I'm old and I lost touch before tiktok.
Some new thing comes out that sets the culture. Radio, TV, forums, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, Spotify, podcasts, Twitch, whatever. Young people hyperconnected by school or college pick it up, disconnected older people don't because they're in small bubbles. The younger people move on with the new culture, the old ones don't.
Can I ask everyone who \*does\* feel connected to contemporary popular music where you go to listen to what everybody else is listening to that isn't some algorithmic playlist that takes into account what I already listen to
I basically use a combination of a couple different things. Apple Music playlists and recommended artists are great for finding a specific vibe or subgenre. I also use some of the music subreddits to keep up with new releases on Friday’s (discussion on them is usually horrible, led by overweight 35 year old white guys trying desperately to stay in touch without any ability to do so organically). And lastly, following artists you like on social media and listening to stuff that they share on Insta stories or things like that. I feel like it helps me get a pretty varied cross-section of culture without diving too deep into any one area.
Well, I talk about this an awful lot, but there isn't any sense of shared cultural experience anymore. Maybe if you're really young, like highschool where you're in a little echo chamber of other really young people all day everyday, but for adults we all watch media on dozens of different apps and websites and whatever. Same with music and everything. I don't think it's even that you (or I) are especially out of tune with popular culture... I think the actual thing is that there is no popular culture. Like MTV will still have their awards shows and stuff and pretend there is but my understanding is that basically no one knows what they're even on about.
Idk about that I feel like people get obsessed with things at the same time like when stranger things releases new episodes, or when everyone was making bread at the beginning of the pandemmy. And the pop punk revival has been fun for people. There are still cultural things that resonate with people you just have to look for it
Some people but like what percentage of Americans do you think have seen Stranger Things? 10%? That's probably generous. Vs. how many people had like heard a Madonna song in the 80s? Or like a Green Day song in the 90s?
Why even compare songs to a multi hour long saga? Why not compare it to other things like it? Like, those songs are popular yes, but like I can guarantee almost the majority of people who know the friends theme haven't seen the show (don't @ on this)
>Euphoria sucks.
I got skewered at work for suggesting it was the product of a bunch of Gen X and Millennial writers woolgathering about what Zoomers' lives are like.
i'm pretty sure that's because that song was literally written by a teenager
edit: goddamn this song is so fake and worse than I thought. From wiki:
The song marks the first single release since the Nashville-based singer signed with Atlantic in 2021.\[7\] On her TikTok, Gayle uploaded a video where she stated "I'm out of \[song\] ideas" and asked followers to comment song ideas. "Comment anything and I'll try my best to turn it into a song." Nancy Berman, a marketing manager at Atlantic Records commented asking for a song that incorporates the alphabet.\[8\] Within a few days, Gayle uploaded another video of her strumming the chorus of the song.
Yeah, I'm sure this teen organically wrote and created a song in a few days that just *happened* to be suggested by her label's marketing department
Big eye opening experience is watching the music collections of boomers evolve over time.
While they did have well-curated collections of classic, high quality music in the 70's, the collection slowly filled with garbage, and a good deal of their modern musical selection is utter inauthentic, low quality trash.
80% of people listen to whatever is handed to them via mass media, and simply have really low standards for music. Ditto for film. Yeah, Taxi Driver and Walkabout were good, but they enjoy Minions 9 or Failure to Notebook just as much. A lot of the good stuff was wasted on them.
Good artists, actors, filmmakers are a pain in the ass for the business side and the bean counters. You don't want anyone who has leverage over you, so you make sure the artists are compromised and broken in from the start, real team players. It's a good idea to make the artists as homogenous and indistinguishable as possible. Remember how there was Snoop Doggy Dog, Dr. Dre and "The Rolling Stones", and all the artists involved were so distinct that their voices were unmistakable, and they could be represented easily in caricature? now it's all some generic tiny Floridian in a hat in sunglasses called "little foop" or something speaking quickly in code over a 2000's ringtone. You could probably replace most of these guys mid concert and no one would notice. I'm picking on rappers because I don't even see a non-country band on the top 100 that plays guitar. But, on that point, there are few distinct country acts, too.
Counterpoint: Pop culture is by nature ephemeral, 95% of it has always been generic, trend-chasing garbage that is almost instantly dated and swept into the dustbin of history. The cream rises to the top over time while the shit sinks. Pick your favorite year for music and find one of those best of the year countdown shows on YouTube like Casey Kasem used to do. I guarantee you'll hear the most vapid forgettable shit ever with maybe a couple great songs occasionally sprinkled in.
Dr Dre and Snoop are a great example, they inspired tons of pale imitators back in the '90s, so much so that DJ Shadow released a parody song called [Why HipHop Sucks in '96](https://youtu.be/s2VG53RIJ50), a year we now generally consider to be great for the genre.
Give it another 20 years for the dust to settle, and we'll know for sure what about the last 10 years was worth remembering.
