Remember where technology was at in the 90s?
I can't even describe the excitement I felt the first time we got a type of internet where you were online ALL THE TIME. And your parents wouldn't yell at you for making the phone line busy for 20 hours a day! Stories like this will entertain our grandchildren. How did we live?
Just sit and think for a moment about how much technology has advanced in only ten years. Go ahead and watch a bit of this. Then watch this. Yeah.
And remember your old phone back in high school? You know, the Game Boy with the neon backlight? Now we have this.
It's truly a wonderful world we live in.
Video games were already art before, but they really hit their stride in the last few years.
Still not convinced? Here, watch some beautiful trailers.
Art. The end.
A few years ago, Roger Ebert wrote that video games could never be art. This pissed off a lot of people, so he retracted his statement. They couldn't be considered high art, on the level of films or literature. His reasons: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.
Ah, I see he's never played a video game before.
Is it just me, or is this decade completely lacking bands to define it? Music seems to be splitting apart right now. Horrible music keeps getting worse and more popular, while good music keeps getting better and harder to find.
Take a listen to this.
Now listen to this.
I can't believe Franz Ferdinand and Leonard Cohen were playing across the street, and all those people went to see Green Day.
I just don't understand. Green Day and Year Long Disaster (first vid) don't even compare. Have you ever heard of Year Long Disaster? Yeah, me neither until recently. And yet, they're the ones who are good. By all rights, they're the ones who should be known. Green Day fucking sucks, but for some reasons they're the guys getting paid. They're all 37, by the way. They're 37 year old men dressed like teenagers at Hot Topic.
And why do all the cool bands seem to be obsessed with social commentary? I don't care. If I wanted to be exposed to opinions and ideas, I'll pick up a fucking book like a grown up. You know how the Beatles pulled it off? They were geniuses. They read a fuckton of literature and traveled the world. They knew what they were doing. These guys just seem like that one dude at the party who pretends to be interesting by complaining about meaningless shit. "They should do something about something, guys! Yeah!"
And I'm not one of those "they used to be decent before they sold out" people. No. They have always sucked. Blame it on my hatred for their genre - often mistaken as "punk," while they really sound nothing at all like real punk bands who actually possessed testicles. I just call it "whiny teen rock." It is the most unoriginal and generic form of rock I have ever listened to. It's just power chord, power chord, power chord, power chord, listen to me I have an opinion, did I mention I'm in a band? I know I have readers of this blog who are fans of Green Day, I'm not trying to bash only them, they just seem to be on the forefront of all the type of music I hate - Sum 41, Blink 182, Good Charotte, The Offspring (I used to be a big Offspring fan, I'm a little ashamed to admit). They're all the exact same fucking band. DOESN'T ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THIS I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.
If this decade could only be known for a single thing, it would probably be the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After 9/11, we decided to invade Afghanistan to oust the Taliban from the government, who were directly supporting Al Qaeda. Then out of fucking nowhere, we invaded Iraq. Every single reason why we went in turned out to be shit, but we stayed anyway. And stayed. And stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq seem to have any clear goals at the moment, other than "we should get out... eventually!" These wars are so awesome, they should never end!
And then Abu Ghraib happened. Everyone up top pinned everything on the soldiers, despite their own lax policy called "we'll just look the other way, don't do anything crazy now, wink wink nudge nudge." Everyone on the planet was shocked and disgusted. Well, all except for the conservatives in America, who either downplayed its brutality, or downright defended it. To beat the terrorists, America had to become... a rapist.No, really. Obama still refuses to release all of the Abu Ghraib photos, presumably because of the rumored rape.
Television has arguably been "dead" since its invention, but there has at least been good shows thrown in with the the mix. How many truly memorable shows did we get out of this decade? Four? Five? Meanwhile, shit like this is fucking all over the place.
WOW I DIDN'T KNOW UGLY PEOPLE WERE CAPABLE OF HAVING TALENT, THIS SURPRISES AND AMAZES ME
Television stations refuse to take chances anymore. They rubber stamp all their shows in coordination with their target demographics. They keep making the exact same shows over and over again, and then they act surprised when they get canceled. This is why FX is possibly the best channel on television. The people on The Shield commentaries are constantly thanking the execs at FX for always sticking with them despite the risks. The Shield ended up being the greatest show in the history of television. FX stuck with Kurt Sutter, even after the crummy ratings Sons of Anarchy got out of the gate. Near the closing of the second season, it shocked everyone by beating nearly every other scripted show in its time slot. And don't even get me started on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The pilot submitted to FX was nothing but three guys with a video camera. What FX got was the goddamned funniest show since Arrested Development. Which was canceled.
In 2006, some sciency people got together and declared that Pluto should be classified as a dwarf planet, rather than a planet. There is another dwarf planet in our solar system bigger than Pluto. It's called Eris. Earth's moon is bigger than Pluto. It seems that classifying Pluto as a planet in the first place was a mistake, and this was a logical decision that made perfect sense.
NOPE.
The general public, 95% of which is scientifically illiterate (real statistic) did what it always does, and conjured up an opinion without bothering to get informed first. Useless online petitions popped up everywhere. The Illinois State Senate passed a resolution this year making Pluto a planet again... as long as it's in Illinois?
RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that as Pluto passes overhead through Illinois’ night skies, that it be reestablished with full planetary status, and that March 13, 2009 be declared “Pluto Day” in the State of Illinois in honor of the date its discovery was announced in 1930.I don't even know why I bother voting.
Despite shortcomings like this, you can't honestly say that popular science isn't doing well right now. DVD sales for shows like Planet Earth and The Universe are doing fantastic. Mythbusters is one of the highest rated shows on TV. Penn and Teller's Bullshit is a hit, and it was what originally introduced me to the skeptic community. I first heard of the demigods James Randi and Michael Shermer through Bullshit. Personally, I'm meeting a lot less people than I used to who believe in bullshit pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Maybe it's just because I try to separate myself from dumb people now. I don't know. This is all based around personal experience, so I don't know if it's the same for everyone.
The point is that there are a lot more people who are accepting science. Not everyone understands most of it (I'm in this group), but they know enough about how the scientific method works to trust it. Not too long ago, there almost seemed to be this angry backlash against science and scientists - they think they're so smart, they can't explain everything, natural remedies and prayer work so much better for you because medicine has never solved anything ever. That baseless hatred is still there, as it always will be, but it certainly doesn't seem to be as bad as it once was.
People our age are much more accepting of people who aren't like us. Hobbies that were once not considered socially acceptable are now socially acceptable. Watch any 80s movie. Actually, just watch this.
Yeah, that's right. Nerds are suddenly cool now. Everyone plays video games. Everyone has a dorky hobby. No one is going to beat you up for being obsessed with computers anymore, because they need you to help fix their computer.
This mutual kindness doesn't only apply to social labels. Our generation is much less racist, sexist, and homophobic than our parents and grandparents were.
And we're smart. We care about what's happening in the world. And unlike our hippie parents, we care about what's happening in the world and we're somewhat informed. I believe we have this man to thank - our voice.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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I don't know if Jon Stewart shaped us, or we shaped Jon Stewart, but to most people our age, watching this guy is like looking into a mirror. We have no cause. We're not the hippie generation, or the grunge generation. We're the generation that refuses to grow up. We just sit back and make fun of everything. But who can really blame us with a childhood full of Nicktoons, Bill Nye, and Super Nintendo? We grew up in a fun world, and we don't want it to change.
Nothing. The History Channel says the world is going to end in 2012, so who are we to disagree? It's been a nice run, see you all in hell.
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