General Politics XII World • Page 297

I like how none of this was talked about before people voted.

I think the Democrats plan is to do nothing, watch as inflation gets worse, and then send out another empty suit that tells everyone “I told you so” while offering no specific plans to improve anyone’s lives.

 

Ever since Election Night I've been consistently 20-30 pages behind in this thread, only catching up briefly before falling behind again due to work or sleep.

But now I've caught up again and can finally do this:

1.

2. What slander? Online video game community sucks shit.

 

If Kamala had talked about this she would’ve swept every state. The gamer voting bloc is one of the most important in our country.

 

That feels like projecting your personal experience onto a generation. We also had Limp Bizkit and gangster rap, not to mention a lot of the pop punk music we grew up on was insanely misogynistic.

 

My theory for why millennial men have stayed liberal beyond growing up in that sweet spot of the internet: I think enough of us grew up knowing how much Bush sucked and lied to us that we could never become Republican and Obama made us feel like progressive change was possible, even though he didn’t meaningfully do enough to get there. So we’re constantly disappointed but not jingoistic enough to get red pilled.

 

Yeah true, though some of that was more the fringe xennialss prime, and also didn’t last and become the kind of defining characteristic of the generation in terms of music. But that is an interesting point though because it is kind of funny that all those butt rock and nu metal and other rock bands of the late 90s didn’t become associated with millennials as strongly as pop punk and emo did.

 

This feels overly optimistic but I’d love to be wrong

 

Tell that to the Juggalos! Lol.

Yeah the scene really was cool. The advent of the internet + mainstream radio breakthrough of bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic and MCR + Warped Tour kind of connected all those smaller groups of kids and made them feel like a movement of sorts. Even though those bands were shifting hundreds of thousands of copies, they were able to maintain insularity in some way. I really liked the book SELLOUT by Dan Ozzi that touches on this topic.

There’s also something to be said about the relative newness and uniqueness of 02-07 pop punk aesthetics (as cringe as they were) compared to other genres that helped it stick around in the popular imagination.

 

seems like a moment in time that presents an opportunity

probably too hopeful tbh tho

 

Yeah it’s harder to radicalize a young dude if they’ve got band practice and an upcoming show to worry about.

I think people gotta realize that these kids were actively influenced, the default person with hobbies and ambition who isn’t hopeless can’t be lured away with this shit. Their lack of opportunity is a breeding ground for anger and resentment that was taken full advantage of.

 

I fear right now with some Democratic politicians and consultants taking all the wrong lessons and with some thinking the answer is for liberals/progressives to give up on "woke" and become full on social reactionaries is that the template for the new liberalism that might rise out if this is something like a Bill Maher or an Ana Kasparian, or a Brianna Wu.

 

I should clarify since I was mostly just thinking out loud and rambling last night, i wasn’t necessarily focusing in on the millennial men/misogyny part but rather thinking about millennials in general and the “empathy” thing in that thread that a couple people posted. I’m just interested in the idea of how the rock music that became popular at the time was more….idk, upfront and overly earnest about yeah I’m sad and upset and its because me and my girlfriend broke up or because I’m in love or etc, and that’s okay to sing about like it’s the end of the world and be melodramatic about it….vs the rock music for Gen x being either more associated with partying/drugs and sex in hair metal or being more associated with depression as a clinical diagnosis and s*icide in grunge….which of course are unfair descriptions of both! Hair metal had plenty of gushy love songs annd ballads, famously so, and grunge had plenty of songs that were more just about relationships ending made someone sad. But they still were “rock” music and weren’t “whining” and etc as emo was eventually slandered as…rambling again but im saying I’m kind fascinated by that and how much that plays off of generational experiences and would love to read a book or academic study that tried to explore the idea or question of, was each generation’s music that became popular/associated with them like that because we were like that as people in how we were raised/how we experienced other things (like Internet forums/golden age of the internet like you said), or is it possible the music that was popular with the generations helped shape who they became as they got older and became middle aged adults. And also would be interested how the breakthrough of rap into the mainstream had an impact too, as that started in the 80s and then really accelerated into the 90s to the point where it was the dominant pop music of the 2000s. Was that driven by millennials being more multicultural and growing up in fully desegregated schools, which early Gen Xers cant fully say, and how much did that impact our political views in the future and etc. I want someone much smarter and connected than me to write a book about all that exploring millennials specifically haha

 

Really need young people to step up and run in their local primaries

 

This guy is also a huge antisemite, not sure we need to take him seriously

 

A govt taking this seriously would immediately fund trials asap

 

don't worry, RFK, Jr. is on his way!!!

 

people can push back on this but I don’t think a decade of grievance culture and idpol has done the left any favors in courting young impressionable men. like yeah white people are evil and responsible for the most heinous crimes humanity has ever seen but some 16 year old kid from the suburbs hears that message vs the right telling them how based they are for hating minorities where are they gonna go?