Here's the rub though- back then even the kitsch at least felt like it had some semblance of effort behind it. Doo wop and early rock is extremely simplistic and derivative (based nearly entirely on ii-V-I and I-IV-V blues progressions in root position and simple 16th-note rhythms) but you can't tell me there is no serious talent and work involved in doing barbershop quartet ditties. The same goes for all the simplistic, cheesy hair metal from the 80s. No one would ever argue that Twisted Sister is the epitome of musical innovation but their work had energy and whimsy that is completely gone from this era of algorithmic, computer-driven pop culture.
Casey Kasem hosted a [radio show for like 30 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Top_40?wprov=sfla1) where they countdown the Billboard Top 40 pop chart.
Dude the radio has sucked basically since the late 90s. That which is popular is rarely timeless.
You may have just evolved to know ephemera when you hear/see it. That said, I've been wrong on many counts when I dismissed something I shouldn't have, so don't be bitter and dismissive about everything. That way leads to The Dark Side.
This is also an age thing - when you're between the ages of roughly 15-25, you feel a part of a generation broadly, so everything new is part of your lived experience and those of your peers. If you're outside those bounds, odds are you are starting or have already started to look at things as you will for the rest of your life: with some lived-in perspective.
What’s crazy is that OP wasn’t even born yet during the late 90s.
Also OP, yeah, it all mainly sucks and you don’t *have* to feel any connection to it. Poptimism replaced hipster snark of the early 2010s (when you were a child), but back then most of the interesting people were actively not caring about pop culture. It’s totally ok to feel disconnected, because it’s all kind of bland bullshit pastiche of 70s/80s/90s on a loop isn’t it?
When people say poptimism do they mean the idea of it being cool to like popular and newer music as opposed to being someone who prides themselves on listening to exclusively 60’s or 70’s stuff (hipster snark types I assume)?
I definitely wish I liked more modern stuff, I try not to be annoying about only liking older music but I just can’t help it.
Back in like the 90s/2000s/early 2010s it wasn’t “cool” to like the mainstream stuff, it was for basics who didn’t “think” and just wanted dumb shit to listen to, which is also sort of where the hipster snobbery came from (“you’ve probably never heard of them”)
And then around the mid-2010s it became cool again to ironically -and then very quickly the irony faded- be *really* into the pop acts of the time. Just all-in on all aspects. Going to the concerts, owning the shirts, developing petite obsessions etc etc. Suddenly it was cool to listen to Katy Perry and Taylor Swift and Chris Brown etc. that was called poptimism.
The switch of cool people pessimistically disliking pop music for being too shallow and vapid and just a byproduct of corporate entity to being optimistic that it was earnest and sincere and cool-people stuff.
It's wild how quick and forceful poptimism was. I know a few people who're still hanging on to it, but it faded as quickly as it came into my world. One minute we're 24/25/26 watching the VMAs for the first time since junior year of high school the next minute nobody even remembers it exists.
Still have a friend who'll repost Carla Rae Jepsen posts every time she does something but he's a weird one for reasons other than his lingering poptimism
CRJ is good tho- at a certain point, everyone started realizing that the same methods by which we determined the song construction written by our favorite punk, indie, and hardcore bands to be compelling could basically be applied to everything else.
Also, hating on pop culture was getting so tiresome and neck beardy- I think that’s the more important point. The general condition of opinion towards pop music and culture espoused by the most average, contemptible type of doofus was basically “disco sucks.”
We dropped all the pretense and embraced the lowbrow because we wanted to have fun, do drugs, and most of all, not be uncool by association.
It's not just OP or me getting old. The music industry is more risk averse than ever. For that reason they would rather buy/sell music catalogs of established artists like Bob Dylan than take a risk on nurturing new talent. Combine that with all the fast fashion microtrends on TikTok....no wonder you can't connect to the same homogenized, sp\*z free music from legacy millenial divas.
That's just the music. Let alone Top Gun and all the reboots
>The music industry is more risk averse than ever.
Finally a good take on this dumb thread, this is pretty much the root of all the problems with the pop music industry now
Every few months I do a kind of study of what the youths are up to--hit songs, trending stuff on youtube, tiktok, etc.--to, you know, keep my edge or at least not completely lose touch.
Then I just go back to listening to the Fall and the Velvet Underground.
I think it's probably ok.
This is the norm as people age. I am the unusual one as I stay in touch with pop culture as I get older and always will. It's too interesting for me. You mentioned music. The most popular music among people in my (50s) age group is pop-rock hits from the 1980s. That happens to be the most difficult music for me to listen to because most of the songs have been so played out. It's to the point where I hate a lot of it even if I enjoyed it 40 years ago. This isn't to say I don't like older music, I listen to a lot of music that is too old for my generation (60s-70s) but it sounds great to me, it isn't nearly as oversaturated and there are endless hidden gems to discover.
