Why was the culture of the early 2010s so shallow and anti intellectual?

I was just a young idealistic college student back then and most students I knew as well as wider society seemed more interested in reality shows, materialism, and partying.

Society also lost interest in sci fi and space exploration.

www.youtube.com...

gizmodo.com...

ricochet.com...


I look back and find it appalling how vapid it was.


Why did society felt they had to choose between popularity and intelligence? Why did society stopped being encouraged to push themselves intellectually?


Why not be athletic, fun loving, and smart? Like those astronauts.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: CmdrShep2154

Maybe Communist leftism your generation was indoctrinated with in the union controlled schools made you retards?

Just the first thing that came to mind.

a reply to: CmdrShep2154

You know, I was just having a bit of a conversation about something along these lines yesterday. We were talking about music and it's change over time. It was a group of people, the oldest being in his late 80s, so we were getting perspectives on the music scene (particularly in LA where we're all at) through the course of time. The 80s came up and I interjected. It was interesting what we saw happen at the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s as it relates to main-stream music. Music, like you describe in your OP was becoming increasingly vacuous. Make no mistake, the technical musicianship was, literally, outrageous. In order to be a part of a successful band during those times you had to play the guitar with such speed and accuracy that the damned thing caught on fire. Singers had to be breaking glasses in the audience with their high-pitched range, drummers had to be able to win marathons and bass players, well...had to play the bass. All the members had to wear make-up and leather with long hair and sing about little more than party party party party party. Incredible musicianship, zero substance.

Enter Grunge. Seattle destroyed the Sunset Strip. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden and Alice in Chains burst onto the scene with tremendous success touting great songs, great but not mind numbingly complex musicianship, but most importantly of all...substance. Let us pray that we are coming out of the Sunset Strip age of our present existence...

a reply to: TheMirrorSelf

True, 80's music was about fun. The never ending party. Life was good and only going to get better. America rocked, the Soviets / Communists sucked and you could still Rock In America.

90's went to crap (around 1992 or so), morbid suicide downer crap music.

From This





To this - my god this crap is depressing

everyone is that way when they are young

originally posted by: CmdrShep2154
I was just a young idealistic college student back then and most students I knew as well as wider society seemed more interested in reality shows, materialism, and partying.

Society also lost interest in sci fi and space exploration.

www.youtube.com...

gizmodo.com...

ricochet.com...


I look back and find it appalling how vapid it was.


Why did society felt they had to choose between popularity and intelligence? Why did society stopped being encouraged to push themselves intellectually?


Why not be athletic, fun loving, and smart? Like those astronauts.

www.youtube.com...

Its because we have heavy foreign input into our schools. The people produced in the past 20 years know what to think, have no idea how the people that told them these things arrived at the conclusions themselves. Thats why the idas pushed as accepted fact are so horrible and blatantly wrong. People are too damn stupid.

a reply to: TheMirrorSelf

I grew up in the 90s, my impression today about that time is, there were a lot of cast bands and groups. That's different from a garage band becoming successful with skill and passion. Music videos became more professional produced, later with lot's of computer effects.

Those original founded bands did not have the same heavy influence through producers like casted ones. They knew each other privately and were not picked from a lot of strangers. They had an idea about what they wanted to play or sing about.

I think that put a strain on the virtuose and creative side for those cast bands. No authenticity. Personal I like the 80s rock a lot, 2015-2021 had very awesome electronic music too. Lot's of high quality GOA and prog style trance.

a reply to: CmdrShep2154

I am not sure about just that period but will go and try to explain it as I see it.

The hidden war upon intellectualism among the public in much of the west goes back to the late 1980's when it all got started off, it was not noticeable until a while later however and began with this one factor.

Science based qualifications were among the most valuable to have if NOT the most lucrative for any nation in the INDUSTRIALIZED West, that is until industrialization in the West was shipped off to Asia by greedy corporations and corrupt governments.

If you take away factory's from an industrial based economy (Such as was the UK's - outside of the City of London of course - the REAL economy not the paper money financial market crap) then you leave the people with no Job's, the engineers with no machines to repair and service, the designers that worked in the factors and there planning offices with nothing to design, the scientist that developed new process for that industry with no industry to develop process for.

This in turn leads to a lot of out of work Skilled Workers, most of them then end up having to retrain to try to fit into quite collar office or IT job's but in reality there are also only so many of those to go around.

It also gut's industrialized community's such as the New Towns of the 1960's and 70's in the UK which suddenly found the core of there local economy's vanishing as Government Slashed and Stopped Subsidies and corporations and business moved there production abroad.

The Result is you have Lots of kid's getting degree's in sociology and thinking that it makes then brainy while the Boffins have vanished from our society and this was on top of the Brain Drain of the 1950's to the 1990's when many of our best minds were poached to work in the US before it also went arse over tail with there corporations taking there jobs to Asia as well once the government there was fully subverted by Corporate (internationalist business - ANTI nationalist Business) interests.

The result was you could find courses in the sciences but you could not get a job once you achieved them unless you were willing and able to travel miles, not everyone wants to be away from there family and those that do are the extreme minority among us.

