Quote:
Originally Posted by sonick
Have you considered that it was better 20 years ago because back then you were living your best life at the time, with no responsibilities, no child, and seemingly took no personal accountability over anything?
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Great question. I've been asked this before. I'll try and keep this short since I got to get back to coding the software that will get the money flowing again.
Even when I had a 9-5 job prior to the adult industry, the culture, wages, living conditions, everything was pure KINO coming out of the grunge music era and the idea that we didn't have to become the miserable assholes our fathers were.
But, to understand where we're at today, we have to look back at the influences growing up and what sprouted from them. Hipsterism, my favourite period that helped me learn how to be comfortable as myself and make art, in the glory ages of the late 2000s and early 2010s, was a direct reaction to the corporatization and homogenization of culture on the horizon. Especially post-Occupy Wall Street.
Hipsterism was the death rattle of true indie resistance before everything was fully swallowed by algorithms, social media, and relentless capitalism.
In the 90s, grunge and punk were the prime forms of rebellion, rage against the machine literally, rejecting materialism, rejecting polished pop culture. It, like all organic movements, became co-opted and quickly died out for a period of time before Hipsterism took that same anti-mainstream sentiment but, instead of pure rebellion, it embraced irony, nostalgia, and obscure cultural expressions as a way to separate from the masses and seek authenticity, especially if it meant being seen as weird.
But why, like all organic movements did it die?
The mainstream absorbed hipster aesthetics in a hurry. What started as a subculture of thrift-store finds and DIY music became the default marketing scheme for big brands. We saw it everywhere, and mock subcultures became the norm, like those "speakeasy" bars that make you feel like you're onto something exclusive, but they're all paying their taxes and as corporate as McDonald's.
Post-Occupy, the 2010s saw the massive, utterly colossal rise of social media dominance, influencer culture, and the algorithmic takeover of taste. Instead of curating cool from obscurity, blogs, underground scenes, etc etc, people started being fed curated aesthetics directly by Instagram and TikTok. The rebellion of taste-making is now just big tech opening its trenchcoat and whispering, "psst kid, want the latest trend?"
Hipsterism thrived because young people could still afford to be broke artists, bartending part-time and studying and still could afford to live the dream to an extent in Vancouver or Toronto. Go back and re-watch Scott Pilgrim VS The World for a taste of that ridiculous era. Then, as housing markets exploded and gentrification priced out creatives, slackers, and hipsters alike, the indie lartist ifestyle became unsustainable. By the mid-2010s, a lot of former hipsters either had to grow up and get "real jobs", overdosed on fentanyl, or embraced the very corporatism that they fought in the first place. A very, very small percent of people kept finding ways to make non-corporate art.
Self-awareness of the hipster paved the way for more openly political identities, indirectly leading to the rise of wokeism that we saw first budding at Occupy Wall Street when the human mic-checks started prioritizing speakers by race, and then nobody was allowed to speak unless they were an angry black woman. The very real anti-corporate sentiment had the volume turned down, and the racial greviences were cranked up to the max. I remember, I was watching it myself!
You're not entirely wrong about me, and rose-coloured glasses are absolutely a thing, but that doesn’t mean the world didn’t actually get worse.
A generation that could once afford rent for a downtown 1 bedroom apartment in their late teens and early 20s and STILL afford to travel, save money, buy the latest CPUs and GPUs, have a 1997 Cobra, go out 3+ nights a week to dance and party before celphones...now faces skyrocketing prices, even in small towns, I did the math at one point and someone living in Vancouver would have to make like $50+ an hour to have the lifestyle I had when I was like 19-20. At the various jobs I worked, my rent was so low, like 25% of my income or less. Food was so cheap it was practically free in comparison to today.
Wages stagnated.
People are working harder for less purchasing power.
Culture is more controlled than ever.
Social media has killed organic subcultures and replaced them with influencer-led trends.
Freedom has been curtailed. From mass surveillance to increasingly authoritarian policies, governments have more control than ever.
Take your COVID vaccine, or be kicked out University, lose your job, no more gym, no more pubs. If you question it, everyone will dogpile you and call you a nutjob, schizo, nazi, etc etc.
The vibes are just off.
Go to any urban area in Victoria or Vancouver, or the towns and villages across B.C. and you will find fentanyl zombies everywhere.
People are lonelier, angrier, more anxious, and more overworked. Society is not growing in a positive way and centralized power is squeezing people out.
It’s not just nostalgia for a time when I was young.
The world was freer.
Okay, now to log out of RevScene so I can get back to building my comeback.
