By emily
Grade: C

Oh nooooo. Vh1 has caught up and is now eulogizing a decade during which I was fully pubertal. Fuck. Does this mean that I’m old? I feel kind of torn about watching this show. On the one hand, I do indeed love the 90s. If there were a 90s oldies station (just wait!), I would totally listen to it. Pearl Jam seems great compared to the MTV bands of today. Fuck, that’s exactly the kind of thing I promised myself I would never say as an unhip old person! I am a 22 year old geezer! “Turn down that terrible noise, you little whippersnappers!” What is going on here? Setting aside the question of ‘what is up with pop culture’s general nostalgia fixation?’ for the moment (the future seems so bleak that we are seeking refuge in the past, is my best guess), I just want to talk about the giant generation gap between me and today’s teenagers.

Recently, Lolapallooza was cancelled due to total lack of interest. Some speculated
that this was because the kind of people who are young and hardy enough to tolerate sustained exposure to porta-potties (teenagers) no longer listen to the kind of bands Lolapallooza organizers had booked (good ones). Today’s teenagers comprise a generation that is officially called the ‘Millenials’ and semi-fraudulent research seems to indicate that they are more conservative than my generation – a generation, by the way, that exists only in my opinion and which I would term ‘Gen X’s little sister who was always trying to tag along with her.’ Hmm, maybe I need a catchier name. Back to those Millennials, though -- William Strauss and Neil Howe, authors of Millennials Rising, call today’s young adults "America’s new conformists," observing that they "believe in security rather than radicalism, political order rather than social emancipation, collective responsibility rather than personal expression."

This may or may not be the case, but regardless, it seems probable (judging from TRL). So I'm just going to go with the assumption that everyone born after 1981 is generally brainwashed and sucky. During their formative music-tastes years, they were being assaulted by boy bands and Britney, which has somehow predisposed them towards Republicanism and overproduced faux-emo now. I have this horrible suspicion that they are watching Vh1 I love the 90s and making fun of how dumb the 90s were! And so am I, but they are not allowed to. It’s like how no one is allowed to call your mom a bitch but you.

Conclusion: I love the 90s so much that I wish we were still living in the 90s, back when Vh1 played bad music videos and not clip shows designed to make young people feel ancient and weary.