speed internet was in my house, using it to get media enabled me to get better products for LESS money and with BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Secondly, LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU ABOUT HOW BROKE MY GENERATION IS. I have TWO hi-tech pieces of equipment that I cannot live without. They are my MacBook Pro and my iTouch. This is how I watch movies, television, use the internet, buy books when I do buy books, access the library, download e-books, listen to music, etc, etc.
I do not have a television, a stereo system, a television, a gym membership (god, I would love a gym membership), a game system, a fucking Zaxxon machine, etc, etc, BECAUSE I CAN'T FUCKING AFFORD IT.
And the fact of the matter is, the part I am going to fucking bold, is that America's modern landscape looks the way it does, BECAUSE OF YOU, FUCKING FORTY AND THIRTY-SOMETHINGS.
BECAUSE OF YOU.
I SEE YOU, BUYING YOUR BOOKS ONLINE, OWNING A SMART PHONE, VISITING STARBUCKS.
THE FACT IS, IF YOU *REALLY* DIDN'T LIKE THE CHANGES THE LAST TEN YEARS WROUGHT– IF YOU HAD KEPT GOING TO VIDEO STORES AND RECORD STORES AND INDEPENDENT BOOKS STORES, THEY WOULD STILL BE THERE.
But you didn't. You decided that you preferred watching a movie with a click of a button from Netflix instead of driving to the video store to bring home a scratched CD. You decided that you sure as fuck wanted 25+ worth of on-sale books with free shipping from amazon.
And then you blame the twenty-somethings struggling under you for all the idyllic media landscape you lost to the hustle and bustle of the modern world.
Never have I been so fucking aware that I am a broke twenty-something and they are all upper middle class forty-somethings with stable jobs and plenty of disposable income.
Basically, in this episode, they lament the loss of physical spaces for media - the video stores, the record stores, the books stores, etc, etc. There were also a couple of digs at the desire for instant gratification.
LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU WHY THIS NOSTALGIA IS FUCKING BULLSHIT AND ALSO JUST A WEE BIT CLASSIST AND URBAN-CENTRIC.
First, this idea that everyone had access to decent bookshops and video stores is false. My mother and I abandoned the video store as fucking soon as we possibly could, because the options for physical video rental were ALL BAD. Same with the bookstores. My choices were a cover-price new book store owned by a total bitch OR a used bookstore owned by a kind of skeevy dude.
As soon as high-speed internet was in my house, using it to get media enabled me to get better products for LESS money and with BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Secondly, LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU ABOUT HOW BROKE MY GENERATION IS. I have TWO hi-tech pieces of equipment that I cannot live without. They are my MacBook Pro and my iTouch. This is how I watch movies, television, use the internet, buy books when I do buy books, access the library, download e-books, listen to music, etc, etc.
I do not have a television, a stereo system, a television, a gym membership (god, I would love a gym membership), a game system, a fucking Zaxxon machine, etc, etc, BECAUSE I CAN'T FUCKING AFFORD IT.
And the fact of the matter is, the part I am going to fucking bold, is that America's modern landscape looks the way it does, BECAUSE OF YOU, FUCKING FORTY AND THIRTY-SOMETHINGS.
BECAUSE OF YOU.
I SEE YOU, BUYING YOUR BOOKS ONLINE, OWNING A SMART PHONE, VISITING STARBUCKS.
THE FACT IS, IF YOU *REALLY* DIDN'T LIKE THE CHANGES THE LAST TEN YEARS WROUGHT– IF YOU HAD KEPT GOING TO VIDEO STORES AND RECORD STORES AND INDEPENDENT BOOKS STORES, THEY WOULD STILL BE THERE.
But you didn't. You decided that you preferred watching a movie with a click of a button from Netflix instead of driving to the video store to bring home a scratched CD. You decided that you sure as fuck wanted 25+ worth of on-sale books with free shipping from amazon.
And then you blame the twenty-somethings struggling under you for all the idyllic media landscape you lost to the hustle and bustle of the modern world.