Why cultural "generations" are flawed

[Ghost]

There are too many people who deviate from "generationology gospel".

On "generationology" communities, I would generally see people talk about generations being defined by pop cultural trends (like electropop or mumble rap). People also need to know that people who follow pop culture trends aren't a very large majority. Someone can be born in 2002 and be a major fan of thrash metal bands like it's 1986. There are also people born in 1997 who keep up with current pop cultural trends and follow things like e-boy and e-girl.

Just because someone says the audience of a pop culture movement is a set of birthyears doesn't mean that people born those years will follow it. 

The longevity of a generation's "pop culture" really depends on location. It is not a "one size fits all" argument.
 
On the generationology subreddit that I visit and occasionally posted on from March 2020 until fairly recently, it is common to see people say things like "Gen Z culture began in X year" and other similar things. This is more of a location factor, IMO. 2017 might have still felt "Zillennial" in one town despite feeling more "Generation Z" in another.

I might come across as being biased as someone born in 1999 and not wanting to be seen as "Generation Z", but from what I remembered, I still saw some electropop influences in my freshman year of high school even though the "generationology" community generally think it died in early 2013 and I didn't hear about mumble rap and emo rap until Spring 2018ish. Some people from other areas might have witnessed the electropop dying in around 2012 and first heard about mumble and emo rap in 2017 or possibly even 2016. This is why a generation's pop culture is something that has no definite line you can draw.

15-18 year generation lengths do not make that much sense with nostalgia cycles (This reason may not make that much sense but I still think it can belong here)

My most controversial opinion (IMO). It is a common thing to say that history/pop culture repeats itself. Despite seeing people say that generations last 15-18 years on forums and "generationology" communities, the time between when something is popular and when it experiences a comeback in popularity is typically around 20-25 years (example: the Star Wars original trilogy in 1977-1983 and the Star Wars prequel trilogy in 1999-2005). In fact, this was what inspired me to make my previous thread (Supergroups and the Millennium Saeculum). Since some people talk about the similarities between people of one generation and the previous/next (like one generation passing the torch to the next generation), wouldn't it make more sense if "cultural generations" were similar (maybe more like half of it since 20-25 years is too long for many people)?

When someone's first memories take place is also not a "one size fits all" argument.

Many people (including the people from Pew) believe 1996 is the last Millennial year because they were the last to be at elementary school when 9/11 happened, therefore giving them a supposedly likely chance to remember it. There are also some people who think the "remember 9/11" rule should apply to 1998 borns, since they believe you start remembering things at age 3. But this is not a definite line you can draw. Some people can remember things before age 3 (in fact some can even remember being babies), and some don't even have their first memories until age 6 or 7.

This is also where some hypocrisy can take place. I have seen people born in 1997 say that 1998 borns are the last to have memories of 9/11 but later bring up some memories of 1999 they have or that one starts becoming culturally aware at age 2. I also saw one person born in 1998 say 1998 borns are the last to remember 9/11 but later talks about his/her earliest memories taking place in 1999-2000.

[Cocoa_Puff]

(04-18-2021, 06:26 PM)Ghost Wrote: There are too many people who deviate from "generationology gospel".

On "generationology" communities, I would generally see people talk about generations being defined by pop cultural trends (like electropop or mumble rap). People also need to know that people who follow pop culture trends aren't a very large majority. Someone can be born in 2002 and be a major fan of thrash metal bands like it's 1986. There are also people born in 1997 who keep up with current pop cultural trends and follow things like e-boy and e-girl.

Just because someone says the audience of a pop culture movement is a set of birthyears doesn't mean that people born those years will follow it. 

The longevity of a generation's "pop culture" really depends on location. It is not a "one size fits all" argument.
 
On the generationology subreddit that I visit and occasionally posted on from March 2020 until fairly recently, it is common to see people say things like "Gen Z culture began in X year" and other similar things. This is more of a location factor, IMO. 2017 might have still felt "Zillennial" in one town despite feeling more "Generation Z" in another.

I might come across as being biased as someone born in 1999 and not wanting to be seen as "Generation Z", but from what I remembered, I still saw some electropop influences in my freshman year of high school even though the "generationology" community generally think it died in early 2013 and I didn't hear about mumble rap and emo rap until Spring 2018ish. Some people from other areas might have witnessed the electropop dying in around 2012 and first heard about mumble and emo rap in 2017 or possibly even 2016. This is why a generation's pop culture is something that has no definite line you can draw.

