I'm going to sound like an old man, but I'm really concerned for kids these days. I feel that, when I was a kid/teen, peak masculinity was Son Goku. Now it's Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan. :(
I'm going to sound like an old man, but I'm really concerned for kids these days.
I feel that, when I was a kid/teen, peak masculinity was Son Goku. Now it's Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.
Eat your ginzu beans and train hard at King Kai's to redeem yourself after a whopping, not traffic underage girls in Romania. Yeah, times have changed.
Eat your ginzu beans and train hard at King Kai's to redeem yourself after a whopping, not traffic underage girls in Romania.
When I was young, parents were concerned about kids watching Power Rangers because they're punching putty patrol and monsters all the time. They thought working with your teen friends to vanquish...
When I was young, parents were concerned about kids watching Power Rangers because they're punching putty patrol and monsters all the time. They thought working with your teen friends to vanquish evil wasn't wholesome. Meanwhile, they let us watch Card Captors Sakura (glorification of adult - child relationships plural) and other much crazier anime with no oversight and no commentary because it's cartoons that look like it's for girls.
But, while there's always been worry for the next gen, there's never been more money at stake and more algorithmic targeting so yes I would say these are tough times.
I would balance the worry with 2 things:
(1) Kids are pretty smart. They can smell grift maybe even better than us sometimes.
(2) It's up to us to provide better role models if we don't like what they see.
Going back to (1), if the adults are pushing for wealth and success and flaunting materialistic goods and shallow fame, then for sure the kids will aim for that "successful" lifestyle. When the adults can demonstrate helping the less privileged, prioritize community support, and show appreciation for people who don't look like what they're selling, the appeal will fade once the kids get over the edginess of being able to choose media.
Similarly when I was young, DBZ and Pokémon were off the table (the former because of all the fighting, the second because it had been deemed "demonic" on internet mom forums), when in reality on...
Similarly when I was young, DBZ and Pokémon were off the table (the former because of all the fighting, the second because it had been deemed "demonic" on internet mom forums), when in reality on average the content of just about any Don Bluth animated movie (which were all a-ok and got rewatched countless times) had more edge to it than either.
Fully agreed on #2. Good role models haven't had spotlight positions in commercial media in quite some time, and I don't know if they've ever had them in small/independent media (YouTube, etc). I attribute this largely to the culture of cynical indifference that has throughly taken root. Kindness and consideration are now binned as idealistic fantasy or even deception.
Another reason why bad role models have become popular is due to how much more difficult it's become to achieve a modicum of financial success. What used to be average is no longer average and increasingly out of reach, which I believe encourages a selfish, everyone for themselves, money-driven materialist mindset due to the sense of scarcity it creates — when the gulf is so wide, it starts to look like the only path to "success" is through doing whatever it takes, including discarding common decency and stepping on anybody within reach.
Totally get the demonic thing. We weren't allowed to watch Care Bears or Smurfs, or really anything with any kind of magic in it. Makes me with my parents had been more the LOTR-nerd type of...
Totally get the demonic thing. We weren't allowed to watch Care Bears or Smurfs, or really anything with any kind of magic in it. Makes me with my parents had been more the LOTR-nerd type of Christian.
Ugh yes good point, that when times are (artificially!!!) tough, kindness became more zero sum, life is more cut throat and folks begin to see others as competitors (on Hunger Games) instead of...
Ugh yes good point, that when times are (artificially!!!) tough, kindness became more zero sum, life is more cut throat and folks begin to see others as competitors (on Hunger Games) instead of neighbours and friends.
I hadn't heard of Pokemon being moral panicked, but honestly not surprised anything can be called demonic to some circles. Anything with the word Magic was suspect, but again magical girls are somehow okay, go figure.
What you said makes me sad that this is yet another way the ultra wealthy has extracted from wider society: they've extracted kindness and decency
I feel like this is the opposite. In many ways, the turn to cynicism is a reaction to corporate "PC culture", for lack of a better term. An example is how Gen Z considers Hamilton to be cringe...
What you said makes me sad that this is yet another way the ultra wealthy has extracted from wider society: they've extracted kindness and decency
I feel like this is the opposite. In many ways, the turn to cynicism is a reaction to corporate "PC culture", for lack of a better term. An example is how Gen Z considers Hamilton to be cringe now.
It's no surprise that the manosphere is mostly independent creators.
If you'll excuse the tangent, which version of Cardcaptor Sakura did you see as a kid? Because in the US the show had a pretty horribly bowdlerized version simply titled "Cardcaptors" that I would...
If you'll excuse the tangent, which version of Cardcaptor Sakura did you see as a kid? Because in the US the show had a pretty horribly bowdlerized version simply titled "Cardcaptors" that I would be amazed if any of the more troublesome aspects get through simply because of how much they left on the cutting room floor.
But on the other hands, the US version of Sailor Moon did introduce us to incest lesbians, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised to be wrong here.
Japanese language with subs version. :P Sakura's mom married her highschool teacher at 16; Kaho, a middle school teacher, "had a relationship" with Sakura's teen brother some years before the...
Japanese language with subs version. :P
Sakura's mom married her highschool teacher at 16; Kaho, a middle school teacher, "had a relationship" with Sakura's teen brother some years before the series started; the classmate, Rika, is TEN years old and "in a relationship" with their elementary school teacher.
