New APPS

My generation inherited from the Baby Boomers the bizarre idea that one of the most important things about you was the bands you like. This is actually not that weird, since it's just one more instance of the late capitalist Boomer belief that people are to be classified in terms of what they consume (as opposed to the traditional classifications in terms of origins, beliefs, and activities). So I can attain a certain kind of quasi-religious purity if I shop at all of the right stores and recycle, no matter that me doing these things will make no difference at all to the state of the world, no matter that this ideology legitimates the very problems from which our virtuous consumption is supposed to be absolving us.

Nonetheless, we are all creatures of our age. I have a blue Burberry raincoat with a tear in the front left pocket. One of the stupidest thing I do is tell colleagues, "at least it's not the shoulder," and then judge them harshly when they don't get the reference (nobody I work with has yet).

The embedded video is almost perfect for this dysfunction as applied to Generation X. I.R.S. The Cutting Edge! RE/Search magazine! If Nirvana had stayed safely on the pages of Maximumrocknroll magazine and if you still had these small bookstores with every issue of Semiotext(e) the Millenials never would have happened.

The internet has almost certainly undermined the Boomer/Gen X conceit. When it's less work to dig out various bits of culture, there's less pride in being in the know. If this is true, then Millennials will experience nostalgia in a completely different manner than Baby Boomers and Gen Exers. Maybe more of them will define themselves in terms of the media they create (no matter if their youtube channel never gets any hits) and less in terms of the media they consume.

Oh well, the last time we saw this guy he looked so much older. . .

Very strange to be nostalgic about artists who take nostalgia for their subject matter.