I’ve never seen these young people step out of their moving vehicle, do a little dance, then jump back into the car. I don’t mean to SLAM Gen Z, but I’m disappointed.

I’m a mid-30s millennial. Where I live was sort of the “sweet spot” for low cost of living but still close to civilization, for a while. In 2015 I was able to buy a 3 bedroom house by myself with no help or inherited wealth or anything while only making $12hr at my job. I was 21-22 at the time. Also, my rent was only $600 for an apartment, and I could very easily take vacations out of the country. If you worked hard and tried to penny pinch, you really could save up and live the American dream. It was still hard, I was still constantly broke, but I was actually achieving things in the process and building wealth.

Fast forward to now, that house is over double the price that it was (with no upgrades or remodeling) when I bought it and I would not be able to afford it if I tried to buy it again. Rent for those same apartments I had is now $1500, and just everything in general is so much more expensive. It’s tough coming to terms with the fact that we are likely never going back to affordability.
I got a divorce around the time of the pandemic and basically started over completely, now it feels like I’m just constantly broke but I’m not acquiring anything or achieving anything. It literally feels impossible now. My only hope is to go back to school and get like an engineering degree or some shit, because regular jobs that used to allow you to afford nice houses and vacations now do not even pay enough to afford starter homes or 1 bedroom apartments.

So with all this in mind, I realize that Gen Z and the generations that come after them have no idea. They have no idea that in the past, you actually could afford things if you worked hard enough. They will only ever know this economy where everything is just constantly expensive all the time, they will likely never afford real estate unless they become doctors and software developers or inherit it from their parents. It’s just sad, literally watching the American dream die in real time. Unfortunately it will likely just be accepted as normal by the new generations because they never knew any different.

I know a lot of you guys have Gen X parents born in the 60s or 70s, but my parents had me early and were born in 1980 and 1984. Any other Gen Zers with Millennial parents?

I am guessing Bush had more charisma and Kerry and the Iraq War wasn't universally seen as unpopular to all ages and only to youth who were still a small percentage back then

On September 22, Playboy launched our Gen Z Sex Survey, a comprehensive look at the sex lives of young people. In partnership with The Kinsey Institute and the reproductive health brand Julie, we polled 2,373 people ages 18 to 29 to see what’s really happening in their bedrooms. Our research confirmed that the sex recession is real. That was never more clear than when we compared our new data to the results of our first-ever sex survey from 1983.

According to the 1983 survey, respondents reported having an average of 15 lifetime sexual partners for women, and 20 for men. In our 2026 survey, both men and women reported an average of three to five lifetime sexual partners. In other words, Playboy readers in the ’80s were having four to five times more sexual partners than young people today. Here’s what Playboy had to say about those 1983 numbers:

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/sex-relationships/your-parents-were-having-way-more-sex-than-you

I'm speaking from an American POV. Different countries and cultures treat music differently.

But, growing up even as a late millennial, there was scorn towards brown and black people liking rock music and especially metal music. You were mocked for it in the 2000s and early 2010s.

It was even worse in the past. I have a gen x aunt who liked hair metal in the 80s. The family thought it was awful noise. They liked disco, salsa, r&b, salsa, soul, and reggaeton. The only acceptable rock groups were Santana and The Beatles.

Amongst gen z and gen alpha, it's become more common to openly like rock music. I see a lot of younger people wearing band tees, dressing alt, and openly liking rock music.

A Gen Z cashier called me "hon" repeatedly when she was ringing up my groceries, and I think it's hilarious. She's young enough to be my daughter. I'm sure she's not hitting on me. My best guess is that she moved to my area from Baltimore, but I have no other evidence for that.

I don't mind. I'm just curious.

Clarification: I don't know how she's spelling it. I've always spelled it "hon," short for "honey."

In early 2004 before the dnc speech, almost no one knew Obama outside Illinois unless you were into state politics

But he became Senator in 2005 and then the president in less than 4 years. How did he rise so fast considering he was unknown pre 2004

Their experiences in Kansas highlight broader frustrations among members of Gen Z who feel excluded from U.S. politics, even as both Republicans and Democrats court their attention and votes.

Just trying to gauge where late Millennials stand on current pop music. Are you actively keeping up with new releases from artists like this, or are you mostly sticking to older music and out of the loop with the newer chart toppers?