15-18 year generation lengths do not make that much sense with nostalgia cycles (This reason may not make that much sense but I still think it can belong here)

My most controversial opinion (IMO). It is a common thing to say that history/pop culture repeats itself. Despite seeing people say that generations last 15-18 years on forums and "generationology" communities, the time between when something is popular and when it experiences a comeback in popularity is typically around 20-25 years (example: the Star Wars original trilogy in 1977-1983 and the Star Wars prequel trilogy in 1999-2005). In fact, this was what inspired me to make my previous thread (Supergroups and the Millennium Saeculum). Since some people talk about the similarities between people of one generation and the previous/next (like one generation passing the torch to the next generation), wouldn't it make more sense if "cultural generations" were similar (maybe more like half of it since 20-25 years is too long for many people)?

When someone's first memories take place is also not a "one size fits all" argument.

Many people (including the people from Pew) believe 1996 is the last Millennial year because they were the last to be at elementary school when 9/11 happened, therefore giving them a supposedly likely chance to remember it. There are also some people who think the "remember 9/11" rule should apply to 1998 borns, since they believe you start remembering things at age 3. But this is not a definite line you can draw. Some people can remember things before age 3 (in fact some can even remember being babies), and some don't even have their first memories until age 6 or 7.

This is also where some hypocrisy can take place. I have seen people born in 1997 say that 1998 borns are the last to have memories of 9/11 but later bring up some memories of 1999 they have or that one starts becoming culturally aware at age 2. I also saw one person born in 1998 say 1998 borns are the last to remember 9/11 but later talks about his/her earliest memories taking place in 1999-2000.

I for one know that it's straight up hypocrisy. They focus WAY too much on the cultural aspect of generations and only haphazardly look at the historical.

[David Horn]

(04-20-2021, 09:14 AM)Cocoa_Puff Wrote: I for one know that it's straight up hypocrisy. They focus WAY too much on the cultural aspect of generations and only haphazardly look at the historical.

History has many aspects, and cultural history is one of them. I agree that it has been over emphasized in the last few decades, but it's still a legitimate view of the past.

[Captain Genet]

My first memories are from the time I was 3. I think people with memories of being 2 are rare, but I'm not surprised by the fact they exist given that modern parents tend to have lot of photos and videos of their kids, watching them constantly can produce a feeling you "really" remember these early day. I've met a person who claimed to remember himself crawling.

Pop culture trends have no definite beginning and end point. I became aware of the "90s nostalgia" trend in 2015 but people with more intimate relationship with online culture say it was already big in 2013.

[Eric the Green]

(04-25-2021, 04:51 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: My first memories are from the time I was 3. I think people with memories of being 2 are rare, but I'm not surprised by the fact they exist given that modern parents tend to have lot of photos and videos of their kids, watching them constantly can produce a feeling you "really" remember these early day. I've met a person who claimed to remember himself crawling.

Pop culture trends have no definite beginning and end point. I became aware of the "90s nostalgia" trend in 2015 but people with more intimate relationship with online culture say it was already big in 2013.

My first memory goes back to 2. I am most intrigued by very young children who remember past lives. What lies beyond this life is the real "final frontier," not space.

I agree, culture has an ongoing relevance, whatever time period is in which it is created, even though culture tends to be created as part of and in response to those time periods in which it was created. But, those past times are also part of the heritage we all share.

[David Horn]

(04-25-2021, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-25-2021, 04:51 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: My first memories are from the time I was 3. I think people with memories of being 2 are rare, but I'm not surprised by the fact they exist given that modern parents tend to have lot of photos and videos of their kids, watching them constantly can produce a feeling you "really" remember these early day. I've met a person who claimed to remember himself crawling.

Pop culture trends have no definite beginning and end point. I became aware of the "90s nostalgia" trend in 2015 but people with more intimate relationship with online culture say it was already big in 2013.

My first memory goes back to 2. I am most intrigued by very young children who remember past lives. What lies beyond this life is the real "final frontier," not space.

I agree, culture has an ongoing relevance, whatever time period is in which it is created, even though culture tends to be created as part of and in response to those time periods in which it was created. But, those past times are also part of the heritage we all share.

My earliest memory is of me sitting among a number of instrument cases and listening to my father play with his band.  I have no idea how old I was at the time, but certainly very young.

[Eric the Green]

(04-26-2021, 10:03 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-25-2021, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-25-2021, 04:51 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: My first memories are from the time I was 3. I think people with memories of being 2 are rare, but I'm not surprised by the fact they exist given that modern parents tend to have lot of photos and videos of their kids, watching them constantly can produce a feeling you "really" remember these early day. I've met a person who claimed to remember himself crawling.

