I saw this article (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/when-america-was-great-according-to-data/ar-BB1mYttE) on MSN (originally from the Washington Post) and thought it was interesting:
QuoteWhen America was 'great,' according to data
Story by Andrew Van Dam
How do you define the good old days?
The plucky poll slingers at YouGov, who are consistently willing to use their elite-tier survey skills in service of measuring the unmeasurable, asked 2,000 adults which decade had the best and worst music, movies, economy and so forth, across 20 measures. But when we charted them, no consistent pattern emerged.
We did spot some peaks: When asked which decade had the most moral society, the happiest families or the closest-knit communities, White people and Republicans were about twice as likely as Black people and Democrats to point to the 1950s. The difference probably depends on whether you remember that particular decade for "Leave it to Beaver," drive-in theaters and "12 Angry Men" — or the Red Scare, the murder of Emmett Till and massive resistance to school integration.
(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1mYAyN.img?w=768&h=1140&m=6)
"This was a time when Repubs were pretty much running the show and had reason to be happy," pioneering nostalgia researcher Morris Holbrook told us via email. "Apparently, you could argue that nostalgia is colored by political preferences. Surprise, surprise."
And he's right! But any political, racial or gender divides were dwarfed by what happened when we charted the data by generation. Age, more than anything, determines when you think America peaked.
(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1mYrZx.img?w=768&h=1436&m=6)
So, we looked at the data another way, measuring the gap between each person's birth year and their ideal decade. The consistency of the resulting pattern delighted us: It shows that Americans feel nostalgia not for a specific era, but for a specific age.
The good old days when America was "great" aren't the 1950s. They're whatever decade you were 11, your parents knew the correct answer to any question, and you'd never heard of war crimes tribunals, microplastics or improvised explosive devices. Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn't sold out.
Not every flavor of nostalgia peaks as sharply as music does. But by distilling them to the most popular age for each question, we can chart a simple life cycle of nostalgia.
(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1mYD7J.img?w=768&h=1450&m=6)
The closest-knit communities were those in our childhood, ages 4 to 7. The happiest families, most moral society and most reliable news reporting came in our early formative years — ages 8 through 11. The best economy, as well as the best radio, television and movies, happened in our early teens — ages 12 through 15.
Slightly spendier activities such as fashion, music and sporting events peaked in our late teens — ages 16 through 19 — matching research from the University of South Australia's Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, which shows music nostalgia centers on age 17.
YouGov didn't just ask about the best music and the best economy. The pollsters also asked about the worst music and the worst economy. But almost without exception, if you ask an American when times were worst, the most common response will be "right now!"
This holds true even when "now" is clearly not the right answer. For example, when we ask which decade had the worst economy, the most common answer is today. The Great Depression — when, for much of a decade, unemployment exceeded the what we saw in the worst month of pandemic shutdowns — comes in a grudging second.
(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1mYD7L.img?w=768&h=1639&m=6)
To be sure, other forces seem to be at work. Democrats actually thought the current economy wasn't as bad as the Great Depression. Republicans disagreed. In fact, measure after measure, Republicans were more negative about the current decade than any other group — even low-income folks in objectively difficult situations.
So, we called the brilliant Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers who regularly wrestles with partisan bias in polling.
Hsu said that yes, she sees a huge partisan split in the economy, and yes, Republicans are far more negative than Democrats. But it hasn't always been that way.
"People whose party is in the White House always have more favorable sentiment than people who don't," she told us. "And this has widened over time."
In a recent analysis, Hsu — who previously worked on some of our favorite surveys at the Federal Reserve — found that while partisanship drove wider gaps in economic expectations than did income, age or education even in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama years, they more than doubled under Donald Trump as Republicans' optimism soared and Democrats' hopes fell.
Our attitudes reversed almost the instant President Biden took office, but the gap remains nearly as wide. That is to say, if we'd asked the same questions about the worst decades during the Trump administration, Hsu's work suggests the partisan gap could have shriveled or even flipped eyeglasses over teakettle.
