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Oct 17, 2024 6:52 PM
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BrobiwanKenobro
I'll say it on every comment on this website. Vote. Donate. Gets friends and family to vote blue if possible. Offer people rides. Offer them water for the wait. Volunteer to poll watch. If we vote we win.
StuntCrew
37yo here. As time goes on, I more and more firmly believe that the 90s was the peak.
dorkamatic
I'm 50 and I think we're fucked.
Safflower777
And I hope they're telling you: you are wrong...cuz better late than never. Maybe also consider others ur age in, oh Ukraine, Palestine, Gaza, Israel...& a host of other war torn places. THEY ARE TRAUMATIZED & FACING REALLY DISMAL FUTURES!
maliciousGman
The world has always been terrible, it's just easier now to see it.
ViolentlyJaded
cowboycoco
"Look for the helpers" Yeah, everything sucks. You've been through a lot. You're going through a lot. We left you a shit hand.
But even through that, there a re good people doing good things. The reasons why its necessary suck but don't ignore the beacons of light in all this gloom.
And better yet. Be one.
Pegaxs
And if they are like my boomer parents, they don’t care. Apparently the answer to the world’s woes is “everyone just needs to work harder, everyone is just too lazy…”
defrostedtauntaun
At the very least I can honestly never see America unifying in any meaningful way after all of this extreme divisiveness. Save for maybe a major global conflict. But seeing how many idiots support fascists here even that is not expected.
GussDeBlod
Hey. The ozone layer got a bit better!
BogusPancake
Here's some pain to rub into the wound. Years ago, 7-11 had a program with their Citgo Gasoline (remember that political mess after?) where you'd get a free tank of gas after filling the card up. Not just $0.10 off a gallon... an entire freaking tank. Back when it was $0.99 per gallon, natch.
SteveMND
I'm over 50, and I also do not expect anything good to happen ever again. At this point, we're looking at a lifetime of barely keeping our head above water, if we're lucky.
Syko73
Those of us over 40 aint expecting too much sunshine and blue skies either @OP
SuperSaiyanYamcha
I’m 40 and it’s not even that I never expected anything good to happen again; it’s that I never expected it to get THIS bad THIS quickly!
Skeksi
I mean, some of us over 40 are in this camp as well.
Mumalot
Millennials pretty much have the same priorities as people did during the Great Depression. Most of us aren't asking for a life of luxury, we just wanna pay our bills/rent so we can actually enjoy life a lil bit without pennypinching/anxietyAttacking every time we make a purchase.
SiscoVonSiegfried
Jokes on you, I’m over forty but don’t expect either
TeDmund
Man that brief period of the 90s and early 00s when video games were getting really good, TV and movies were getting good, the internet was (always a little disturbing) but very new and cool. I think it peaked in Obama getting elected - its hard to express how positive that was even in NZ. (this might sound hyperbolic but I feel like in some respects the MCU was all that held our positivity together between 2008-2019)
GussDeBlod
The MCU and video games were good while the world was slowly getting shittier. Things weren't good, they were getting worse, you just got distracted by games and movies.
TeDmund
I mean yes - but I feel its a little harsh to describe a statement like 'all that held positivity together' as 'got distracted' 😅
IDontCareAtAllButIShould
I'm on the road to 80 and haven't expected good things for a while now.
HiddenSanity
Yeah, but traditional logic says that you're supposed to have hope when young.
SaveitforQueenDoppelpoppolus
kinda sounds like you just have clinical depression but okay
Salticido
Kinda sounds like you aren't aware of what's going on in the world.
Imalwaysready
If you are able to diagnose clinical depression in 22 words, how much are you able to charge per hour?
SaveitforQueenDoppelpoppolus
"no you don't understand i don't have depression, it's just that life is pointless and nothing matters and i'm always tired. also, i can't sleep, i'm overeating and none of my old hobbies interest me."
Trumpsuxivankastoeslikechilidogs
Oh shit, you just described me in a sarcastic way..... Am I clinically depressed?