Pop culture trends have no definite beginning and end point. I became aware of the "90s nostalgia" trend in 2015 but people with more intimate relationship with online culture say it was already big in 2013.

My first memory goes back to 2. I am most intrigued by very young children who remember past lives. What lies beyond this life is the real "final frontier," not space.

I agree, culture has an ongoing relevance, whatever time period is in which it is created, even though culture tends to be created as part of and in response to those time periods in which it was created. But, those past times are also part of the heritage we all share.

My earliest memory is of me sitting among a number of instrument cases and listening to my father play with his band.  I have no idea how old I was at the time, but certainly very young

You seem to have gotten your memory and culture simultaneously. Something similar happened to me. I don't think I remember, but my Mom wrote in my Baby Book that I kept time to music at 2 years old.

[tg63]

(04-18-2021, 06:26 PM)Ghost Wrote: ... On the generationology subreddit that I visit ... 

I'm familiar with that sub. What most people there - and elsewhere - don't get about generational theory is that it's not meant to be applied at an individual level. It's about macro trends - any given individual could have traits from any archetype; I tune out when I see someone say that an individual's experiences say anything about generational boundaries.

[pbrower2a]

If "cultural generations" are about cultural (usually mass low culture) ephemera, then "generations" mean little. People cast off fads such as bad pop tunes and tired TV series quickly enough that such things rarely have lasting significance. Culture is often related to class and ethnicity, and the cultural traits of two people born in the same year, one attending an elite prep school and one living in a squalid slum, are likely to be very different. Most likely the culture of the child raised in a highly-structured environment that plans everything is likely to be more bound to traditions that change little.

The best of the pop culture (let us say much of the repertory of Viennese waltzes, ragtime, and the Big Band Era in music) are likely to resurface among people not having connections to the time. The cultural divide is often something like "before Chuck Berry", "around when Chuck Berry made his mark", and "after Chuck Berry made his mark". The better stuff has a tendency to be exploited as background in cinema related to history or fantasy.

In my case the pop culture left me... cold... in the late 1970's as it stupefied into disco and bubble-gum rock. Like most Boomers I found something else.

[Eric the Green]

(04-27-2021, 12:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If "cultural generations" are about cultural (usually mass low culture) ephemera, then "generations" mean little. People cast off fads such as bad pop tunes and tired TV series quickly enough that such things rarely have lasting significance. Culture is often related to class and ethnicity, and the cultural traits of two people born in the same year, one attending an elite prep school and one living in a squalid slum, are likely to be very different. Most likely the culture of the child raised in a highly-structured environment that plans everything is likely to be more bound to traditions that change little.

The best of the pop culture (let us say much of the repertory of Viennese waltzes, ragtime, and the Big Band Era in music) are likely to resurface among people not having connections to the time. The cultural divide is often something like "before Chuck Berry", "around when Chuck Berry made his mark", and "after Chuck Berry made his mark". The better stuff has a tendency to be exploited as background in cinema related to history or fantasy.

In my case the pop culture left me... cold... in the late 1970's as it stupefied into disco and bubble-gum rock. Like most Boomers I found something else.

As you know, I think Mr. Brower you missed the highlight of pop, I say the all-time highlight of pop. I agree with your observations otherwise. Young people rave and fawn over pop stars and their "culture" and then either forget it or tune out everything that follows or came before it. But I might as well tell my story; why not? You make long posts too

Myself I was raised on classical music. My Dad was a radio engineer and built his own classical station. Ironically, later he sold it to a rock station called KOME, which became the flagship station of a nationwide network. I had access to lots of records through my Dad, and hung out at his station and heard the music there. I knew a fair amount. The grand tour was the Beethoven symphonies. It took me an amazingly long time to actually possess and hear them all, about 6 years. I was introduced to the Ode to Joy by learning to play the tune during my first piano lessons at about age 9. When I finally heard the Fifth finale, at age 11, it stirred my blood. I discovered it during a vacation trip on the way to Mendocino. The Sixth was my early favorite, at 6 years old, and it was only the most obvious way in which many of his symphonies attuned me to the beauty of Nature, which I concurrently discovered at Big Sur CA, and read about in lots of books too.

But when I got to be 14 and a half, I put the piano aside, which I had gotten pretty good at but got no appreciation for from my peers, and tuned into rock n roll on the radio-- on a station that my Dad used to work at and I had visited long ago. The waltzes, ragtime, Big Band era, Chuck Berry? They all pale beside the peak of the rock/pop genre. It's true that the pop music that meant the most to me came out when I was a teenager. But it was as if the composers and performers that created it, mostly born in the late 1930s and 1940s, were making music that fit the time and what was going on, both in myself and in society. And that was a key point. The music of the mid-1960s was not just the pop that happened to be the hits of the time; it came out of and expressed its time as fully as any music has ever done. It became the real cultural divide, and it has stuck and lasted and it became "classic rock." 