To understand the swings, Hsu and her friends spent the first part of 2024 asking 2,400 Americans where they get their information about the economy. In a new analysis, she found Republicans who listen to partisan outlets are more likely to be negative, and Democrats who listen to their own version of such news are more positive — and that Republicans are a bit more likely to follow partisan news.
But while Fox and friends drive some negativity, only a fifth of Republicans get their economic news from partisan outlets. And Democrats and independents give a thumbs down to the current decade, too, albeit at much lower rates.
There's clearly something more fundamental at work. As YouGov's Carl Bialik points out, when Americans were asked last year which decade they'd most want to live in, the most common answer was now. At some level then, it seems unlikely that we truly believe this decade stinks by almost every measure.
(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1mYvus.img?w=768&h=930&m=6)
A deeper explanation didn't land in our laps until halfway through a Zoom call with four well-caffeinated Australian marketing and consumer-behavior researchers: the Ehrenberg-Bass folks behind the music study we cited above. (Their antipodean academic institute has attracted massive sponsorships by replacing typical corporate marketing fluffery with actual evidence.)
Their analysis began when Callum Davies needed to better understand the demographics of American music tastes to interpret streaming data for his impending dissertation. Since they were already asking folks about music, Davies and his colleagues decided they might as well seize the opportunity to update landmark research from Holbrook and Robert Schindler about music nostalgia.
Building on the American scholars' methods, they asked respondents to listen to a few seconds each of 34 songs, including Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" and Johnny Preston's "Running Bear." Then respondents were asked to rate each song on a zero-to-10 scale. (In the latter case, we can't imagine the high end of the scale got much use, especially if the excerpt included that song's faux-tribal "hooga-hooga" chant and/or its climactic teen drownings.)
Together, the songs represented top-10 selections from every even-numbered year from 1950 (Bing and Gary Crosby's "Play a Simple Melody") to 2016 (Rihanna's "Work"), allowing researchers to gather our preferences for music released throughout our lives.
Like us, they found that you'll forever prefer the music of your late teens. But their results show one big difference: There's no sudden surge of negative ratings for the most recent music.
(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1mYxZa.img?w=768&h=687&m=6)
Marketing researcher Bill Page said that by broadly asking when music, sports or crime were worst, instead of getting ratings for specific years or items, YouGov got answers to a question they didn't ask.
"When you ask about 'worst,' you're not asking for an actual opinion," Page said. "You're asking, 'Are you predisposed to think things get worse?'"
"There's plenty of times surveys unintentionally don't measure what they claim to," his colleague Zac Anesbury added.
YouGov actually measured what academics call "declinism," his bigwig colleague Carl Driesener explained. He looked a tiny bit offended when we asked if that was a real term or slang they'd coined on the spot. But in our defense, only a few minutes had passed since they had claimed "cozzie livs" was Australian for "the cost of living crisis."
Declinists believe the world keeps getting worse. It's often the natural result of rosy retrospection, or the idea that everything — with the possible exception of "Running Bear" — looks better in memory than it did at the time. This may happen in part because remembering the good bits of the past can help us through difficult times, Page said.
It's a well-established phenomenon in psychology, articulated by Leigh Thompson, Terence Mitchell and their collaborators in a set of analyses. They found that when asked to rate a trip mid-vacation, we often sound disappointed. But after we get home — when the lost luggage has been found and the biting-fly welts have stopped itching — we're as positive about the trip as we were in the early planning stage. Sometimes even more so.
So saying the 2020s are the worst decade ever is akin to sobbing about "the worst goldang trip ever" at 3 a.m. in a sketchy flophouse full of Russian-speaking truckers after you've run out of cash and spent three days racing around Urumqi looking for the one bank in Western China that takes international cards.
A few decades from now, our memories shaped by grainy photos of auroras and astrolabes, we'll recall only the bread straight from streetside tandoor-style ovens and the locals who went out of their way to bail out a couple of distraught foreigners.
In other words, the 2020s will be the good old days.
