Aphorisms on the Strange Obsession with Youth Culture Held by Thirty-Year-Olds

“Who Knows Only His Own Generation Remains Always A Child” – Cicero “This also applies to those who add of fixing that is pretending to be the generation underneath them” – Me

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The Internet commentariat turns on its his heroes so fast: Joss Whedon, Louis C.K., Steven Colbert. It’s like Saturn eating its children, except its reversed and way dumber.  The impulse to shame and punish those who fall short of political ideals that they never actually lived up to is the impulse to blame the symptoms  of human habits and habitus instead of dealing with the causes.    The fact that this increasingly is just shouting at the void about a spectacle one is passively watching indicates a lot about the inner-motivations of those who wish to “change the world” while don’t want to anything but talk to do it.

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Grown men commenting constantly on female teen and early 20s pop starlets: I miss the days when people who complained about that at least had the decency not to follow it and thus not creepily seem to know way too much about a product of a cultural industry designed from people younger than them. To comment on the “provocative” nature of a spectacle as some kind of aesthetic judgment about what young women needs to do says more about these individuals than it does any starlet gyrating.  In short, why does such a person care unless their is an impulse to control.  To hide that impulse in conflating the normative and descriptive to be both philosophically naivete, and an asshole.

Aesthetic arguments made normative because of something other beauty are moral arguments made by people who don’t want the responsibility for having an opinion. The pretense to such a moral fact is a way around just asserting a value and fighting for it for itself. It is, in short, cowardly.

Then again when adolescence lasts until ones thirties because of economics, perhaps this is to be expected. Not condoned.

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I really get annoyed when people think I am being condescending on accident or defensively, and not just showing contempt for a bad idea.  It is easy to psychologize than to accept the judgment of the quality of one’s ideas.  Like not being constantly confirmed is condemnation not only of thought, but of the entire usefulness of a person.

That spook of an ego is beat waver-thin, and generally makes for middling comedians or uncomfortable middle management.

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3 thoughts on “Aphorisms on the Strange Obsession with Youth Culture Held by Thirty-Year-Olds

  1. Pingback: C Derick Varn’s Aphorisms on Pseudo-Youth - Zero Books Blog

  2. Well, I was never much obsessed with youth culture, even when I was a youth. I grew up mostly listening to the music of the generations before me, Oldies and Classic Rock.

    I’ve never cared too much about contemporary pop music, especially not in the past. But I must admit that as I’ve aged I’ve come to better appreciate pop culture in general, as an expression of our society. I try not to judge things too harshly and instead take them on their own terms.

    Anyway, I don’t see how it impacts me personally what the youngins these days are doing and watching. If I don’t enjoy something or it doesn’t at least pique my curiosity, no matter what generation is its target audience, I’m probably not going to pay much attention to it. I try not to obsess over things in which I don’t find some kind of interest or value, which doesn’t necessarily have to be any grand significance.

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