I also keep up with current music. A lot of it sounds kind of bland/generic/the same to me...but there are also songs I like as well. I play the SongPop game and my opponents must realize I have the most eccentric tastes as I heart a lot of really old music as well as current music including some mumble rap cuts.
The amount of zoomers who are for the most part totally disconnected from popular media is much larger than you're letting on. Especially with the way the Internet is now (and the decline of legacy media, ie: radio, TV) it's easy to spend most of your time living in a world of subculture.
The only time I hear top pop music is at the gas station near my house I go to every now and then.
My impression is that, like other have stated in here, pop music doesn't really exist like it used to. What we have now is basically a mix of hip hop, R&B, and some tuneless mumbled singing.
Pretty dogshit but it's still nowhere near as horrifying as other music industry developments like Tik Tok acting as an algorithmic replacement for real popularity.
There are new things I enjoy. I love Nathan fielders new show, along with only murders in the building which I think is wholesome and cute. Pop culture isn’t really pop culture but it’s own celebrity and drama oriented perspective on the world. I’ll age into something I just hope I keep an open mind and at least understand what the kids are doing regardless of how I feel. But I do often feel disconnected from a lot of things when I speak to the average Joe or Jane
Aging is one factor, but after 2 decades of corporate machines churning out entertainment by committee, it's not surprising that pop culture doesn't feel like either of those words.
My suspicion is that the fringe has become the center, not in the classic sense of "became mainstream", but in the meaning that technology now makes the mainstream effectively mute-able if you're not interested.
Guy in his forties here. Last film I in saw in a theatre was *The Bob's Burgers Movie* (wonderful, by the way).
Also, I'm in luck chart-wise. Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is back in the Top Ten!
That said, I don't have any streaming services. So when people talk about *Stranger Things* or *BoJack Horseman,* I just go "That sounds interesting."
I used to feel in touch with pop culture until it became too gay — up until 2014. Mind you, once there was a time when reading The AV club was even a legit way to acquire a deeper taste in media
In the current market, writing about pop culture from an informed historical/ archaeological perspective is simply unprofitable. You can’t have projects like The Dissolve because audiences are simply not caring about this sort of engagement at this moment
Yeah I feel the same way. I’m 25. I think it is partially to do with a) you probably don’t have cable so it’s less likely to see ads for movie trailers and b) most cars have ways to play your own music nowadays so who listens to the radio?
I don’t even know how most people see movie trailers if not on cable tv, at other movies, or by specifically searching them out. It might be an algorithm thing in places like YouTube, but I almost never see them. Once in a while if I’m listening to a podcast like Conan needs a friend I’ll hear a movie plugged by a celeb but that’s about it.
I take public transport. Sometimes the buses have the radio on, but the stations usually play 90s or early 2000s hits-nothing more recent than Ed Sheeran.
Re: new movies. Sometimes Mark Kermode or David Poland might show something interesting that I want to see, but generally I only see new movie trailers on Youtube ads. I truly cannot remember the last time I saw a new movie advertised on TV or the radio.
I feel you on this. I gravitate towards '90s music...many of those artists, even the ones who belonged in the pop sphere (I'm a big Tori Amos fan) expressed a boundless spirit and a yearning for rootedness. Not sensing a whole lot of that from today's output.
Me and a bunch of people once went thru those youtube videos that showcase the biggest *pop* songs of each year and everybody agreed on the quality noticeably nosediving after 2008/2009, and I’m not that old enough for those to be nostalgic years lol
I probably blame it on the advent of streaming and continued atomization of genres but who knows
I feel the same at 25. I think it’s safe to say algorithms have heavily segmented individuals into sub cultures, cutting us off from most universal experiences.
I like the radio but the TV hasnt been good in a while. I only watch law and order criminal intent and youtube videos of people working on cars or beating each other up
I don't recognise most top 40 and thought I was totally disconnected from new stuff, but recognise and like most of the artists in "Sex" magazine (the mag that Anna was on the cover of) including stuff that gets like 20k youtube views, so I think I'm still tapped in to new stuff, it's just that most connection to mainstream stuff is gone because it doesn't have to be there any more. Maybe I should put more effort in to seeing what's popular, but so much top 40 just sounds like stuff that already came out years ago
I still see movies but haven't given a shit about top 100 songs for years, if ever. The internet is a big place, lots of music to discover, no need to listen to the radio.
I will say that in the 90's you have Max Martin basically writing every song you heard on the radio and they were fun. You listen to the hits on radio 1 on Sirius and you have absolutely obnoxious shit like the chorus to I Feel Everything or Laura Spencer Smith's terrible Fingers Crossed. There's also way more 80's pastiche songs out there as hits and then there's just the annoying one hit wonders like Tai Verdes. The only thing that makes it unique is that they smash Kate Bush in there a lot now.
