Anyone Else Tired of The "Things Were Better in My Day" Mentality!?

[codystarbuck]

The complaining was better, back in my day.

Reverse the premise though and you have an equally valid complaint. You have a certain segment of fandom, completely lacking in any historical perspective, that dismisses anything created before their lifetime. You have people who won't watch a black & white film, or can't appreciate music from a previous era, or can't sit through a film without 10,000 jump cuts and explosions.

Thing is, as you age, your perspective changes and a lot of what is produced for a mass audience starts to lose its luster and you look backwards, often exploring things you missed out on, or ignored in your youth. You start to appreciate them more, as you see them in a new light. It can breed some nostalgia in you and a tendency to think things were better back then. However, sometimes, that is correct, depending on the subject. Just taking music; in previous eras, you had radio stations that were independently owned and operated, that programmed their own music. You could get a wide variety of styles, depending on the programming director and the audience. As corporations took over the stations and the Reagan Administration repealed the FCC restrictions on station ownership, you got a homogenization of radio playlists and the same branding across multiple stations. That was hardly improvement, from the listener's point of view. Luckily, portable listening devices grew, at the same time, giving you an alternative; but, it had a tendency to restrict the growth of music, compared to previous generations.

Every decade has produced tremendous art; but, as you gain some distance and perspective, you tend to realize how much junk was also produced and how rare the good material really was. You start to wonder what you saw in a lot of things you thought were good or great. When I hit college and entered my first comic shop, I bought a bunch of stuff out of nostalgia. It ended up being about 30% that held up really well, another 30% was quaint, but entertaining, and 30% was just crap. That's probably being rather forgiving to some of the quaint material; but, I can appreciate the intent of the material and the younger audience it was aimed at. It's just like I can appreciate looking through an old storybook that is cute and look at Dr Seuss and still see the brilliance.

[bloodofthegods]

My children cannot simply imagine a world without cell phones. So yeah they don't really agree that things were better without them or 3DSXL, or HDTV, or youtube, or streaming movies, or having to actually look something up in a book, not grab your phone.

However now that one of them is a teenager, he might find that the world was better in my time, when my folks could not GPS my location down to a blade of grass I was sitting on thanks to all the new technology. I could read books and watch movies they didn't know about because there was no Netflix history or online history. With each technological leap we make there is a price to be paid.

I also remember when people actually had to take the consequences when talking face to face, for opening their mouth and spewing vile out their wordhole unlike the anonymity of the internet.

And then to complete the circle ...

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

[MindofShadow]

My children cannot simply imagine a world without cell phones. So yeah they don't really agree that things were better without them or 3DSXL, or HDTV, or youtube, or streaming movies, or having to actually look something up in a book, not grab your phone.

oh god, havin to look stuff up in a book so so awful and time consuming.

I was in the generation that started to transition out of that. I remember some dinosaur professors and teachers holding on to the past and trying ot go "no internet" on stuff.

[Kieran_Frost]

Eh. As with all things, some things WERE better "back in the day" and somethings vastly improved with modernisation and evolving social views. We can all learn and benefit from the experiences across the ages (including from today's world).

[Paradox]

I'm about as tired of people complaining about this as I am of the ones who do it. Both "sides" are working from a position of sweeping generalizations. Some things were better in the past and some were not. That is always true. It's best to just deal with individual issues, rather than just blanket a whole era with "goodness".

As to this particular age group issue, the past is when they were children. One's worldview is almost always better of your childhood because you were probably sheltered from most of the "bad" stuff and didn't have to deal with it (if you were even aware).

[Bullet Sniper]

I don't like it when people try to act so surprised and confused as to why (older) people would say "things were better in my day" a lot. And when we say better in our days, I believe there are so many criteria and categories to go upon when tackling that statement... are we talking terms of just art and entertainment? lifestyle? politics? society? aesthetics? fashion? technology?

Honest I find it pretty funny with somethings at times.

My main example was as a kid growing-up in the 1990's and hearing then how AWE Entertainment was, music, movies, shows, how we where as kids and society as a whole. It was not all around, but it was their.

Now a days we are having a Nostalgia for the 1990's, not only looking at the good parts but having fun with most all of 90's culture and entertainment like it was such good times and an identity that few kids and culture have today. Sound Familiar?!

Honestly this just shows me it is a cycle, it will always be and we will ALWAYS say the present day time is the worst and it was SO GOOD 20 years before. Honestly after going threw what I experienced growing-up, it does not or I don't see it weight on me much anymore. So really what is awful today in 20 years from now will seem CLASSIC and the Good-Old-Days, Risen-n-Repeat!

Also, This Video might put some perspective on things in a certain way:

You know seeing as you brought up a potentially high point of interest to me, I would just like to make an assertive statement that I personally have my own doubts that the 2000's or at least some things from it will ever look good for me 20 years from that point of time or even now. Ironically, this is the one time I will say that the 2010's is a much better decade than the 2000's for me and not just because of merely "omg cool" advances in technology or even the typical discourse of new human rights, but because some of the things from the 2000's really suck so bad in my eyes that I think this current decade is better than the last one in so many ways.

[GreenLanternRanger]

I will say I agree some decades are better then others. The 00's is justifiably remembered as a horrible decade for a reason.

And while I would also agree music has gone downhill compared to music from say the 60's-80's I won't flat out say all modern music is bad either.

Overall the 2010's have been better then the 00's.


But getting back on topic, while I agree some things were indeed better back in the day, I still find blanket statements like "things were better back in my day" annoying overall. As previously stated things are always in flux, everything changes overtime, both for better & worse.