The songs I liked the best in this genre were naturally those that were most like classical music, even though the vocals were not always so great. But then, I never liked opera either. The best songs had a great sound, were well arranged and performed, were melodically and harmonically brilliant, and had a great energy and groove too-- but so did Beethoven's Ode to Joy and his other works; he paved the way for rock in a way that would later amaze me. This music attuned me to Nature too, and my dreams of hanging out in the hills with cool girls and guys, and while listening I was envisioning a better world in which the walls between people were falling and life was free.

The Beach Boys and the Beatles and their imitators appealed to me first, in 1964. Then after a slow start, the Motown Sound became my favorite for a while. Then the intimacy and sophistication of the folk music revival came into rock in 1965. That led straight into psychedelia in 1966, in which the purpose of rock became to expand consciousness and represent the LSD experience. A bevy of great bands from the USA and the UK from then on developed rock into an art form through the late 1960s and early 1970s. As our boomer generation unfolded this new consciousness revolution, the second turning of our saeculum, I myself was awakening along with the music and the revolution, but without any LSD. I was very curious, and questioned what I had believed before from my heritage of math and science, of which I was a good student. In late June 1966 I asked the universe what was the nature of this "beauty" I experienced in Nature and Music, and the answer came back "Love." Even, my own. 

At that very moment The Byrds went to the top of my weekly list I was keeping of favorites. I was wondering if something would come along; things were slowing down after 2 years in which a favorite would always come along. I didn't even realize how completely the lyrics of that song, "5D Fifth Dimension", corresponded to what I was discovering. "I opened my heart to the whole universe, and I found it was loving." Then Petula Clark came out with "I Couldn't Live without Your Love," right on the same day that I went to see "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming," a movie about a Russian submarine stuck in a small American town, filmed at the very town my parents had taken me to 5 years before, Mendocino. I was in bliss, and the experience and the images stuck with me, as The Beatles "Revolver" with "Yellow Submarine" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" came out in early August 1966. Later that month I got Dad (who was grouchy) and the family to go up to Mendocino to see where the movie was made, and I was feeling good and bravado as I drove the car, which I had recently learned to drive, up and down the hills of Highway 1 and back home through the Oakland maze, driving my Dad crazy. After Mendocino we went to Clear Lake, where I pinched a boat and went out by myself on the lake, sort of like Jimmy in my favorite rock album Quadrophenia would do courtesy of The Who 7 years later. And my all-time #1, I recently discovered, was actually patterned after a Beethoven Overture, in its music and its lyrics. That was by The Who too of course, but on an earlier album from 1971.

My all time favorite list: http://philosopherswheel.com/ericrock.html

"In my case the pop culture left me... cold... in the late 1970's as it stupefied into disco and bubble-gum rock. Like most Boomers I found something else." That was me too, but the period between Chuck Berry and bubblegum music was the great moment. As bubblegum took over AM in the early 1970s, there was still lots of great rock music on my Dad's former FM station, the same one for which I had surveyed the grounds and laid the bricks back in the mid-60s. Then in the disco era, the late 1970s, the FM sound cheapened too, and I found something else--- back to classical music! And new age/ambient too. But this time my growing fascination with Bach and one piece in particular inspired me to take up an instrument and play music myself again. My piano lessons were a good start for learning the organ. But I still can't play all of that piece! Another Toccata, the famous one, I DID learn to fully play.

And something else that I went on to; in 1967 I took a look at astrology, and predicted where the planets would be in my chart. I mused that a great conjunction among the outer 3 planets must have occurred when I and my generation and many others awakened and felt those "love vibes" in late June 1966, and so it was-- exactly. The subjects of astrology and history opened up to me too in the subsequent years, along with deep spiritual philosophy, and later the fact that the 84-year cycle of Uranus corresponds exactly to the S&H definition of a saeculum.

[pbrower2a]

I did ignore the Beatles in that list... it is hard to top them for musical polish and a wide array of influences. As I have said before, Eleanor Rigby has some counterpoint that suggests that John, Paul, George, and Ringo might have gotten inspiration from in an organ concert of baroque music.