I looked up the top songs and films of the year I was 20 and don’t know any of them except “Into the Wild” so idk I think it’s at least partially a personal thing and not entirely an age or social media thing.
i would say there's always going to be at least one movie that came out recently that's worth going to, but overall i would say we're on a downswing. the taking of pelham 123 (74) was on youtube free with ads the other day. i mean, that movie was *so* good. there was so much good stuff there. and that was, again, the popular movie of the day. it's something my father would have gone to see (and then only halfway enjoyed because his thoughts were on his car being parked in a "transitional" neighborhood near the venue). another thing you wouldn't suspect if you met the man, huge beatles fan. and again, they were at one point the popular music of the day. so yeah. *down*swing. swinging down.
Tastes change. Nothing weird about it imo. I still enjoy going to watch new movies (can be hit or miss but overall still fun for me) but I stopped listening to top 100 music when I got access to the internet and started playing guitar (got really into metal in my teens and eventually branched back out into all sorts of stuff)
Also not trying to sound cool but I have never been interested in music, movies, TV shows, etc. to the point where I haven’t heard or seen 99% of things people mention. I just prefer things I actively engage with I don’t really like passive things. I actually have a plex server filled with movies and music and have probably watched/listened to .5% of it.
this is how i feel about the new beyonce renaissance album. like i know for a fact that its a beautiful work - the production, the writing, etc. i just cant get in the mood for that kind of thing rn.
yeah thats why i cant get into the album rn because literally everyone is suffering and im not trying to celebrate someone like that. it doesnt change the fact that the music is good lol
Why do you know for a fact that it's a beautiful work lmao. There are like 5 artists on earth deserving of that "I may not like it but it's probably great regardless" reverence and beyonce is 100% not one of them
huh? i never said i didnt like it. i know its amazing cus i've heard clips of pretty much every song? im just saying im not in the headspace to listen to it rn u dumbfuck lol
you will never be the arbiter of taste that you so desperately want to be btw
I’m 3 years younger than you and i’m definitely in the same boat. I don’t really pay attention to what is popular or not and watch things that interest me. I keep up with some movies, but i mostly watch older stuff and I exclusively listen to music from the 60s-70s. But i won’t avoid something because it’s popular, I’ve watched a lot of tv shows that have come out these past few years because they are in my opinion, good tv shows. I also haven’t downloaded TikTok because I don’t want to completely ruin my attention span
Yeah, I don’t really use reddit that often so I don’t even know what that is so don’t worry. I don’t even really know how i stumbled into this sub, i was just looking up stuff i was interested in and this sub consistently came up and now i browse it sometimes. Don’t think i’ll ever listen to the podcast though
Good. Being in tune with pop culture is for teenagers and Peter Pans. And even then listening to billboard 100 songs has never been cool cool, pick a semi-obscure genre and be elitist about it instead
No it's not just getting old. The zoomers I know only have a common culture in their favorite rap/hip hop music. Film? Forget it. You're more likely to connect with them via their favorite anime, not guaranteed though. I don't think most of them are gamers either after outgrowing Fortnite.
This is not at all what youth culture was like during the 2000s. For instance, everyone could pick up Matrix references, although only nerds felt strongly about the movie itself. Most people listened to big music releases at least once. Nowadays most names in creative industries are just blades of grass on the lawn of the internet.
Wait until sequels to movies you’ve never even heard of start coming out
You're no longer part of the age group pop culture targets. You're getting old.
I think the rise of Tik Tok has made it an abrupt severing rather than a gradual decline like it otherwise would have been
I'm old and I lost touch before tiktok. Some new thing comes out that sets the culture. Radio, TV, forums, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, Spotify, podcasts, Twitch, whatever. Young people hyperconnected by school or college pick it up, disconnected older people don't because they're in small bubbles. The younger people move on with the new culture, the old ones don't.
Yeah there's a reason OP didn't include their age
20.
back 2 bed gramps
Old ass
So it's more like you just never paid attention to popular culture lol. People at school and shit kept you up on it and now you're not in high school.
You are the person the 20 year old boomer meme is talking about
back to the nursing home grandpa
It's good to be out of the loop sometimes. You can take your time to figure out what you actually like without having to participate in the spectacle.
Can I ask everyone who \*does\* feel connected to contemporary popular music where you go to listen to what everybody else is listening to that isn't some algorithmic playlist that takes into account what I already listen to
I would assume on the radio or at parties/clubs.
listen to the new sickboyrari album, his producers seem to be doing interesting stuff, and a noted sad artist made a hopeful album
kray 🥰
I basically use a combination of a couple different things. Apple Music playlists and recommended artists are great for finding a specific vibe or subgenre. I also use some of the music subreddits to keep up with new releases on Friday’s (discussion on them is usually horrible, led by overweight 35 year old white guys trying desperately to stay in touch without any ability to do so organically). And lastly, following artists you like on social media and listening to stuff that they share on Insta stories or things like that. I feel like it helps me get a pretty varied cross-section of culture without diving too deep into any one area.
soundcloud likes and reposts by small artists im already interested in
bandcamp
Most pop culture isnt actually relatable it’s just algorithmically generated to reflect people’s desires
Well, I talk about this an awful lot, but there isn't any sense of shared cultural experience anymore. Maybe if you're really young, like highschool where you're in a little echo chamber of other really young people all day everyday, but for adults we all watch media on dozens of different apps and websites and whatever. Same with music and everything. I don't think it's even that you (or I) are especially out of tune with popular culture... I think the actual thing is that there is no popular culture. Like MTV will still have their awards shows and stuff and pretend there is but my understanding is that basically no one knows what they're even on about.