I'm curious if how you would answer the questions in the middle. My thesis is that Languish is a forum full of history nerds and would therefore be interested in things outside their lifetime. What year were you born, and starting from the 1930s from which decade came:
The most close-knit communities
The least close-knit communities
The most moral society
The least moral society
The least political division
The greatest political division
The happiest families
The least happy families
The most reliable news reporting
The least reliable news reporting
The best music
The worst music
The best radio
The worst radio
The best fashion
The worst fashion
The best economy
the worst economy
The best movies
The worst movies
The best television
The worst television
The best sporting events
The worst sporting events
The best cuisine
The worst cuisine
I was born in 1972:
The most close-knit communities: 1940s (I assume people had to work together because of the war, and joining organizations was very much characteristic of the GI generation.)
The least close-knit communities: 2020s (Trump high poll numbers is a symptom of this.)
The most moral society: 2020s
The least moral society: 2020s ;)
The least political division: 1940s (We had a common enemy)
The greatest political division: 1960s (Vietnam war, civil unrest.)
The happiest families: 1990s (Strong economy, no major wars)
The least happy families: 1930s (Assuming the stress of the Depression would lead to unhappiness.)
The most reliable news reporting: 1970s (Vietnam, Watergate)
The least reliable news reporting: 2020s (Social media, social media, social media.)
The best music: 1970s (Peak of the album era.)
The worst music: 2020s (Unfair because you forget the dross of the previous eras, but you're confronted with that from the present)
The best radio: 1940s (Jack Benny was the man)
The worst radio: 2000s (When national franchised radio brands took off in the US.)
The best fashion: 1950s (I think the mid-century suits/dresses looked sharp.)
The worst fashion: 1970s (Can there be any debate?)
The best economy: 1990s
the worst economy: 1930s
The best movies: 1970s (I can't actually pick my favorite era, so I wen with New Hollywood.)
The worst movies: 2010s (Especially the Trump years when banal "Message" pictures dominated the Oscars.)
The best television: 2020s
The worst television: 1950s
The best sporting events: 1990s (Red Wings - Avalanche rivalry)
The worst sporting events: 1940s (Many athletes were in the army, two Olympics cancelled.)
The best cuisine: 2020s
The worst cuisine: 1930s
I've certainly noticed in American media there's a big love for this post-war 50s era where the suburbs were springing up, cars were plentiful, but the negative side of this had yet to really bite with town centres still being thriving places, community cohesion being there....and racism eh....depends on the show whether its neatly ignored, lightly addressed to show how awesome the protagonist is, or the entire plot.
As to the "Oh we like the songs from our childhood thing"- no, this is a hill I will fight on. Objective studies have found modern music to be increasingly shit. It started going down hill whilst I was still in my supposed prime.
Anyway. I was born in the mid 80s and I have always through life had the impression I was born a decade or so late, just missing the golden zone for various things.
So. Looking through your list.
The most close-knit communities: 1940s
The least close-knit communities: 2020s:
The most moral society: late 2000s/early 2010s
The least moral society: 2020s (the 80s just never went away completely and have really came back)
The least political division: 1940s
The greatest political division: 1980s
The happiest families: 1960s
The least happy families: 1930s? 1940s? 1980s? 2020s? Too many
The most reliable news reporting: 1980s?- really hard as big problems everywhere. I'm just reminded of the printers strike.
The least reliable news reporting:: 2020s?
The best music: 1980s? Though there's a good period that ebbs and flows between the 70s and 2000s.
The worst music: 1930s. But that's cheating. Since modern music began its been downhill since the financial crash, so today.
The best radio: Ra..di...o? err.... 30s?
The worst radio: 2020s
The best fashion: 1940s
The worst fashion: 1970s
The best economy: 2000s
the worst economy: At first seemed tough as there's lots for different reasons... but thinking more the 1940s is obvious for Europe.
The best movies: 1990s?
The worst movies: 1930s
The best television: 2000s
The worst television: 1930s
The best sporting events: 1990s
The worst sporting events: 2020s
The best cuisine: 2010s
The worst cuisine: 1940s
The graph that shows the peak relative to the birth year is very comforting. It shows that each generation loved its youth and that we can assume that this trend will continue.