By the early 2000's like I say Sociology and other crap subjects became the norm for students, most of whom ended up working in office work anyway were a business degree would have been far better to equip them for the world they found themselves in creating a generation of young people whom got there job's by pretending, lying and otherwise having to con there way around.

And non of that was or is any good for western nations.

However some western nations were not so blind and have kept a core of skilled science and engineering workers by subsidising there industries such as Germany and of course to a lesser degree France.

But the greatest harm to my nation Britain was done under Thatcher and with the inept idiots that followed her period of rule, she pulled the rug from under the feet of industry, demolished the proverbial foundations of what had made us an industrial power house and kept us there during times when growing international competition was harmful to our industry.

A nation must invest in it's industry, it does not have to own it - at least not all of if - but to provide subsidies and other incentives to keep it going and staying within it's own borders to provide jobs for people.


Culture reflects the people of it's period, shallow culture, shallow small minded people.

Not like Disco was much better, kids trying to grow up too fast maybe.

a reply to: CmdrShep2154

It started in the 90s, was really bad by the 2000s, and worse today than 10 years ago.

originally posted by: CmdrShep2154
I was just a young idealistic college student back then and most students I knew as well as wider society seemed more interested in reality shows, materialism, and partying.

Society also lost interest in sci fi and space exploration.

www.youtube.com...

gizmodo.com...

ricochet.com...


I look back and find it appalling how vapid it was.


Why did society felt they had to choose between popularity and intelligence? Why did society stopped being encouraged to push themselves intellectually?


Why not be athletic, fun loving, and smart? Like those astronauts.

www.youtube.com...

Society overall is CURRENTLY even less intellectual than the early 2010s, in fact worse than EVER.


It's all about appearances, narcissism and virtue signalling

I think compared to now that was a "renaissance".

At least back then there were some true "religious right" figures to oppose, and making spectacles of themselves, such as the Westboro cult.

Now it's just a left against imaginary "white supremacists" and a "woke cult" that can almost not be "woke" enough without it's own stalwarts and adherents eventually falling short and being de-platformed.

And of course that leads to complete delusions and the mass narrative going along with the psychosis, simply out of conformity.

And I doubt any of the biggest leftist revolutionaries in 20th century history would thought any of what is shoved down our throats now in the Western World would have been logical, or a good idea.

You forgot chasing the opposite sex..

Sounds like any other generation to me really, it’s just focal points change. People got bored with Apollo.
We in the States have short attention spans unlike the Chinese and our evil overlords.
They play the long game.



a reply to: CmdrShep2154

Hey, I smoked a bone with Steve on the dunes around Hyannis one summer.
I was cutting thru the dunes to my buddies from the beach and he held up a bone and asked for a light.
I didn’t know he was until he asked me to join him.
Stars and “famous people” don’t make me silly.
We just sat there, got high and chatted.
When we finished the bone I just said thanks, I gotta go.
As I walked up the path I did turn and say, “love your music.”
He gave me two thumbs up and said....“rock on“.
Saw Aerosmith in Providence 3 weeks later.
That was a smokin concert, they were at the top of their game during that time.
Hey, thanks for making me remember it!

Cheers.......😎


a reply to: infolurker

When it comes to music people only tend to reflect on the new stuff but from what I can tell all those 80's bands still rocked out in the 90's and beyond.

Music just like any cultural phenomenon goes through cycles a lot of the 2010 and beyond dance music had links with the late 80's and 90's dance/rave scenes and of course some of the DJ's from the old days are still playing and even producing.

Similar things can be said about the youth in their prime, just because the things they're into seems stupid it doesn't mean all the youth are stupid. My brother's had goths when they were kids and I had emos, the more depressed goths not the birds... Anyways both groups got ripped on and were hardly the mainstream image of that particular demographic of the time.

It takes all sorts as they say. It's probably worth noting that nearly all teens still act a little strange in their bid for acceptance by the herd, that's totally normal. Your best friend might be a closet Mozart fanatic or a true mathematics geek. That said these days with the internet and awareness more kids are waking up to find that they don't have to follow the herd and personally I find that awesome.

I know I've always loved my sci-fi and space exploration stuff, anything that was related too. Society never ostracized me because I didn't watch xfactor, talk about Jersey shore or listen to Katie Perry.

Maybe I just realised a little earlier that nobody really gives a damn anyways and the ones that do have always been nuggets, they're the most insecure ones anyways... Probably have nightmares about fashion trends and the likes.

First nations:

a reply to: halfoldman

To borrow from the clip above, all liberal "left-wing" parties have failed indigenous peoples.

originally posted by: CmdrShep2154
I was just a young idealistic college student back then and most students I knew as well as wider society seemed more interested in reality shows, materialism, and partying.

Society also lost interest in sci fi and space exploration.

www.youtube.com...

gizmodo.com...

ricochet.com...


I look back and find it appalling how vapid it was.


Why did society felt they had to choose between popularity and intelligence? Why did society stopped being encouraged to push themselves intellectually?


Why not be athletic, fun loving, and smart? Like those astronauts.

www.youtube.com...

Err… was? We’re still stuck there imo.

Probably something to do with the producers only funding mass appeal, high profit, use and throwaway culture. Anything else just did not get the backing needed and had to rely on a DIY approach, creating niche markets along the way. Some of this leaked into the mainstream.

What do you mean "was"?