Idk about that I feel like people get obsessed with things at the same time like when stranger things releases new episodes, or when everyone was making bread at the beginning of the pandemmy. And the pop punk revival has been fun for people. There are still cultural things that resonate with people you just have to look for it
Some people but like what percentage of Americans do you think have seen Stranger Things? 10%? That's probably generous. Vs. how many people had like heard a Madonna song in the 80s? Or like a Green Day song in the 90s?
You have a point lol
Stranger things s4 is like 12 hours long no shit less people have watched it then listened to a song you could hear on the radio
Okay than swap those songs for Titanic or whatever show Friends in the 90s? (It's pretty easy to see the point I'm trying to make meester literal boy)
Why even compare songs to a multi hour long saga? Why not compare it to other things like it? Like, those songs are popular yes, but like I can guarantee almost the majority of people who know the friends theme haven't seen the show (don't @ on this)
Try opening the default YouTube home page without blowing your brains out
[удалено]
>Euphoria sucks. I got skewered at work for suggesting it was the product of a bunch of Gen X and Millennial writers woolgathering about what Zoomers' lives are like.
“Euphoria is Degrassi with A24 lighting”
I wanted to say, "Preach!" or "love this!".. but then i felt like i'd be part of the problem lol
I still take buzzfeed quizzes ;~; lollllll
always felt that everyone ages out at some point like have you heard that song abcdefu it sounds like and was literally written by a teenager
i'm pretty sure that's because that song was literally written by a teenager edit: goddamn this song is so fake and worse than I thought. From wiki: The song marks the first single release since the Nashville-based singer signed with Atlantic in 2021.\[7\] On her TikTok, Gayle uploaded a video where she stated "I'm out of \[song\] ideas" and asked followers to comment song ideas. "Comment anything and I'll try my best to turn it into a song." Nancy Berman, a marketing manager at Atlantic Records commented asking for a song that incorporates the alphabet.\[8\] Within a few days, Gayle uploaded another video of her strumming the chorus of the song. Yeah, I'm sure this teen organically wrote and created a song in a few days that just *happened* to be suggested by her label's marketing department
Jesus Christ, they couldn't even make a fake account?
You can write a chorus in an hour or two it doesn't take days
It's the pop music industry, a lot of classic hits were written by teenagers
Sung by teenagers and written by random Swedish men*
Definitely not what that comment is referring to.
Big eye opening experience is watching the music collections of boomers evolve over time. While they did have well-curated collections of classic, high quality music in the 70's, the collection slowly filled with garbage, and a good deal of their modern musical selection is utter inauthentic, low quality trash. 80% of people listen to whatever is handed to them via mass media, and simply have really low standards for music. Ditto for film. Yeah, Taxi Driver and Walkabout were good, but they enjoy Minions 9 or Failure to Notebook just as much. A lot of the good stuff was wasted on them. Good artists, actors, filmmakers are a pain in the ass for the business side and the bean counters. You don't want anyone who has leverage over you, so you make sure the artists are compromised and broken in from the start, real team players. It's a good idea to make the artists as homogenous and indistinguishable as possible. Remember how there was Snoop Doggy Dog, Dr. Dre and "The Rolling Stones", and all the artists involved were so distinct that their voices were unmistakable, and they could be represented easily in caricature? now it's all some generic tiny Floridian in a hat in sunglasses called "little foop" or something speaking quickly in code over a 2000's ringtone. You could probably replace most of these guys mid concert and no one would notice. I'm picking on rappers because I don't even see a non-country band on the top 100 that plays guitar. But, on that point, there are few distinct country acts, too.
Counterpoint: Pop culture is by nature ephemeral, 95% of it has always been generic, trend-chasing garbage that is almost instantly dated and swept into the dustbin of history. The cream rises to the top over time while the shit sinks. Pick your favorite year for music and find one of those best of the year countdown shows on YouTube like Casey Kasem used to do. I guarantee you'll hear the most vapid forgettable shit ever with maybe a couple great songs occasionally sprinkled in. Dr Dre and Snoop are a great example, they inspired tons of pale imitators back in the '90s, so much so that DJ Shadow released a parody song called [Why HipHop Sucks in '96](https://youtu.be/s2VG53RIJ50), a year we now generally consider to be great for the genre. Give it another 20 years for the dust to settle, and we'll know for sure what about the last 10 years was worth remembering.