Quote from: Josquius on May 28, 2024, 03:36:15 AMAs to the "Oh we like the songs from our childhood thing"- no, this is a hill I will fight on. Objective studies have found modern music to be increasingly shit. It started going down hill whilst I was still in my supposed prime.
What a coincidence.
Quote from: Josephus on May 28, 2024, 08:02:38 AMQuote from: Josquius on May 28, 2024, 03:36:15 AMAs to the "Oh we like the songs from our childhood thing"- no, this is a hill I will fight on. Objective studies have found modern music to be increasingly shit. It started going down hill whilst I was still in my supposed prime.
What a coincidence.
What is?
Thst music started to go downhill around the time you were ending your prime.
I would argue the same. Music started going downhill in the mid 90s. I was still under 30. Still in my prime
But old enough no longer to be in "my youth". Despite what studies you're read most people find music they listened to in their youth is better than anything else
My mother loves 50s music.
I love 70s and 80s (although as a true music fan, I'm fairly open)
I have a 13 year old great niece who insists nothing good was released prior to 2020
And yes, there is very good contemporary music.
Quote from: Josephus on May 28, 2024, 08:16:44 AMThst music started to go downhill around the time you were ending your prime.
I would argue the same. Music started going downhill in the mid 90s. I was still under 30. Still in my prime
But old enough no longer to be in "my youth". Despite what studies you're read most people find music they listened to in their youth is better than anything else
My mother loves 50s music.
I love 70s and 80s (although as a true music fan, I'm fairly open)
I have a 13 year old great niece who insists nothing good was released prior to 2020
And yes, there is very good contemporary music.
As I say though there is objective data out there suggesting modern trends are...not good.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/29/song-lyrics-getting-simpler-more-repetitive-angry-and-self-obsessed-study
There's definitely some groups still around today who are good. But there just isn't the quantity or popularity that you got in better times.
I really don't think my age impacts my views on this too much with my graph being rather more wavy than the average one in Sav's post.
I'm born in the mid 80s, there was a high point of music before I was born in the late 70s and early 80s (punk and post-punk, early indie), quite a low point towards 1990, then a high point again in the mid 90s (britpop)...then it turned rubbish again until the early 00s (post punk revival), then around the financial crisis good music basically died (Unexpectedly. The state of things in the 80s had led to a lot of great music).
YMMV depending on the genres you're into of course. Doubtless someone less into rock and more into rap would have a very different outlook. But as far as alternative music goes I don't think my view is particularly off .
Born in the early 70s. I don't care much for the movies or music of the mid-80ss . . .
The most close-knit communities: 1930s (pre suburbs, no war)
The least close-knit communities: 2020s
The most moral society: 2000s
The least moral society: 1930s (Jim Crow etc)
The least political division: 1950s
The greatest political division: 2020s
The happiest families: 2010s pre COVID
The least happy families: 1930s
The most reliable news reporting: 1970s
The least reliable news reporting: 2020s or 1940s (war censorship)
The best music: 1960s. Maybe an argument for the 50s. No other time comes close IMO.
The worst music: 1990s
The best radio: 1940s
The worst radio: 2020s
The best fashion: 1940s
The worst fashion: 1980s
The best economy: 2020s
the worst economy: 1930s
The best movies: 1970s
The worst movies: 1980s
The best television: 2000s
The worst television: 1930s
The best sporting events: 1970s
The worst sporting events: 1930s
The best cuisine: 2020s
The worst cuisine: 1940s
I think it's pretty funny that since the 1950s, the period Republicans seem to like the most was the 1980s, when urban crime was rising and immigration was high.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 28, 2024, 09:40:18 AMBorn in the early 70s. I don't care much for the movies or music of the mid-80ss . . .
I was born in 1975, and you sir are a monster. :ultra:
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 28, 2024, 09:42:41 AMI think it's pretty funny that since the 1950s, the period Republicans seem to like the most was the 1980s, when urban crime was rising and immigration was high.
