Save in the 90's most of us were latchkey kids, unless you were pretty wealthy, both mom & dad were at work. We sort of raised ourselves. We learned how to do things on our own, we cooked our own dinners, did our own laundry, did our own homework all at a very early age.
Kids these days don't have that experience, even the amount of homework has lessened.
The music was a good deal different as well, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Seven Year Bitch, Rage Against the Machine, it was all filled with angst & rebellion.
What do you have today, Katy Perry? Lady Gaga? Not exactly fueling the same angst.
And then there's that political difference, back then it was cool, hip, to know about social injustice & what was happening around the globe. Note the list of bands, a lot of our pop music was about that very thing.
8 years of W made that "Un-American" didn't it? In the 90s when RATM was still huge high school kids could find Latin America on a map because of them.
Today only the kids from Latin America can find it in any majority.
We shopped in malls made for mom & dad, everything was made for mom & dad then, we grew up in a used world made new for our parents who abandoned us for work.
And then we watched those same jobs lay them off. When we were little we saw Watergate, then Blow-Job Gate, White Water, the Florida re-count. You watch that you grow up with an understanding that institutions aren't going to be loyal to you.
And then, well, we were the "slackers" weren't we? Are parent's thought we were lazy despite the fact that Gen-X largely raised itself.
So that, "Whatever, Nevermind, I'll just do it myself," attitude developed.
Kids today don't have that attitude at all. Especially the kids raised by Gen-X who vowed to, whatever happened, they weren't going to be their parents.
That is the "teenaged-angst" I'm talking about.
My So Called Life translated a lot of that into the series. The angst, the rebellion.
It was a different time & the series reflected that. The angst & Rebellion of the 90s.
Today rebellious, angst filled teens embrace the Libertarian movement & Ayn Rand. It's a conformist rebellious spirit rejecting the liberalism of the 90s & embracing conservationism.
Now are you seriously going to tell me that people don't change? That teenaged angst is always exactly the same?
No, that's like saying that a television series made for my parents, The Brady Bunch, for instance, would translate perfectly into Gen-X feelings & sensibilities.
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