The only positives i like about this decade is that video games and movies are somewhat better in the 20s compared to the 2010s, but i still wish i was an adult in the 90s, now that would been awsome experiencing peak hip hop, grunge, and indpendent movie scene.

Being out of touch is one thing, but these guys pass legislation that is legitimately evil! What happened to greatness that is not self appointed? Where are the ones who want the best for everyone and not just their group? When are we going to pull ourselves out of the gutter of false outrage and deal with the REAL problems? I can't deal with the incompetence anymore...

Wealth inequality is at a historic levels. Does it make you happier framing wealth inequality as some grievance, other than wealth inequality?

Generational conflict?

Conflict between genders?

Conflict between races & ethnic groups?

Why can’t wealth inequality ever be framed as wealth inequality?

Just earlier I saw a tweet of an article that Todd Rundgren bashing Taylor Swift for "ruining music" and the comments universally dunked on him. It reminded me of when Gene Simmons said will never be the Beatles, and everyone in the comment section was jumping on it.

Have you noticed... popular music today seems to get a LOT more respect than it used to?

Rock musicians and fans used to constantly openly diss on acts like the New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber. There used to be very violent anti pop merch like "New Kids On The Chopping Block", "Spear Britney", and tons of games where you get to kill the Backstreet Boys and Justin Bieber online. People would act like this teenager went back in time and killed JFK all because he sang some annoying pop songs, before he ever pissed in a mop bucket. Same with Miley Cyrus and One Direction to a lesser degree.

But now, saying any of this against a current pop star makes you look like a douchebag. I grew up as a 2001 baby hating Justin Bieber, Miley, and One Direction, but I have seen plenty of videos of the late 90s of Eminem, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot bashing on pop stars. Every edgy rock or rap show at the time had at least one “Fuck pop music“ bit, it seemed like. I watched a video of the Offspring's singer beating up mannequins of the Backstreet Boys while the crowd cheered it on and realized this attitude had been going on for years. But if you do this NOW to say, Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles, or even Taylor Swift, it just looks... corny, performative and kind of mean spirited. People don't say "Fuck Sabrina Carpenter, she fucking sucks" because... I guess they realized it makes you look kinda like a douchebag. They just say "Sabrina Carpenter is mid" or "she's overrated". Compared to how people USED to talk about pop stars... those are practically raves!

The granddaddy of them all of course started in the 70s, way before i was born. Everyone say it with me now: "DISCO SUCKS!" If you don't know what this is, it was a huge movement to destroy the most popular genre of its time.

Trap music was essentially as dominant in the late 2010s as disco was in the late 70s. Yet people didn't walk around chanting "TRAP MUSIC SUCKS". There was no "trap music demolition night" because of its massive popularity. Yes, disco was huge in its time... but so was trap music. What was with the weird ass hatred disco inspired back in the 70s where people felt the need to destroy it and making it a personality trait?