[Buried Alien]

Well, yes, but its Earth-Three doppelganger, "That's so last year/last decade/90s/80s/70s" isn't great either.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Vinsanity]

Yep.

People forget how many bad things there were in previous eras. The best will stand the test of time like and this era will have really good music, films, video games, TV Shows and comics.

[codystarbuck]

My children cannot simply imagine a world without cell phones. So yeah they don't really agree that things were better without them or 3DSXL, or HDTV, or youtube, or streaming movies, or having to actually look something up in a book, not grab your phone.

However now that one of them is a teenager, he might find that the world was better in my time, when my folks could not GPS my location down to a blade of grass I was sitting on thanks to all the new technology. I could read books and watch movies they didn't know about because there was no Netflix history or online history. With each technological leap we make there is a price to be paid.

I also remember when people actually had to take the consequences when talking face to face, for opening their mouth and spewing vile out their wordhole unlike the anonymity of the internet.

And then to complete the circle ...

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

We did a lot less bumping into doors, before smart phones.

I didn't even have a basic cell phone, until a few years ago, when I was traveling quite a bit, for work. One of my youngsters was aghasht that I didn't have a cell phone. The following conversation occurred:

"You don't have a cell phone? How do you make a call?"

"I have a phone at home."

"Yeah, but you can't call your friends when you are out shopping!"

"Why would I want to call them while I'm shopping?"

"I don't know, just to talk to them."

"I can do that when I see them."

They couldn't fathom communicating without a cell phone or not wanting to be bothered by a phone ringing, when I am out and about on my day off. I also had to explain what a rotary phone was; and, horror of horrors, a party-line.

Nothing against cell phones; just an example. Technology is great; but, having lived without it does prepare you better for when it doesn't work properly. Almost any time I've used a satnav, I am grateful that I learned to read a map, as a kid.

[Paradox]

I must agree with that last part, cody. I had younger roommates that expected technology to work exactly perfectly every single time, and were helpless when it didn't. I had no such expectations and have adaptive work-arounds to almost everything.

[t hedge coke]

Meh! That doesn't bother me. In the minds of people who grew up in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, etc, perhaps those were damn good times. Who am I to disagree with them?

I'm not necessarily going to disagree that they feel that way, but when they're doing it to pat themselves on the back so hard their hand might break off, it's a little tedious. Or, when it's being done by cherry-picking elements for the sake of making some other generation or era smaller... when done for that in a serious way, that bugs me.

Clint Eastwood trying to say everybody was too tough to complain about racism "back in the day" or people who start out by lauding secondhand smoke, no seatbelts, and lead paint chips as proof of the golden days of childhood and how badass they were as kids. I'm not going to go make them stop, but I might pause and make fun of it. It's a dangerous thing to weaponize nostalgia that way.

[CaptCleghorn]

I like what I like and prefer what I prefer.

I like and prefer them in my own style.

If that bothers you, it's your fucking problem.

[BCya]

Grumpy old men have always said this. Some people are destined to be grumpy old men. Thankfully that will never happen to me.

When people say something "raped" their childhood, usually Michael Bay, that I don't abide. Rape is horrible - somebody making a movie that's different than the cartoon you liked is FAR from rape.

[GigiFusc]

I think it's an easy argument to make on a base level - 'in the old days, we used to do this and it was better than today'.

However, it is only a base argument. I'm not sure you'll find any grumpy old fart who would genuinely argue that EVERYTHING was better in his day. (Apart from anything else, that is completely factually untrue, I think we can all agree).

For me, the problem arises as a direct result of change. So I grew up reading when Miller released Ronin, Elektra Asassin & Dark Knight. When Moore released Watchmen, V and From Hell. Gaimen was writing Sandman and brought us Books of Magic. I was seeing art from Bolland and Sienkiewicz. McFarlane just started Spawn. X-Men was going through an awesome story arc conveying real world racism through the mutant kind. Secret Wars was one of the biggest crossover events ever (and it was a great story to boot). Obviously, the list goes on.

But now here's the truth of it. There's some great comic books being written today. I've enjoyed reading some fantastic Batman and Superman stories and I'm really enjoying Old man Logan. So there is a bunch of really good stuff coming out today.

My own personal feelings about it is that there was much more amazing, new stuff coming out back in the 80's and 90's. You would walk into a comic store and literally trip over a great book you'd never heard of. This 'sea of new' was everywhere. That appears to have slowed down today. Today, we could be missing out on a WHOLE lot of great comic books because creators are going the indie route. I reckon there's hundreds of truly great comic books out there on the net somewhere that none of us have ever heard of. If it's not Marvel, DC or Image, it's always been almost impossible to raise attention to your title. So potentially great creators are not coming to the fore as much.

That has resulted in a smaller pool of great comic books getting into our hands. And sometimes, those that do, are only deemed great because they are from a smaller pool. Were they in a bigger pool, they'd just be deemed 'good'.

I was talking to a colleague a while ago who described Snyder as the 'greatest comic book writer of our generation'. At that time, I hadn't got back into comics yet but it intrigued me. So I read a whole bunch of his stuff. My conclusion is - Snyder is a very good writer indeed. But he doesn't compare to the greats for me. His stories are not on the same level as Miller and Moore.

So, in conclusion. I think it's wrong to say everything was better in the old days. It wasn't. But in comparing the best of yesteryear to the best of today, for me at least, yesteryear wins by quite a margin.