TI99Kitty
Possibly. You might want to talk to a professional about it. Unless you live in the U.S., of course, because that means you likely can't afford mental health care.
Baron29
It's not clinical depression if there's an actual reason you're sad all the time
SaveitforQueenDoppelpoppolus
the reason you're sad all the time is clinical depression hope this helps
Zeddicuszull
I'm just waiting to see if boomers finish the job in destroying America before they become politically irrelevant due to death. America will become a fundamentally different country once people that remember the cold war are no longer politically dominate.
TayoStrum
I'd take mc,carthy era republican over what we have today. At least they would take Russian aggression seriously.
mormacil
Euh older millenials remember the cold war... That's gonna take a long while to get the memories of the Cold War out of the electorate.
Zeddicuszull
No. Older millennials were children during the 80s. They were politically illiterate.
mormacil
Politically literate and remember the Cold War are two very different claims. You remember how your parents talked, the school drills you did, etc. I very much remember the Cold War. Remember when Chernobyl happened and we couldn't eat the vegetables from our gardens in Europe? That's things kids very much remember.
InfocalypseRising
KR1570F
I keep hearing there are goth girls that will pretend to date me for a fall just to end me. Is there like a wait list I missed or something?
Wylekat
You find out, you share the info with me.
algoritham
The queue is pretty long. Don't expect it to happen any time soon.
Ikwilstroopwaffels
Most of us over 40 don't either!
monkeyshines
Almost everyone I know is actively doing good things and wants to make things better in the future. Not sure if there's a social media platform for that though.
gryzlock
Man... that is the way.
Heavenissize17socks
Ikwilstroopwaffels
Cats are nice.
GiraffaPontifex
I'm super allergic to cats. So that doesn't help much.
celestedrake
I am also super allergic. ...I take a lot of meds tho.
ChloeRed
How about a good curry?
SalmonTheWise
Why would curry help with allergies?
ChloeRed
2 things Death from the Discworld likes: cats and a good curry. So if allergic to cats, maybe the curry is an option.
Hexrowe
Eh, I expect I'll yet have pizza at some point. But then, I'm over 40, so...
tomatoboy
Once I ate an avocado and thrice I ate a pizza, it was a good life!
[deleted]
[deleted]
Gaelwyn
Maybe get it without red sauce?
ShowMeBunnies
Maybe wait for it to cool down next time
Atlasguitar
I don't think you're supposed to stuff it in both ends
BendOverAndIllShowYa
I don’t know. We got a/c, cool phones, rock and roll. Maybe things won’t improve but we got it pretty good. Not saying I don’t get the point but we aren’t owed anything. Earlier generations had WWI, WWII, nuclear scares, segregation and institutionalized racism. It’s not always better in the past. But I def get your point.
zagibu
That were just human problems, though. On top of that, we are now facing extinction level problems on a planetary level. It's easy to ignore all the warning signs in every day life, but it's really bleak, actually. A lot of systems we are relying on are on the brink of collapse. And we don't really do much to fix them, because that gets in the way of every day life.
ArcUlfr
We're staring down the barrel of the economic crisis to end all economic crises, along with hundreds of millions (if not more) deaths and large areas of the globe being rendered uninhabitable, with a predictable refugee crisis as a result. As bad as WWII was, it wasn't permanent damage on a global scale the way the climate crisis is.
KR1570F
I have a bet with a friend of mine that we will see a US citizen executed for crossing the border from one state to another as a climate crisis refugee by 2050. It honestly feels like a given but I'm curious about how early I win the bet not if it happens.
geotard
If you were a child in the 80s you still had the nuclear war threat in movies and TV
Imalwaysready
So long as we have our bread and circuses, who cares about the fact Rome is burning down around us, eh!
GiraffaPontifex
We still have institutionalized racism in many parts of the world, slavery is still around, we had a global pandemic and half of the most power nation on earth decided it wasn't real, Russia is trying to slowly reform the USSR, half of the most powerful nation on earth is waving around nazi flags...
