Lol, well, if we go by that standard, then we can all ride the coat tails of the soldiers of every generation who were drafted to fight someone else’s war. My country, per capita, were the country to lose the most men in Afghanistan. I have friends who went to Afghanistan and their experiences were varied.

But my point still stands: the bad in every generation came in intervals and affected groups differently. A lot of boomers had nothing to do with Vietnam just like a lot of Gen X and millennials had nothing to do with Iraq and Afghanistan.

But we all had slower lives and we did get to be relatively protected in childhood from the worst of the news out there.

In this day and age, youths and children are bombarded woth the most heinous shit 24/7 and it is everything, everywhere, all at once.

None of the prior generations have had back to back to back terrible world events happening like the youths of today have. We all live through it, but most of us are old enough and hardened enough by life that we deal with it.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that anxiety among children and youths today has sky rocketed. And it isn’t just news, it is also the negative effects of social media and that whole psychosis and how it distorts and perverts identity and self love nowadays.

There is no contest. It is not remotely anything our generations had to deal with.

And yeah, we can make a ton of whataboutisms where we pick out minority groups who went to war or were brought up in war torn countries. That has happened and will happen always.

But none of us old facts had the perversion of current day internet to deal with on top of intervals of this and that crisis and none of us had to deal with all our generations’ crises all at the same time over the span of a few years. That is what I’m saying. We simply cannot imagine what it is like for the young ones today because their world is so far removed from the world we grew up in.

I am a millennial, neither an old or a young millennial, but an in the middle one. I grew up in a world without internet and had myself introduced to the world wide web in my teens. My childhood and teen hood is still much closer to that of a boomer’s childhood and teen hood than it is the kids and teens today. I cannot comprehend what childhood even looks like or feels like for kids today. All I know is that anxiety and body image issues and thoughts of world problems have sprung from the mouths of kindergarteners and that is not something I have seen to this extent ever before.

The goofy part about this type of generational cock contest meme is that we all live through it together. Every generation alive has gone through horrific shit and every generation has gone through periods of peace. Some for longer than others.

I’m a millennial and I have been pretty lucky if I may say so myself. Compared to what young people and kids go through today, us older generations had it good.

Yes, our times of youth also brought on wars and economic struggles and what not, but they came in intervals.

Nowadays it is all happening at the same time and at lightening speed.

And us peeps, boomers, Gen X and millennials sit here all smug about it, like we went through ANYTHING comparable to what young people go through today.

We had it good. We are lucky to all be in our 30s and up during this stretch of history. I feel for the youths of today. They are the ones going through some shit in their formative years.

The 2020s are happening to all of us, but the kids of today have way more worries thrust upon them than any of us old fucks ever did.

I vote for “the screaming twenties” to be the official name for this decade. Brilliant.

If you were concerned, then why not send a private message instead? “Not trying to be rude”, sure. Sounds like you’re trying to intimidate. Maybe you shouldn’t do that.

I mean, if it was posted when millennials were young, it is still not at all accurate.

True. It is not a boomer who made that meme. It is either a troll or yet another bitter Gen X.

When the fuck do we get to retire from the “young and stupid” category?

Also, I had red eyes in most photos from my child- and teenhood. I spent a lot of money on film in my teens before I got my first phone with a proper camera in 2007.

Next you’re gonna condescendingly explain what a floppy disc or a cassette tape is too? Even Gen z is old enough to know about those.

But nuance is hard and demands empathy which is also hard. I want to be angry-mad and stomp my feet!

Reminds me of how millennials and generations onward have learned less and less maintainence skills to the point where most of us can’t sow or fix shit if it’s broken because we grew up in a consumer culture where you just buy a new one when the old one breaks. The quality of products have decreased too so they break quicker which gives people incentive to buy a new one instead of fixing.

My parents generation hold on to old items and they patch up their clothes and know how to fix shit around the house but they didn’t teach me any of that because the culture shifted and it wasn’t really needed.

We are not only losing skills and tactile learning and understanding, we are also rapidly torpedoing out planet into a massive trash heap. Which is a bit of a duh, I know, but still.

I for one have noticed the insane decline in the quality of clothes after covid. It is shockingly shitty now and tears faster than ever. Shirts and leggings I bought ten years ago still hold up while similar shirts and leggings from a few years ago already tear or unravel. It is shocking. I guess this is what will eventually happen to art too.

For real. My preferred forum was closed I’m 2015 after 13 years active. Facebook killed it. I will never understand why people chose Facebook over that forum. You could blog and post pictures and chat with people in peace and quiet without having to deal with the entire world looking in on your cringe teenage angst.

Generally, I just remember how all these forums and blogsites that used to make up the internet were pretty much dead and gone by 2017. The art community went from having good platforms like Tumblr and deviantart to having to deal with the nightmare that is Instagram and Twitter. There still hasn’t been a good alternative to artists posting their artwork since Instagram took over. It was a shittification then and it has only gotten worse since. But people now have grown up with this bullshit and therefore they don’t question or demand better. They don’t know what it used to be like to be an artist online. It was fun and inspiring. AI slob hasn’t helped the matter either.

Totally agree! I’m not 100% opposed to your idea, I’m just not a good sales person so if I tried to convince people on Facebook to move away from that platform, I would most likely end up being seen as a conspiracy theorist or something like that.

Before I left facebook I did post a comment in my feed where I announced I’d be leaving Facebook within a certain time frame and that people could find me this and that place, at this or that email and on the phone if they had my number. Wrote a bit about why I had had enough of Facebook, didn’t make it political, but focused instead on how Facebook no longer felt like a place where I could interact with family and friends, but more like an advertisement platform where I may be lucky to see one or two posts from people I care about inbetween an endless scroll of ads and brainrot content.

My biggest surprise was how quick some of my friends were to reach out to keep in contact and some were eager to move to Signal so we could still talk conveniently in the future (lets face it, text isnt always the most convenient communication form lol). That was a surprise because I literally thought no one would care that I left.

I will do my best to share things like Signal and the European alternatives with people I care about irl and leave the online convincing to the pros xD I could probably spread the word about feddit on reddit since I haven’t deleted my profile yet, just the app. I feel like reddit would be more open to this since more people on there are invested in online communities unlike most people on Meta who just use those platforms to connect with people they know irl already.

Too late for me haha. I already went off the grid. I think over time I will talk friends into using things like Signal and with family I’ll just let them know how and why I left Meta. Almost no one I know uses reddit or even know it exists so it wouldn’t make sense trying to pull them onto Feddit.

Most of my family members use Meta platforms and are generally indifferent to the problems with that. It is easy and convenient for them and I don’t think they care all that much about it. As far as I know, I am the only one in my family who is “terminally online” for better or worse and most of my family members have a very superficial relationship with the internet - for better or worse. I will only say something about why I left, how I left and what alternatives are if it ever comes up at family gatherings. No one wants to listen to someone who’s trying to push something on them, so casually talking about the hows and why’s I did this and that will be my strategy.

The only one in my family who has always been based (if that word is still okay to use) is my dad. He has been ahead of his time with almost every single issue we all deal with today. Environment, politics, social media, you name it. He told us all super early when Facebook was still new that he wanted no pictures of him on that thing because you never know what they will use people’s information for. He regularly sends me pictures over MMS of articles about current events and today he sent me a list of american products to boykot. I still believe the most important American products to boykot is social medias and not coca cola, toothpaste and body wash. Sure those products are american originally, but they are produced locally by local companies with a license so we would probably hurt local businesses more than american businesses by boycotting them.

Online platforms however, is directly given and monitored by America and leaving them would take away Zuckerburger’s, Bezo’s, Musk’s and Pichai’s power. And by extension America’s power. They have an almost monopoly on the internet today, have discouraged us from seeking and destroyed the growth possibilities for other platforms. In that sende I am grateful for Trump that he is such an insufferable cunt that some of us has finally had enough.

I think, though, that the change will have to happen organically. I will rather talk with friends and family about it irl than return to Meta and play missionary for people who either don’t care or don’t understand what is actually happening right now. I believe the big shift will happen among the youths. They are the future of the internet after all, and they already have made the move to walk away from American platforms and are mostly on tiktok today. I’m sure that if they find that there are other alternatives that restrict them less and allows them to create and speak their minds without massive censorship, they will go there. I have faith in the youth.