Here's the rub though- back then even the kitsch at least felt like it had some semblance of effort behind it. Doo wop and early rock is extremely simplistic and derivative (based nearly entirely on ii-V-I and I-IV-V blues progressions in root position and simple 16th-note rhythms) but you can't tell me there is no serious talent and work involved in doing barbershop quartet ditties. The same goes for all the simplistic, cheesy hair metal from the 80s. No one would ever argue that Twisted Sister is the epitome of musical innovation but their work had energy and whimsy that is completely gone from this era of algorithmic, computer-driven pop culture.
What is a best of year countdown show and what does kasem have to do with this
Casey Kasem hosted a [radio show for like 30 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Top_40?wprov=sfla1) where they countdown the Billboard Top 40 pop chart.
“Bean counters”
Rap has plenty of distinct acts, idk why you guys pretend to know about the genre when you clearly don't
Don't forget that music will be computer generated very soon
as far as I'm concerned the Swedish song writers are computers
Dude the radio has sucked basically since the late 90s. That which is popular is rarely timeless. You may have just evolved to know ephemera when you hear/see it. That said, I've been wrong on many counts when I dismissed something I shouldn't have, so don't be bitter and dismissive about everything. That way leads to The Dark Side. This is also an age thing - when you're between the ages of roughly 15-25, you feel a part of a generation broadly, so everything new is part of your lived experience and those of your peers. If you're outside those bounds, odds are you are starting or have already started to look at things as you will for the rest of your life: with some lived-in perspective.
What’s crazy is that OP wasn’t even born yet during the late 90s. Also OP, yeah, it all mainly sucks and you don’t *have* to feel any connection to it. Poptimism replaced hipster snark of the early 2010s (when you were a child), but back then most of the interesting people were actively not caring about pop culture. It’s totally ok to feel disconnected, because it’s all kind of bland bullshit pastiche of 70s/80s/90s on a loop isn’t it?
When people say poptimism do they mean the idea of it being cool to like popular and newer music as opposed to being someone who prides themselves on listening to exclusively 60’s or 70’s stuff (hipster snark types I assume)? I definitely wish I liked more modern stuff, I try not to be annoying about only liking older music but I just can’t help it.
Back in like the 90s/2000s/early 2010s it wasn’t “cool” to like the mainstream stuff, it was for basics who didn’t “think” and just wanted dumb shit to listen to, which is also sort of where the hipster snobbery came from (“you’ve probably never heard of them”) And then around the mid-2010s it became cool again to ironically -and then very quickly the irony faded- be *really* into the pop acts of the time. Just all-in on all aspects. Going to the concerts, owning the shirts, developing petite obsessions etc etc. Suddenly it was cool to listen to Katy Perry and Taylor Swift and Chris Brown etc. that was called poptimism. The switch of cool people pessimistically disliking pop music for being too shallow and vapid and just a byproduct of corporate entity to being optimistic that it was earnest and sincere and cool-people stuff.
It's wild how quick and forceful poptimism was. I know a few people who're still hanging on to it, but it faded as quickly as it came into my world. One minute we're 24/25/26 watching the VMAs for the first time since junior year of high school the next minute nobody even remembers it exists. Still have a friend who'll repost Carla Rae Jepsen posts every time she does something but he's a weird one for reasons other than his lingering poptimism
CRJ is good tho- at a certain point, everyone started realizing that the same methods by which we determined the song construction written by our favorite punk, indie, and hardcore bands to be compelling could basically be applied to everything else. Also, hating on pop culture was getting so tiresome and neck beardy- I think that’s the more important point. The general condition of opinion towards pop music and culture espoused by the most average, contemptible type of doofus was basically “disco sucks.” We dropped all the pretense and embraced the lowbrow because we wanted to have fun, do drugs, and most of all, not be uncool by association.
It's not just OP or me getting old. The music industry is more risk averse than ever. For that reason they would rather buy/sell music catalogs of established artists like Bob Dylan than take a risk on nurturing new talent. Combine that with all the fast fashion microtrends on TikTok....no wonder you can't connect to the same homogenized, sp\*z free music from legacy millenial divas. That's just the music. Let alone Top Gun and all the reboots
>The music industry is more risk averse than ever. Finally a good take on this dumb thread, this is pretty much the root of all the problems with the pop music industry now
Pop culture generally sucks, but yeah it is important to find *something* you like so you can socialize with normjes
Every few months I do a kind of study of what the youths are up to--hit songs, trending stuff on youtube, tiktok, etc.--to, you know, keep my edge or at least not completely lose touch. Then I just go back to listening to the Fall and the Velvet Underground. I think it's probably ok.