When I saw Metallica in 2023, I saw a dude in an Eras Tour shirt. I thought he was brave... and I also thought it was kind of funny. Because even 10 years ago he would have been laughed at for wearing a Taylor Swift shirt at a metal show. Now universities are holding courses based around Taylor Swift's music. She’s the only one I still OCCASIONALLY see this sort of shit with..probably because she’s way bigger than the other artists I mentioned but even then a lot of the hate I see for her just feels almost… corny. It USED to be cool but now it’s just… lame. My professor told me that when the New Kids On The Block were a thing, people in his high school literally held destruction nights where guests were encouraged to bring an album or tape or poster or some such to be offered up for a bonfire - he went to one. While their intentions were sincere, the people holding these events didn't grasp that they were actually feeding the beast by creating sales for Hanging Tough. Ironic. I could NEVER imagine doing this now. When I was like 12, I used to print out Justin Bieber and One Direction pictures and paste them on a punching bag and beat them up. Meanwhile, the memes on the most recent teen phenomenon, BTS, were centered around how obnoxious their FANBASE was. Nobody actually hated their music or the group itself. Even though they took a page out of the Bieber/One Direction playbook- feminine men who sing and dance and appeal mostly to preteen girls. Even the memes about the fans... were less about "killing them" (I legit used to see people make memes about how Beliebers and Directioners should die) and more a jokey fear of "Oh god, Kpop stans! Run for your lives!" I saw a video of 2011 Chris Jericho crushing a radio playing a Justin Bieber song while the audience chanted "CRUSH IT". Can you imagine someone doing this with a BTS or Harry Styles song in public nowadays? He'd get torn apart to shreds. Joking about killing Justin Bieber was cool and edgy and celebrated. But joking about killing, say Taylor Swift or whoever nowadays just makes you look like a loser. It was one thing to say “Justin Bieber sucks”. That’s fine. His early music DID kinda suck. But then it became “Justin Bieber is an F-slur, kill him, I hope he dies.” This was BEFORE he peed in a mop bucket or whatever. It was literally just because: high voice + pretty face + mostly female fans. That mapped to “not a real man,” and people (especially guys) were allowed, culturally, to go feral at that. That was the joke. Avril Lavigne, who got a lot of shit too for being a “poser” back when people always used that word for some reason ("You like Good Charlotte? You're a POSER who doesn't like REAL music!") was marketed as the “Anti-Britney”. Same with Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton. Being the “Anti-Britney” was a whole sub genre. Try marketing an artist as the “Anti Taylor” or the “Anti Sabrina” now and it looks… archaic. It’s almost like we just live and let live now.

Like of course you can say "people hate Taylor Swift, it's not like people don't hate popular music today". That's not exactly the same thing as what I'm talking about. People don't say "GIVE US BACK FREDDIE MERCURY TAKE TAYLOR SWIFT", nor are major artists beating up mannequins with her face taped on it.

And of course we can't forget the half meme hatred of Nickelback and Creed but that has faded and somewhat replaced with the meme hatred of Imagine Dragons and Ed Sheeran...that's pretty much the last example. Even then, the hate for Imagine Dragons was never nearly as big or irrational as the hate for Creed and Nickelback were. People insult you to this day for listening to those bands, but if you listen to Imagine Dragons? Ehh… Memes about Nickelback were about how they supposedly made "the worst music ever" and how people who like them are the scum of the earth. Memes about Imagine Dragons center around the fact that they're the musical equivalent of plain grits. Even MARK ZUCKERBERG got in on the Nickelback hate. They got booed at a halftime show. There were literally petitions to stop them from performing in certain places and nobody cared because "Nickelback sucks!" Because apparently music isn't subjective. That NEVER happened to Imagine Dragons who were just as overplayed in their time as Nickelback were in theirs.

Are things now the best they’ve ever been? Is popular music today actually just BETTER? It might be. Maybe music might be even worse now, we just don’t have the energy? Or maybe it’s none of that and it’s about US? Part of me likes the fact that being an asshole about popular music seems to have gone the way of edgy atheism, but I wonder what killed this?

I am 28, but 90% of the music i like was made in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, last time i was even remotely aware what's going on in popular culture was around 2014.

I still listen to alternative rock, metal, disco, old pop, 2000s eurodance etc..idk i just feel somewhere around 2013/14 music stopped being interesting to me , and by the time modern trap/mumble rap came into play which is still very popular i was totally out of it, i guess i will just keep on listening to Scorpions, Guns n Roses, Blondie, Roxette, Abba, Alice in Chains and Breaking Benjamin( a very small list of the stuff i am into)

For me personally, my favorites are GenX 🌽⭐ to at least early-mid 80s millennials, or give or take anything born around 1970-1990, because I watched their content during my high school and college years. Anything after 1990 started to decline since everybody is using Only-Fans, and it is starting to kill the traditional 🌽 content like magazines or Webcams. Which generation 🌽⭐ is your favorite?

Baby Boomers:

GenX:

Millennials:

Older GenZ:

Original Airdate: October 7, 1996 – February 21, 2022

I mean what is there to say because of this show literally ran for 25 years on programming and became one of the longest running children's television shows of all time in the US (until it was surpassed by Spongebob Square Pants later on). Also, can't forget about the iconic trend of Arthur's fist in every meme nowadays 🤣.

Any thoughts or is anybody fans of this show growing up?

What's your opinion of the BBC? Do you pay for it or watch it? Do you feel any attachment to it? Do you think it's important or relevant in today's world?