Rock at its best was intellectually rich. By the late 1970's it became strictly commercial, programmed more for fitting an audience than for leading that audience -- almost like the "easy listening" music of the time (which was often bowdlerized versions of rock music). Music had to be useful, engineered to get a predictable audience for pleasing the advertisers. At some point, such a figure as Joan Armatrading got the rap for "not being commercial"... that is, not selling out her musical expression for cheap appeal that might put it on more radio stations.

Mass audiences are fickle, and those are where the fads are directed. But fads are themselves ephemeral. One question of whether something new is a real and lasting influence or is simply a disposable fad like the others is whether the new item is good. Disco was awful even if it was useful in dance halls. Bubblegum rock was easy to outgrow.

Smart boomers went away from rock once it became formulaic and empty and went elsewhere. Some went country; some went folk; some went jazz; some went R&B; some went classical. Any one of these is a break away from rock as it was going in the late 1970's.

[Warren Dew]

(04-20-2021, 09:14 AM)Cocoa_Puff Wrote: I for one know that it's straight up hypocrisy. They focus WAY too much on the cultural aspect of generations and only haphazardly look at the historical.

Pollsters look at the cultural aspects of generations because their big customers are marketing people who are trying to design products to sell to market segments, which cultural generations can be sold as.

[Warren Dew]

(04-26-2021, 10:03 AM)David Horn Wrote: My earliest memory is of me sitting among a number of instrument cases and listening to my father play with his band.  I have no idea how old I was at the time, but certainly very young.

My earliest memory is being attacked by a goose charging up out of a rice paddy.  I'm pretty sure the rice paddy wasn't in Michigan, to which I returned from the Far East before age 3, so I'm among those who claims he can remember something from when he was 2.  I don't think an earliest memory at the age of 2 - which usually can mean up to 2 years 11 months - is particularly far fetched.

[Eric the Green]

(04-28-2021, 01:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I did ignore the Beatles in that list... it is hard to top them for musical polish and a wide array of influences. As I have said before, Eleanor Rigby has some counterpoint that suggests that John, Paul, George, and Ringo might have gotten inspiration from in an organ concert of baroque music.

Rock at its best was intellectually rich. By the late 1970's it became strictly commercial, programmed more for fitting an audience than for leading that audience -- almost like the "easy listening" music of the time (which was often bowdlerized versions of rock music). Music had to be useful, engineered to get a predictable audience for pleasing the advertisers.  At some point, such a figure as Joan Armatrading got the rap for "not being commercial"... that is, not selling out her musical expression for cheap appeal that might put it on more radio stations.

Mass audiences are fickle, and those are where the fads are directed. But fads are themselves ephemeral. One question of whether something new is a real and lasting influence or is simply a disposable fad like the others is whether the new item is good. Disco was awful even if it was useful in dance halls. Bubblegum rock was easy to outgrow.

Smart boomers went away from rock once it became formulaic and empty and went elsewhere. Some went country; some went folk; some went jazz; some went R&B; some went classical. Any one of these is a break away from rock as it was going in the late 1970's.

Yes, thanks for mentioning The Beatles. The thing about them is not only did they create new and original music, but they inspired a great many more to do so, and for a while some of that was new and original as well. 

The 1966 Byrds' song I mentioned actually features a Bach organist, which can be heard especially toward the end. Revolver by the Beatles from the same Summer featured Eleanor Rigby (also the single flipside of Yellow Submarine), as well as two pieces that are at the height of the genre, Tomorrow Never Knows (the most influential and original rock piece ever) and Here, There and Everywhere.





As bubblegum took over AM in the early 70s, and then Disco in the late 70s, I switched first to FM rock, but then that genre too narrowed into the more formulaic, commercial "classic rock" format in the late 1970s. The Who survived the change (although Pete's solos did not), but many of the other best bands like the Byrds that were the most creative, and who reflected the consciousness revolution and had more controversial and socially-relevant lyrics, did not, and then from the mid-80s on rock also became more and more blatant and depended more on hard noise and vocal screaming. The "elsewhere" for me included classical and also the genre that is often forgotten but is always worth mentioning: new age ambient. As in this great example from the UK that has classical and pop-instrumental influence:

[Ghost]

(04-25-2021, 04:51 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: My first memories are from the time I was 3. I think people with memories of being 2 are rare, but I'm not surprised by the fact they exist given that modern parents tend to have lot of photos and videos of their kids, watching them constantly can produce a feeling you "really" remember these early day. I've met a person who claimed to remember himself crawling.

Pop culture trends have no definite beginning and end point. I became aware of the "90s nostalgia" trend in 2015 but people with more intimate relationship with online culture say it was already big in 2013.

I think 90's nostalgia started to become a thing a little earlier, maybe around the 2011-2012 school year. But it all really goes down to your location.