OTOH, Reagan-era action movies a.k.a '80s action. :P
Not to mention a great age for genre in general, with the best year ever for fantasy/sci-fi/ or rather genre: 1982.
Quote from: Barrister on May 28, 2024, 10:25:58 AMI was born in 1975, and you sir are a monster. :ultra:
Guilty as charged.
I've also always found the conservative love for the 50s amusing, given that marginal tax rates were around 90 percent, unionization peaked, and Eisenhower was the face of the GOP.
I've read that if you are working in an organisation, the glory years of said organisation is usually no less than 3 years before you joined.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 28, 2024, 10:31:01 AMQuote from: Barrister on May 28, 2024, 10:25:58 AMI was born in 1975, and you sir are a monster. :ultra:
Guilty as charged.
I've also always found the conservative love for the 50s amusing, given that marginal tax rates were around 90 percent, unionization peaked, and Eisenhower was the face of the GOP.
So I know nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and I don't just endlessly sit listening to 80s music and watching 80s movies.
But damn - when I do watch or listen to something from that era, it hits way harder.
Quote from: PJL on May 28, 2024, 10:39:45 AMI've read that if you are working in an organisation, the glory years of said organisation is usually no less than 3 years before you joined.
I do always seem to join new workplaces at around this time. :lol:
Yeah I absolutely accept that I like the popular music of my youth best because those were the days of my youth.
But knowing that doesn't change the fact that I also feel very strongly that today's popular music is a crapalcade of identical autotune excrement.
Yeah, the Eurovision Song Contest was not always that bad. :P
With a couple exceptions in later years. :D
I find it surprising that when it comes to studies like this no ones seems to mentioned that in North America, the post-war era is one of where infrastructure was new & new ones where being built everyday. It is easy to look back at a decade and think of it has great when everything was new and newish.
I was born in 1984 and I love late 70s to mid 80s rock.
My (almost) 13 years old also thinks no good music predates 2020.
What gets me is when I went to say "of they still make really great music these days" the songs I think of are all 15-20 years ago.
I still think they make good music these days. I can turn on the radio to a modern alternative rock station and I like the songs they're playing. It's just music isn't as important so I never bother to learn the artist or song names.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 28, 2024, 09:40:18 AMBorn in the early 70s. I don't care much for the movies or music of the mid-80ss . . .
The most close-knit communities: 1930s (pre suburbs, no war)
The least close-knit communities: 2020s
The most moral society: 2000s
The least moral society: 1930s (Jim Crow etc)
The least political division: 1950s
The greatest political division: 2020s
The happiest families: 2010s pre COVID
The least happy families: 1930s
The most reliable news reporting: 1970s
The least reliable news reporting: 2020s or 1940s (war censorship)
The best music: 1960s. Maybe an argument for the 50s. No other time comes close IMO.
The worst music: 1990s
The best radio: 1940s
The worst radio: 2020s
The best fashion: 1940s
The worst fashion: 1980s
The best economy: 2020s
the worst economy: 1930s
The best movies: 1970s
The worst movies: 1980s
The best television: 2000s
The worst television: 1930s
The best sporting events: 1970s
The worst sporting events: 1930s
The best cuisine: 2020s
The worst cuisine: 1940s
Hmm I learned something today. I thought we were closer in age.
Born in the mid sixties
I agree with most of what you have said with these few exceptions:
The most close-knit communities: 1900's rather than the 1930s (pre suburbs, no war) - people were on the move in the 30s because of the farm foreclosures.
The best music: 1960s. Agreed but moving into the early part of the 70s as well.
The worst music: 1990s- can we lump the mid 80s into that?
Quote from: Josquius on May 28, 2024, 09:28:32 AMAs I say though there is objective data out there suggesting modern trends are...not good.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/29/song-lyrics-getting-simpler-more-repetitive-angry-and-self-obsessed-study
QuoteThe results also confirmed previous research which had shown a decrease in positive, joyful lyrics over time and a rise in those that express anger, disgust or sadness.
