OT - Grumpy Old Man Thread

[betarhoalphadelta]

The movie theater might be a good example of something that HAS gotten better over time... Better picture, better sound, comfy reclining chairs and a little button to summon the wait staff to bring me another beer. 

We don't go often, but when there's something we want to see, it's a better experience than it was. 

[utee94]

The movie theater might be a good example of something that HAS gotten better over time... Better picture, better sound, comfy reclining chairs and a little button to summon the wait staff to bring me another beer.

We don't go often, but when there's something we want to see, it's a better experience than it was.

Yeah this was going to be one of my counterpoints to Catsby's initial post.  There are several things that are objectively better than they were in the "good old days" and the movie experience is one of them.

CD brings it up often but it bears repeating-- cars are vastly improved compared to 30-40 years ago.  They're more reliable, safer, more comfortable, faster for the same sized engine displacements, more fuel efficient, and all sorts of other improvements.  Sure they're more expensive, but everything is.

As far as music-- every generation complains about the "new music" being worse than what they grew up with.  But first of all, that's a subjective matter of taste.  Most people I know who are my age, just listen to the same stuff they were listening to 30 years ago.  And that's fine, listen to what you like.  I'm very much on record as being a great lover of 80s music and that's still a large portion of what I listen to.

But I also intentionally spend scores of hours every year scouring the airwaves and the internet for new music.  It's a hobby and a passion and I can tell you there is a LOT of great new music released all the time.  And one of the greatest things about now, compared to decades ago, is the access and availability of it.  No longer am I restricted to what mainstream radio or MTV clues me into.  No longer am I bound by what the record labels think will make the most money, regardless of quality.  There are now so many avenues to obtain good new music, be it recorded or live, that it's almost an embarrassment of riches.  Sure the market is more fractured and you have to search a little harder for it, but there's plenty of it out there.

I have more thoughts on all of this, I'll add more later.

[CatsbyAZ]

I don't think that it is A, in general.

I ascribe to the Sturgeon's Law
Sturgeon's Law explanation... "Ninety percent of everything is crud." And then you compare that with B, nostalgia, and we tend to have a selective memory about the past.

This is a great point that I’m glad you brought up. Taking sitcoms from my childhood, I remember watching Full House, Saved By the Bell, Family Matters, and Home Improvement. I remember liking those shows as a kid. But looking back, I admittedly watched these not because they were good but merely because they happened to be on TV after school.

In the past five years I’ve come across reruns for these shows on various digital broadcast channels, and except for Home Improvement, the other three are woefully unwatchable. If those exact shows aired today as new shows I would not get through a single episode. And the brief nostalgia you see for these shows, IMO, has more to do with scraping for "comfort watches" from the childhood era of when these shows originally aired. If they aired today as new shows, they would be soon forgotten as the 90% crude.

As far as music-- every generation complains about the "new music" being worse than what they grew up with.  But first of all, that's a subjective matter of taste.  Most people I know who are my age, just listen to the same stuff they were listening to 30 years ago.  And that's fine, listen to what you like.  I'm very much on record as being a great lover of 80s music and that's still a large portion of what I listen to.

But I also intentionally spend scores of hours every year scouring the airwaves and the internet for new music.  It's a hobby and a passion and I can tell you there is a LOT of great new music released all the time.

Music was the one art I was convinced had provably gotten worse. I’ve come across any number of commentaries pointing out how the sound of music has simplified and become less sophisticated since the 1970s. Two of the many reasons commonly cited for this are the digitization of music, putting more of the creative process through computer programs, and the rising importance of the artist’s image.