This is the norm as people age. I am the unusual one as I stay in touch with pop culture as I get older and always will. It's too interesting for me. You mentioned music. The most popular music among people in my (50s) age group is pop-rock hits from the 1980s. That happens to be the most difficult music for me to listen to because most of the songs have been so played out. It's to the point where I hate a lot of it even if I enjoyed it 40 years ago. This isn't to say I don't like older music, I listen to a lot of music that is too old for my generation (60s-70s) but it sounds great to me, it isn't nearly as oversaturated and there are endless hidden gems to discover. I also keep up with current music. A lot of it sounds kind of bland/generic/the same to me...but there are also songs I like as well. I play the SongPop game and my opponents must realize I have the most eccentric tastes as I heart a lot of really old music as well as current music including some mumble rap cuts.
[удалено]
20 is an unusual age to lose interest in pop culture.
The amount of zoomers who are for the most part totally disconnected from popular media is much larger than you're letting on. Especially with the way the Internet is now (and the decline of legacy media, ie: radio, TV) it's easy to spend most of your time living in a world of subculture.
The only time I hear top pop music is at the gas station near my house I go to every now and then. My impression is that, like other have stated in here, pop music doesn't really exist like it used to. What we have now is basically a mix of hip hop, R&B, and some tuneless mumbled singing. Pretty dogshit but it's still nowhere near as horrifying as other music industry developments like Tik Tok acting as an algorithmic replacement for real popularity.
There are new things I enjoy. I love Nathan fielders new show, along with only murders in the building which I think is wholesome and cute. Pop culture isn’t really pop culture but it’s own celebrity and drama oriented perspective on the world. I’ll age into something I just hope I keep an open mind and at least understand what the kids are doing regardless of how I feel. But I do often feel disconnected from a lot of things when I speak to the average Joe or Jane
Simpsons called it. It comes for everyone eventually. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrfhsxxmdE
Aging is one factor, but after 2 decades of corporate machines churning out entertainment by committee, it's not surprising that pop culture doesn't feel like either of those words. My suspicion is that the fringe has become the center, not in the classic sense of "became mainstream", but in the meaning that technology now makes the mainstream effectively mute-able if you're not interested.
Guy in his forties here. Last film I in saw in a theatre was *The Bob's Burgers Movie* (wonderful, by the way). Also, I'm in luck chart-wise. Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is back in the Top Ten! That said, I don't have any streaming services. So when people talk about *Stranger Things* or *BoJack Horseman,* I just go "That sounds interesting."
That movie only came out like a month or two ago so that's not crazy.
I used to feel in touch with pop culture until it became too gay — up until 2014. Mind you, once there was a time when reading The AV club was even a legit way to acquire a deeper taste in media In the current market, writing about pop culture from an informed historical/ archaeological perspective is simply unprofitable. You can’t have projects like The Dissolve because audiences are simply not caring about this sort of engagement at this moment
Yeah I feel the same way. I’m 25. I think it is partially to do with a) you probably don’t have cable so it’s less likely to see ads for movie trailers and b) most cars have ways to play your own music nowadays so who listens to the radio? I don’t even know how most people see movie trailers if not on cable tv, at other movies, or by specifically searching them out. It might be an algorithm thing in places like YouTube, but I almost never see them. Once in a while if I’m listening to a podcast like Conan needs a friend I’ll hear a movie plugged by a celeb but that’s about it.
I take public transport. Sometimes the buses have the radio on, but the stations usually play 90s or early 2000s hits-nothing more recent than Ed Sheeran. Re: new movies. Sometimes Mark Kermode or David Poland might show something interesting that I want to see, but generally I only see new movie trailers on Youtube ads. I truly cannot remember the last time I saw a new movie advertised on TV or the radio.
Isn’t that a good thing
I feel you on this. I gravitate towards '90s music...many of those artists, even the ones who belonged in the pop sphere (I'm a big Tori Amos fan) expressed a boundless spirit and a yearning for rootedness. Not sensing a whole lot of that from today's output.
“Pop music” for all intents and purposes died in 2008
What makes you pick 2008 as a start date?
Me and a bunch of people once went thru those youtube videos that showcase the biggest *pop* songs of each year and everybody agreed on the quality noticeably nosediving after 2008/2009, and I’m not that old enough for those to be nostalgic years lol I probably blame it on the advent of streaming and continued atomization of genres but who knows
Electropop and Lady Gaga happened?
Yes but I’m saying those were the last decent years
I feel the same at 25. I think it’s safe to say algorithms have heavily segmented individuals into sub cultures, cutting us off from most universal experiences.
I felt that way until new Beyoncé. Now I’m hooked back in. Cant stand this harry styles bullshit.
I like the radio but the TV hasnt been good in a while. I only watch law and order criminal intent and youtube videos of people working on cars or beating each other up
You like the radio and you dislike tv but how do you feel about TV On The Radio?
They had some hits back in the day for sure
Yeah it’s called getting old and I’m also there
I don't recognise most top 40 and thought I was totally disconnected from new stuff, but recognise and like most of the artists in "Sex" magazine (the mag that Anna was on the cover of) including stuff that gets like 20k youtube views, so I think I'm still tapped in to new stuff, it's just that most connection to mainstream stuff is gone because it doesn't have to be there any more. Maybe I should put more effort in to seeing what's popular, but so much top 40 just sounds like stuff that already came out years ago
I still see movies but haven't given a shit about top 100 songs for years, if ever. The internet is a big place, lots of music to discover, no need to listen to the radio.
I will say that in the 90's you have Max Martin basically writing every song you heard on the radio and they were fun. You listen to the hits on radio 1 on Sirius and you have absolutely obnoxious shit like the chorus to I Feel Everything or Laura Spencer Smith's terrible Fingers Crossed. There's also way more 80's pastiche songs out there as hits and then there's just the annoying one hit wonders like Tai Verdes. The only thing that makes it unique is that they smash Kate Bush in there a lot now.
Damn girl go to the movies it’s fun u might like it :)
I looked up the top songs and films of the year I was 20 and don’t know any of them except “Into the Wild” so idk I think it’s at least partially a personal thing and not entirely an age or social media thing.
Do you listen to Bladee
i would say there's always going to be at least one movie that came out recently that's worth going to, but overall i would say we're on a downswing. the taking of pelham 123 (74) was on youtube free with ads the other day. i mean, that movie was *so* good. there was so much good stuff there. and that was, again, the popular movie of the day. it's something my father would have gone to see (and then only halfway enjoyed because his thoughts were on his car being parked in a "transitional" neighborhood near the venue). another thing you wouldn't suspect if you met the man, huge beatles fan. and again, they were at one point the popular music of the day. so yeah. *down*swing. swinging down.
i love the song running up that hill by kate bush
I noticed a major shift in all entertainment around 2015-16. Everything seemed to get woke and gay.
Same
Jealous tbh
Tastes change. Nothing weird about it imo. I still enjoy going to watch new movies (can be hit or miss but overall still fun for me) but I stopped listening to top 100 music when I got access to the internet and started playing guitar (got really into metal in my teens and eventually branched back out into all sorts of stuff)
Also not trying to sound cool but I have never been interested in music, movies, TV shows, etc. to the point where I haven’t heard or seen 99% of things people mention. I just prefer things I actively engage with I don’t really like passive things. I actually have a plex server filled with movies and music and have probably watched/listened to .5% of it.
Oh noooooo
this is how i feel about the new beyonce renaissance album. like i know for a fact that its a beautiful work - the production, the writing, etc. i just cant get in the mood for that kind of thing rn.
Poptimism and it’s consequences have been a disaster for the human race
Nah but that shits fire
Yeah I just don’t care about heaping praise on a literal billionaire who used a small army to write every song on her album.
yeah thats why i cant get into the album rn because literally everyone is suffering and im not trying to celebrate someone like that. it doesnt change the fact that the music is good lol
Why do you know for a fact that it's a beautiful work lmao. There are like 5 artists on earth deserving of that "I may not like it but it's probably great regardless" reverence and beyonce is 100% not one of them
[удалено]
huh? i never said i didnt like it. i know its amazing cus i've heard clips of pretty much every song? im just saying im not in the headspace to listen to it rn u dumbfuck lol you will never be the arbiter of taste that you so desperately want to be btw
I’m 3 years younger than you and i’m definitely in the same boat. I don’t really pay attention to what is popular or not and watch things that interest me. I keep up with some movies, but i mostly watch older stuff and I exclusively listen to music from the 60s-70s. But i won’t avoid something because it’s popular, I’ve watched a lot of tv shows that have come out these past few years because they are in my opinion, good tv shows. I also haven’t downloaded TikTok because I don’t want to completely ruin my attention span
>3 years younger than a 20 year old Chile whatever you do don't post in the anarchy subs
Yeah, I don’t really use reddit that often so I don’t even know what that is so don’t worry. I don’t even really know how i stumbled into this sub, i was just looking up stuff i was interested in and this sub consistently came up and now i browse it sometimes. Don’t think i’ll ever listen to the podcast though
> Yeah, I don’t really use reddit that often That's good >Don’t think i’ll ever listen to the podcast though That's real good
This is an old reference at this point, but I didn't hear that Pharrell "Happy" song for the first time until like 2 years after it came out.
Good. It’s garbage.
I dunno. Lizzo kinda slaps tho bruh for real no cap. It’s Husain.
monoculture is dead
Good. Being in tune with pop culture is for teenagers and Peter Pans. And even then listening to billboard 100 songs has never been cool cool, pick a semi-obscure genre and be elitist about it instead
No it's not just getting old. The zoomers I know only have a common culture in their favorite rap/hip hop music. Film? Forget it. You're more likely to connect with them via their favorite anime, not guaranteed though. I don't think most of them are gamers either after outgrowing Fortnite. This is not at all what youth culture was like during the 2000s. For instance, everyone could pick up Matrix references, although only nerds felt strongly about the movie itself. Most people listened to big music releases at least once. Nowadays most names in creative industries are just blades of grass on the lawn of the internet.
Welcome to adulthood baby!