GiraffaPontifex
Oh, and we're rendering huge portions of the planet uninhabitable for human life. Do we got it pretty good? Do we?
BendOverAndIllShowYa
Yes, we kinda do. Because it’s only going to get worse. Enjoy it while we can.
conjuratio
‘Life is pain. Anybody tells you different is trying to sell you something.’ Movie quote, but I don’t remember from where
WhoUhz
… c’mon buddy.
Littledirtybirdyfeet
I raise you. "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional"
itdoesntmatternoneofthismatters
TI99Kitty
The Princess Bride. "Life IS pain, highness. Anyone who tells you different is selling you something."
MilkStoutOnTap
Princess Bride?
spittinfacts
Yep!
OhIfIMust
Illithidbane
5m4llP0X
I was 18, almost 19. I couldn't find a job, then this happened and I was forced to move 3 states away. (One state is Montana)
Goomba92
That's usually where I draw the line between millennial and Gen Z. Anyone who can remember where they were was this side of the Millennial line.
SonnyVabitch
That's good! What would be a similar upper bound. Anyone who remembers the Challenger or Chernobyl is still Gen X?
BreadMachineCookieDough
What event is this person referring to?
solarshado
that one day in September of 2001
SneakyTrojan
Oof
seekingdaedalus
the September 11th terrorist attacks
andrewski24
#NeverForget amiright? You had one job.
cjandstuff
We were raised with the positivity and hope that the 90's brought. A bright, promising future, and it all went to hell that day.
JaketheLate
That day was when America went from "help each other" to " help you and yours".
zFUBARz
It's the fresh prince index. Look at the original, all vibrant and joyful, then look at the recent remake. Dark and brooding.
ATastyCorpsesicle
Yeah, things weren't PERFECT, of course, but there was at least a sense of moving in the right direction. That things would turn out okay.
RadasNoir
Imagine being born after the 90s, not even growing up with that false hope. Just, "Welcome to the world. Everything sucks, and it's only going to get worse."
zagibu
Yeah, I don't envy the young folks. At least I had the nineties. It was a good few years.
ZackWester
and to add to it before there was at gov level some effort to do something... now 1 step forward 30 step back. (we gone from 2 parties whit diffrent ide on how to solve stuff to 1 party that can´t fix stuff because they need a 90% lead, and the other party that dont want to fix anything because then they would not exist as a party and lose there free money income.
FussyZeus
Hey we had SOME bright spots. Limbaugh died.
pickinganameistoomuchpressure
but hear me out, he existed
fartyandbloated
You make a solid point. That blinding flash of bright news isn’t enough to sustain us but you gotta take time to appreciate the little things.
SunBrolem
Destroying evil is not creating good.
malachitedragon
And Kissinger!
Shoumpue
I hate how relatively under the radar that went. Dude mightve been the worst of em
kyro
This tweet was before covid. Oof.
secretagentchewbacca
Mega oof
WillWasThere
So now the new quote would be something like "We watched 3000 people die every day for a year and nothing got better."
Edgekrsher
Watched it live in history class.
UnoriginalPieceOfRepeatingShit
The irony
NOINITIATIVE
same here! we literally learned about the attack in the 90’s the day before.
SleepMaker11
That's some depressing stuff to learn at the beginning of the school year
UWAGAGABLAGABLAGABA
I was in 7th grade science
jermprobably
Live in English class for me. Man, I've never heard our classrooms THAT silent before. It was absolutely one of the most surreal moments of my life.
JaketheLate
I saw the second plane hit on TV as I finished my cereal. My mom didn't believe me at first. There were no classes that day, kids kind of just wandered from classroom to classroom. Every TV the school had was in a classroom and tuned into love coverage.
The world changed, America changed.
LuminoZero
Senior Year in High School, second period English. It was a Tuesday.
PicklestheFireCat2000
Freshman year of college, Philosophy 101
BleedingQuasar
Same except it was Environmental Studies.
psych0bunneh
My highschool moved us all into the gym like we were going to have an assembly and then we just stayed there until our parents picked us up. They didn't even tell us what happened.
wandermanspacebot
People who lived through WWII probably have a hard time understanding all the bitching, to be honest.
ArcUlfr
There was an economic boon after that ended. We get a climate crisis instead, and barring some miracle scientific discovery and the political ability to utilize it in a short time frame (the window for which is getting shorter every day), it's just going to get worse. A hell of a lot worse.
wandermanspacebot
Every generation faces tough times and anything we're experiencing is not some unprecedented worst thing ever that people love to proclaim online. This is just a deeply pessimistic and narcissistic generation coming up. I'm an elder millennial, have seen some shit, but the pessimism from people online is almost farcical.
ArcUlfr
You obviously haven't been following scientific developments. Think about the difference in average temperature between today and the ice age, when the northeastern US was buried under half a mile of ice. That was about 20,000 years ago, incidentally. We are going to see an identical temperature change within the next century, unless extreme measures are taken immediately.
You need to learn the difference between pessimism and cold, hard facts.
wandermanspacebot
Maybe not "focusing" on scientific developments is what you mean. But neither are these pessimistic kids. Every single aspect of life is terrible to them, no matter what. I think we're talking about two different things, really.
ArcUlfr
Best case scenario right now is that we limit it to 'only' half of that.
zagibu
Of course they are pessimistic. They have no future and they know it.
wandermanspacebot
That's ridiculous and you know it.
zagibu
I wish it was. I really do. But humanity has brought most of the systems it relies on to the brink of collapse, and nothing is being done about it. You want some taste of it? In the last 50 years, 60% of vertebrates have disappeared. Groundwater levels in more than half of the world's agricultural centers are nearing complete depletion and many of them will be completely depleted before 2050. Until this July, we've had a new global average temperature record every day for 15 months.
zagibu
We now have less renewable energy in the global energy consumption mix than in the 80s, despite building lots of it, because population and thus fossil fuel demand has risen faster. Insect biomass falls 2% every year. Most seas are completely overfished and some rivers in Canada haven't seen any Salmon at all in the latest years. Deforestation is still going on at 1 football field per second. Do you want more?
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
And next, with even more gentleness, "And it's pretty much the fault of Reagan, those directly around him, and anyone that thought he was cool."
Rovylern
dorkyducks
"OH you're just being dramatic. You don't know. You're too young to realize how fine life will be. You'll be fine. Life always goes on" or whatever similar answer they whip out to deflect everything you just said as if you are complaining out of ignorant spite.
CleverGroom
Every day I wish Ronald Reagan was the worst of our problems. Every fucking day.
We should be so lucky as to be writhing under the heel of a blackhearted charlatan who not only signed a bill granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants but then took executive action to guarantee citizenship for their children as well, or the maniac who got Menachem Begin out of Beirut by cursing him out and swearing he'd revoke military aid to Israel.
Reagan, W., McCain...I miss all of those pieces of shit.
montyman185
Those pieces of shit are why our current shit heap is possible. This was the end goal, the positives are just from them needing to vaguely follow public opinion.
CleverGroom
No, Reagan earnestly believed that America should dictate terms to Israel and not the other way around. GWB and McCain earnestly worked to lead their party into pro-immigration reforms. These weren't publicity stunts. They had genuine, redeeming qualities that I can't locate in Biden or Harris anymore--never mind Trump.
Biden and Harris are better than them in other ways, of course. I just can't reconcile myself to a world where the Less Evil Party supports genocide and rejects asylum seekers.
okriatic
Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6)
PTFCMcGee
6 degrees of Ronald Reagan is a sad game to play.
januskincaid
I mean, it's easy though. Pretty sure that he managed to directly screw nearly every person on the planet via policy.
PileOfWalthers
Jane Wyman?
TI99Kitty
I suppose Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury!
PileOfWalthers
I mean he WAS ... careful about spending money? (I knew nothing of Jack Benny when BTTF came out. That line meant nothing to me back then.)
TI99Kitty
I still found it funny back then, even though all I knew of Jack Benny was he was a comedian. If he was... frugal... with his money, that just makes it funnier!
PileOfWalthers
The actor himself was quite generous. The character he played was an industrial strength tightwad.
Shoumpue
Key point is those directly around him (not to absolve Reagan himself), because that's what's most terrifying about Trump. Trump is an idiot with a mouth and an ego, but hes surrounded by terrifying people, some of whome with actual tact (Leonard Leo, etc)
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
And it should be emphasized more. Reagan was a bastard, but even moreso, a bumbling tool that was used by special interests far more greedy and sinister than him to make drastic changes to society.
astrangehop
Ooh, I need to spend some time tracking this down... In the fairly recently released "Nixon/Reagan" tapes — Reagan drops several N-bombs, and RICHARD FUCKING NIXON is AUDIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE. "Aw geez, you know.. you can't say that anymore Ronnie." IDK.. lots of things go to show there are trash people shit heels and then there are absolute monsters. There's a difference. Reggie laughed at people dying of AIDs.
Syovere
Reagan makes me wish hell was real so I could look forward to beating the shit out of him forever. I'm sure it'd count as community service.
Delerium1973
Yeah, vacationing at Mom's and a Reagan photo showed up since last time I was here🙄
JCDenton10
So many olde people around here have what I would call shrines to Reagan, or Nixon. Hats, buttons, pictures, flags, election stuff. It's weird.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Pansy1024
Serj whispers "they're trying to build a prison"
DeeplyBroken
I managed to turn my parents blue during the Nixon administration. At first, they scoffed, but when Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace (remember when politicians did that? Pepperidge Farm remembers.) they became believers.
HippoTel
amp99
VayaKahvi
https://youtu.be/YRi-V2LrJrk Full details on how exactly he is the devil.
Asadsadsadclown
https://youtu.be/tvepo1WXF9s?si=4bL5RgG8cR5-ONHw
Imalwaysready
He won 49 out of 50 states, so that was pretty much everyone in the 80s.
junkgoof
It’s not every voter and way, way too many Americans don’t vote. Way too many people make weird emotional political decisions and go for the crooks.
Kbantar
Thankfully, my boomer parents were very much anti-Reagan. Even as a child, he came off as slimy to me.
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
TakeAChillPill16
1984 was the biggest landslide in the modern era, and Reagon still only got 58.8% of the vote. For every 10 Americans, 4 voted against him.
palmmute
He was not duck duck gray duck enough
Theoj05
Perfect comment. I love my state.
lightfoot2
Gen X never expected anything good to happen. We are not disappointed
mobuliscious
Right & the difference w/ the rest of us now is we have many legit structural/societal reasons to be jaded besides our fav band breaking up!
PileOfWalthers
We were the “No Future” generation before it was cool.
M4rv3
If anything, we're going "see? SEE?! TOLD YA SO!" since 2008...
insanitycontinuum
Finn here, yes we did, we saw the collapse of Soviet Union and the expansion of EU, many of us were so naive as to think it would all be all right
PileOfWalthers
Well it was for about a decade. If you ignore a bunch of shit like the Yugo wars. And whatever was going on in Somalia.
Goddesahpan
I thought it's normal to not have any expectations but still be disappointed?
NorwegianSheepknuller
Millennial here, even with my low expectations I'm disappointed
elhigh
Heyo. Right here. There was a brief flash of hope with the second Clinton administration and the second Obama administration. It has been shocking to see how quickly the progress can be pissed away.
SomeFukinWizard
Gen X here - came to say this.
ShuteOut
We new this when we realized we should have voted against Reagan, rather than holding demonstrations against war.
LieselSkywalker
Hell yeah.
ThatShiftyMonkey
Eh. Whatever.
zafner
Hey pull that bus over buddy. I grew up on Star Trek. I thought racism was on the way out until 2016. Pretty optimistic bubble, I know, but that's where my head was at. And honestly, since then, things have looked a lot worse, but I pay a lot of attention to the kids and I think they may be able to undo the damage the boomers left us all. Maybe the human race is doomed; but while I'm still around I'm going to try to help the kids make a real future.
I know I won't get to see it
MadamYouAreLurking
Came here to say the same thing
scifighter
We're disappointed. Just not surprised.
WLAFadeaway
Life is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something.
OhIfIMust
ThatAintRightItsAllLeft
No shit. Thangs been fucked since inception/Reagan, just took a little while to understand why. Seems to be a viscous cycle that's set on repeat.
Lalabingbong
I feel like Boomers are the only generation to have ever experienced positive expectations. They were raised in the victory high of WW2, fought by people who experienced one major catastrophe after another. They then had kids who got to feel that positivity but who continued to experience more major catastrophes with increasing occurrence until now when we're all so used to it that we barely even react to them.
BurnieCinders
MithridateEupator
Hey now, you guys will live a good portion of your life after every boomer has died off - that's something to look forward to.
TheHolyFatman
Nope. My parents died with nothing and I robbed my 401k four times to just stay afloat after getting laid off five times in 25 years, so . probably not.
sacrosanctt
Seconded
TheHolyFatman
Yup. I've been alive for 50 years. Gas crisis, nuclear scares of the 80s, massive economic crashes, Reagan, challenger, Iran contra, s&l crisis, desert storm, first world trade bombing, Oklahoma City, GOP "contract with America", Monica, Columbine (plus more), tech stock crash, 9/11, Afghan, Iraq, 2008 housing crisis, rumpT, pandemic,maga.....nothing shocks me anymore. Nothing is going to get better
TheHolyFatman
Oh yeah, the other terrible thing? I had some family and friends die of AIDS.
BullittGT
Well, I mean we did have the 90's, that was good wasn't it?
NissanAIGaib
I spent the 90’s at raves in the Bay Area
TheHolyFatman
Yeah, raves were fucking cool AF in the early 90s!
NissanAIGaib
I dj’d a couple. Did a lot of after parties and small clubs in SF:) I still have all my vinyl, but one of my decks is not working properly:(
LitchLitch
Ehh, there were some bright moments of hope here and there, the infancy of the internet, free software, post-scarcity economics, global perestroika, etc. but then reality hit. I mean Bill Clinton was the freaking president and neo-liberalism was something people believed in.
foozlewastaken
Looking back, the 90's were awesome. Being in it, not particularly pleasant.
dingoflickums
Probably the best decade in history. Low costs, high wages, back when good music still made it on the radio. Crazy shit
Ninjainslippers
Yeah you fucks did nothing to stop corporatocracy and the damage the boomers were doing. You got your pensions and let things fall to shit. As a geriatric millennial, I'd say fuck you for making us be the ones to hold the line and get tear gassed when it's 30 years too late for real change and we're just hoping that gen Z can save us.
DrowningLessons
You're getting down votes for being right by salty people. Gen X feeling hopeless when they were the "only ones" made some sense but they just shit on millennials and kept out of everything after they had allies. They abdicated the future as much if not more than they had it taken. Hopefully millennials keep being inclusive to gena z and alpha and stop the cycle
Ninjainslippers
Well put. Gen X very much just let shit happen instead of proactively fighting what has become a real threat/reality of fascism. They're not victims. We are. And gen z/gen alpha even more so. But we're doing shit instead of just being passive nobodies while the world burns.
GutstobeGnK
The oldest Gen Xers are 59ish.... we're nowhere near retirement and there are no pensions waiting for us.
TheHolyFatman
Pensions?! I robbed my 401k four. Fucking. Times in 25 years because I've been laid off so damn much. We got fucked by Reagan and the GOP take over. We are the first Gen to get fucked.....
gunk765
What pension?! I wanna pension!
customcartoons
“Y’all are gettin pensions?”
customcartoons
Pensions?? You think Gen X has pensions?