This reminds me of something one of my college professors (a rather crusty old gentleman who had been in the navy during the Second World War) said. In 1952 the number one song in the United States was Patti Page's "How much is that Doggie in the Window?" Twenty years later it was Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water."
And I hear music like that and it puts me in the bitch bag right away. What ever happened to happy? (It was especially amusing as almost no one in the class had even been born when "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was released. I'm sure he would have hated "Smells Like Teen Spirit" even more.)
Also:
Quote"Rap music has become more angry than the other genres,"
:o :o :o
The most close-knit communities: Pre-1920s According to my mother's Okie parents this is when it all went wrong!
The least close-knit communities: Sort of a theme of my lifetime has been people feeling alienated and wanting communities. I guess I would say 1990s since that was before we could find our weirdos online.
The most moral society: Society today seems more obsessed with finding and shunning evil than even the 1980s when everybody was supposedly satanic. But maybe people are getting a little tired of it. I will say 2010s.
The least moral society: The 1980s seemed to borderline get off on destroying important pillars of communities and enjoying seeing gay people die of aids and the impoverished inner city suffer.
The least political division: 1940s. World War II.
The greatest political division: 1960s but we seem to be in a stupider and more sustained version of that now.
The happiest families: 2010s...I guess. I don't know. It seemed like there were more divorces and disruption in the 1970s and 1980s
The least happy families: 1930s obviously.
The most reliable news reporting: 1970s which was probably the height of local media
The least reliable news reporting: 1980s and 1990s when cable news and corporate juggernauts took over.
The best music: 1970s but you can throw the late 1960s in there to. Having said that some of the lamest and worst music was also made in this era, kind of feast or famine I think.
The worst music: 2020s. Even the bad periods before were more odd than bad, like the weird 1988 to September 1991 era. I will just say now just because even the bands and artists I do know about I am more familiar with their music from a decade ago than their new stuff. I am sure there is good music being made out there, I am just having a hard time finding it.
The best radio: 1970s, before the big corporations bought up all the stations.
The worst radio: 2020s...radio? What's that?
The best fashion: 1960s
The worst fashion: Late 1980s. Wow. What were we thinking?
The best economy: 1960s. Before the oil crisis led to us deciding to destroy our economies in the 1980s.
the worst economy: 1930s for obvious reasons.
The best movies: 1970s. A true artists decade.
The worst movies: 2020s. Good stuff is still being made but I have never seen the industry in this grim a shape.
The best television: 2010s
The worst television: 1970s. TV before cable seems really lame.
The best sporting events: 1990s
The worst sporting events: 1940s, though in the US all sports before the 50s were marred by the whole race thing.
The best cuisine: 2020s. There is a ridiculous amount of great food now...if you can afford it.
The worst cuisine: 1980s or around there. There seemed to be some movement to overwhelm us with shitty restaurants and shitty fatty foods around this time.
- Close knit communities: The prevalence of close knit communities are a function of how many large vs small communities there are, and of ethnic and class heterogeneity. There's no particular value to there being more or less close knit communities, as there are pros and cons to closeness vs distance.
- Moral societies: each era was moral (and immoral) according to its own morality. It's merely that the definition of morality continues to shift.
- Political Division - Most: 1930s (Bolsheviks, the rise of Fascism)
- Political Division - Least: 1990s (Cold War Victory and Western values)
- Happy Families - Most: 1950s (post war optimism and baby boom, contrasting with what came before)
- Happy Families - Least: 1940s (death and suffering from WWII)
- News Reporting: I lack the knowledge to really comment, but I'm concerned about the impact of social media.
- Music: all eras have merit. Music post 20o0 and onwards have less personal impact but that's subjective.
- Radio, TV, Film, Sports: don't have a strong opinion.
- Fashion: it's all good.
- Economy: Not sure if the 80s, 2010s, or 2020s are the best. The worst is probably the Great Depression (30s).
- Cuisine: Best is now (2020s). Don't know about worst.
I feel this video ties into the discussion quite nicely, filtered through how Star Wars uses nostalgia to appeal to (some) its fans: