The Off Topic Topic

[crazy canuck]

It was mainly the boomers wearing that.  As usual they ruined it for us.

[Sheilbh]

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats, 
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

[Jacob]

An excellent poem, that.

[crazy canuck]

Boomers fucked themselves up. I don't think they can blame that on their parents.

[Josquius]

The problem with your theory is that we were using the terms Baby Boomers and Gen X long before we even started worrying about y2k

Nowhere near as much as today.

Yeah and I think "generations" and decades are different (obvs all periodisation and categories like that is arbitrary and mad).

Gen X are not the only people alive in or experiencing the 80s - and certainly based on my family photos it was not just the youngsters wearing 80s fashion

That's the point.
We don't talk about decades anymore. Instead generations, despite being a different thing, have taken that space. Which has problems.
Fashion of decades was for everyone. It was a shared time.
Fashion of generations is for the generation. It's insular and divisive.

Anyway. Found where I heard it. That weirdly popular guy with the really annoying voice. But it was thought provoking.

[Sheilbh]

An excellent poem, that.

It is. Been reading a lot of Larkin recently. I don't remember reading it before (and it's probably a sign of getting older) but Aubade just blew me away.

Read it many times in the last couple of months.

That's the point.
We don't talk about decades anymore. Instead generations, despite being a different thing, have taken that space. Which has problems.
Fashion of decades was for everyone. It was a shared time.
Fashion of generations is for the generation. It's insular and divisive.

Oh okay - but they're both doing different things and I don't think generations has taken that point. People talk about 90s fashion being back for example.

The reason the 2010s isn't a thing yet is recency. I don't think we had a really clear idea of the 1990s by 2005, it's only now that we're really forming that. But I think there's about a thirty year lag - the first decade after we try to forget, the second we define, the third we indulge in retro/nostalgia.

(Although I think there's something to the "culture" being frozen, globalised and homogenised after 2008 and the release of the iPhone....possibly now breaking apart.)

[Grey Fox]

This will  make Josq proud. Contractor guy redoing my indoor stairs is plastering the entire walls. He calls it glazing.

 

I guess you're paying him a pretty penny, because over here people who can do a good job at that can demand a heafty payment.

Maybe 🤔 It's not a thing here so I expected them to replace the entire drywall instead. I didn't ask for it.

[mongers]

Generations seems to be something coined in the US in relation to the 'greatest generation' and then everyone else has been retro fitted onto that?

Culturally and politically it doesn't make a lot of sense.

If you must have one of these yardsticks, why not go back to talking of the class of 82 etc ie the year that school children formally left mandatory education, be they going on to work or to further/higher education.

That way you can tie groups of people more accurately to some of the social and political events or forces of their time.

For instance my school year was the class of 1980, the first year of Thatcher's recessionary policies in the UK. From there you can go into the wider picture or reference individual's different experiences or difficulties faced with mass unemployment say.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Maybe 🤔 It's not a thing here so I expected them to replace the entire drywall instead. I didn't ask for it.

What was the damage?  I'd only expect a complete drywall replacement in cases where extensive chunks needed to be removed to get at things behind it.

[Grey Fox]

Maybe 🤔 It's not a thing here so I expected them to replace the entire drywall instead. I didn't ask for it.

What was the damage?  I'd only expect a complete drywall replacement in cases where extensive chunks needed to be removed to get at things behind it.

It was covered in fake wood from the 70s, after removal it came to light that it wasn't damaged much. So, you're expectations were better than mine.

[viper37]

MSBNC is having some financial difficulties and it's firing staff.

It seems to have replaced all its colored staff following Trump's inauguration.  There are only white hosts now.

Rachel Madow has been extremely vocal against Trump, and she has criticized her network for this decision on air.

Now, she finds herself without staff for her show.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/25/msnbc-layoffs-rachel-maddow


They don't even need to ask, corporations are bending over.