AdorkableFembi
They do, more so than most millenials will ever have anyway, even if still worse than their mostly boomer parenys had anyway.
GenX got in to the workforce as computers took off, they made a lot of money learning skills the boomers never did.
TheHolyFatman
Maybe the older ones, but pensions were pretty much replaced in the 80s.....if you entered the workforce earlier you might be grandfathered in, but most of us just got fucked
Kurchak
Ahahahahaahahahaahahahaahahaahahahahahahahahahaahahahaahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahaahahahagagahagagaga......... Bip.... Bip biiiiiiiip. We will work until we die, dude.
Thresholdpush
Indeed. Always expect the worst & you're always prepared. Nothing's Shocking.
PineappleIsDeliciousOnPizzaFightMe
Not sure what Jane’s addiction has to do with this. ;)
Thresholdpush
I was waiting for somebody to catch that.
Futchm
Gen X never expected anything good to happen, yet are somehow still disappointed
pareidoliaperson
After boomers, they're mostly the cause of the bad shit happening.
xizar
We never expected good to happen... didn't mean we expected everything to go to shit so fast and so far.
Emiloo74
Exactly. While I don't know what I expected during my middle age, it sure af wasn't all this craziness.
Businesshammock
We didn't expect anything great to happen, tbh, but fuck if we even imagined this lunacy.
lightfoot2
Have to agree. I grew up believing evil was intelligent. Now it's just dumb assed clowns who lurch around destroying shit not as part of a plan but just for giggles.
elhigh
Bingo. Exactly. I don't know what I expected, it sure as hell wasn't this.
Businesshammock
Everyday is more and more like a dystopian movie we would have watched as kids, except it's like, 'ultra'. I honestly fucking hate what I see everyday and am working my way out of it to something just a little better. Or die trying. I don't have hope.
bippityboppitybuttsex
We were raised expecting to die in nuclear fire.... I remember freaking out as a kid when, in the middle of the night, I heard a car alarm go off, that was using an air-raid siren as its alarm (in the 1970s, before every car had a car alarm).
Also, our parents had to be reminded, at 10PM, every night, to think about giving a fuck where we might be.
Anarchduke
I remember this vividly. https://youtu.be/e4NWi0iLw2E?feature=shared
lightfoot2
Oh yeah.... THat close.
Akalazoo
Dad used to have frequent nightmares about a nuclear explosion happening and not being able to find either me or my brother. Always one of us got lost.
karlostroski
#DuckAndCover
bippityboppitybuttsex
So, I had my first air raid drill in PS 98 in Manhattan, they had us go into the hallway in 6th grade and one of the kids (one of those 'too mature for her age' kids) asked, 'will this protect us from the bombs?'...
And the teacher dead-eye stared at her and said, 'no, it is not supposed to, but it will protect you from the flying glass...'
40+ years later... I still remember that line.
AtmaDarkwolf
Annnnd at this point, most are HOPING to die in such a graceful and quick merciful way, but know, sadly, we will get to enjoy a slow, tortuous end as we bake the entire earth away, just so that a few rich dudes don't get sad.
MyLastAccountWasShadowbanned
Well, I didn't burn in nuclear fire, but got wet in fallout rain, does that count? No? Yeah, that's what I thought...
bippityboppitybuttsex
Um, I had lead paint, leaded gasoline, I think we got a lead booster shot right after birth.
Szwejkowski
Two Tribes on the radio caused a lot of grey hairs.
EccentricNimoy
Franky Goes to Hollywood? https://youtu.be/pO1HC8pHZw0?si=K-U3Dx6Qcra0HqYp
Szwejkowski
Yep. I remember seeing a friend's mother go ashen at the siren sound before she realised it was just the song on the radio.
rulerofthedingdongs
You thought you were going to die in nuclear fire? I thought we were all going to die of AIDS.
TI99Kitty
bippityboppitybuttsex
I used to commute to High School in the 1980s and I remember seeing the first Village Voice on the newsstand at the 59th St. Columbus Circle platform talking about a new disease, I think it was in 1982...
Spent the back half of that decade going to funerals.
stokessd
Probably would have been called GRID back then. I was just reaching saying age then. It was an interesting time to come of age in.
bippityboppitybuttsex
I think it was something like, 'New Disease in Gay Community...' yeah, it wasn't specific, this was hyper early...
lightfoot2
Oh you're a younger boomer. Yeah there was AIDS too, God it's terrible to say "I forgot about that one"
bippityboppitybuttsex
Us GenX kids got to experience AIDS first hand, esp in NYC in the mid-late 1980s...
lightfoot2
Yep, I remember my first AIDS test. Had to go to Dr, then come back a week later. It was like wondering if you were going to have a death sentence.
TheHolyFatman
Yuuup. Ugh. I lost some friends.
IAMSRC
TheHolyFatman
Yup! Scared me shitless. I was 9
TI99Kitty
Is that the one that had a bunch of very realistic "news reports?" I remember one time my parents and I had gone camping, and when we came home and turned on the TV, we were seeing news reports of a nuclear strike and freaking out, until the commercial break. There was nothing on any of the other channels, then we figured out it was just a movie.
We did NOT sleep well that night.
bippityboppitybuttsex
No, that was Special Bulletin... the one with the nuke in Charleston Harbor.
WitchUndertones
My 10th grade English teacher played 1986's Threads for a bunch of 16 year old kids. Fucked me up good for a long while
bippityboppitybuttsex
That is one of those movies they said 'you should watch this' but every time I read something about it, I want to watch it less and less.
PeeterGrant
Yep, scared the living fuck out of me. Contributed to a sort of mental numbness.
bippityboppitybuttsex
It was supposed to.
GoodChange
Yeah as I remember it they talked about nuclear war on the news every single night in the late 80s
bippityboppitybuttsex
What a cool time to grow up, we went thru the time with War Games, The Day After, Special Bulletin, When the Wind Blows, The China Syndrome, Threads, By Dawn's Early Light.... good times for a child living in fear of imminent, out of the blue, death by fire and flying glass.
lightfoot2
And Dancing with Tears in my Eyes.....
bippityboppitybuttsex
I just remembered another fun one, Miracle Mile, 1988, with Anthony Edwards... dude overhears a phone call that nuclear war started, missiles are inbound and he has 70 mins... the entire movie is just a series of panics not sure if the call can be trusted, or if its real...
lightfoot2
True dat. I grew up within sight of NYC, knowing that in six minutes my life could be over at any time thanks to a SSBM. Weird how kids these days don't have to worry about that....
failsafe
They just have to worry about being shot at school
bippityboppitybuttsex
I grew up in Washington Heights (Inwood if you know the area), I knew I was within blast damage of any nuclear attack (tho, Fort Tryon Park's mountain was expected to save us from direct blast damage)... car alarms were just a background noise of the city in the 1980s.
thedudeman519
That's me baby.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Wait, were you the one with the car alarm going off all night? Also, who owns a car in Manhattan?... actually both of my parents did.... but my dad lived in Jackson Heights and had a garage.
TI99Kitty
I grew up in San Antonio. We were in the top 10 first strike cities (IIRC, we were number 3), because of all the military bases, including Lackland AFB, which was the Air Force's training base.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Yeah, we were told in elementary school that we wouldn't have to worry about a post-apocalypse, we would die in the first wave.... so, um, congrats.
dposton70
Sad how everything else got so much scarier that we forgot that we're just 6 minutes from nuclear hellfire.
itsallaboutthecones
But the advanced warning, protection systems and the continued existence of MAD make it exceptionally unlikely, does it not?
dposton70
The people who run the Doomsday Clock think it's even more likely.
Hypersonic missiles. War in the Ukraine. Putin. North Korea. Etc.
It's just that we have so much more to worry about.
SlaaneshiRightsFront
No less likely than it was for the duration of the cold war, barring a handful of close calls and potential flashpoints, really.