If my parents had been monitoring my anime consumption, they'd find more troubling series, of course. But yeah at first blush, characters are clothed, there isn't overt gore, they wouldn't have been able to spot problems from a passing glance.
Sailormoon is funny because Haruka (Uranus) and Michiru (Neptune) are so obviously all over each other well beyond how regular cousins behave; and also that cousin marriages are extremely common throughout history (I wouldn't call it incest).
Oh and speaking of close cousins, Sakura's aunty Sonomi is absolutely besotted with Sakura's mom, and Sakura's bestie and second cousin Tomoyo feels the same about Sakura.
Maybe these not totally cis not totally hetrero relationships have paved the way for many millennial having less horrific views of same sex relationships. Haruka is at least gender fluid, judging by choice of first person pronouns and not correcting others who refer to her with masculine pronouns. I remember being quite young, reading the manga, and loving the cozy little family when they took care of reincarnated toddler Hotaru, and she referred to them as Papa Haruka and Mama Michiru. I also want to imagine Setsuna (Pluto) as being also involved whenever she swings by.
I'd only add that we also now have major media corporations (YouTube et al) that are complicit in pushing these dangerous ideals because it makes them money to do so.
I'd only add that we also now have major media corporations (YouTube et al) that are complicit in pushing these dangerous ideals because it makes them money to do so.
I'm going to sound like an old man, but I'm really concerned for kids these days.
I feel that, when I was a kid/teen, peak masculinity was Son Goku. Now it's Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.
:(
Eat your ginzu beans and train hard at King Kai's to redeem yourself after a whopping, not traffic underage girls in Romania.
Yeah, times have changed.
When I was young, parents were concerned about kids watching Power Rangers because they're punching putty patrol and monsters all the time. They thought working with your teen friends to vanquish evil wasn't wholesome. Meanwhile, they let us watch Card Captors Sakura (glorification of adult - child relationships plural) and other much crazier anime with no oversight and no commentary because it's cartoons that look like it's for girls.
But, while there's always been worry for the next gen, there's never been more money at stake and more algorithmic targeting so yes I would say these are tough times.
I would balance the worry with 2 things:
(1) Kids are pretty smart. They can smell grift maybe even better than us sometimes.
(2) It's up to us to provide better role models if we don't like what they see.
Going back to (1), if the adults are pushing for wealth and success and flaunting materialistic goods and shallow fame, then for sure the kids will aim for that "successful" lifestyle. When the adults can demonstrate helping the less privileged, prioritize community support, and show appreciation for people who don't look like what they're selling, the appeal will fade once the kids get over the edginess of being able to choose media.
Similarly when I was young, DBZ and Pokémon were off the table (the former because of all the fighting, the second because it had been deemed "demonic" on internet mom forums), when in reality on average the content of just about any Don Bluth animated movie (which were all a-ok and got rewatched countless times) had more edge to it than either.
Fully agreed on #2. Good role models haven't had spotlight positions in commercial media in quite some time, and I don't know if they've ever had them in small/independent media (YouTube, etc). I attribute this largely to the culture of cynical indifference that has throughly taken root. Kindness and consideration are now binned as idealistic fantasy or even deception.
Another reason why bad role models have become popular is due to how much more difficult it's become to achieve a modicum of financial success. What used to be average is no longer average and increasingly out of reach, which I believe encourages a selfish, everyone for themselves, money-driven materialist mindset due to the sense of scarcity it creates — when the gulf is so wide, it starts to look like the only path to "success" is through doing whatever it takes, including discarding common decency and stepping on anybody within reach.
Totally get the demonic thing. We weren't allowed to watch Care Bears or Smurfs, or really anything with any kind of magic in it. Makes me with my parents had been more the LOTR-nerd type of Christian.
Ugh yes good point, that when times are (artificially!!!) tough, kindness became more zero sum, life is more cut throat and folks begin to see others as competitors (on Hunger Games) instead of neighbours and friends.
I hadn't heard of Pokemon being moral panicked, but honestly not surprised anything can be called demonic to some circles. Anything with the word Magic was suspect, but again magical girls are somehow okay, go figure.
What you said makes me sad that this is yet another way the ultra wealthy has extracted from wider society: they've extracted kindness and decency
I feel like this is the opposite. In many ways, the turn to cynicism is a reaction to corporate "PC culture", for lack of a better term. An example is how Gen Z considers Hamilton to be cringe now.
It's no surprise that the manosphere is mostly independent creators.
If you'll excuse the tangent, which version of Cardcaptor Sakura did you see as a kid? Because in the US the show had a pretty horribly bowdlerized version simply titled "Cardcaptors" that I would be amazed if any of the more troublesome aspects get through simply because of how much they left on the cutting room floor.
But on the other hands, the US version of Sailor Moon did introduce us to incest lesbians, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised to be wrong here.
Japanese language with subs version. :P
Sakura's mom married her highschool teacher at 16; Kaho, a middle school teacher, "had a relationship" with Sakura's teen brother some years before the series started; the classmate, Rika, is TEN years old and "in a relationship" with their elementary school teacher.
If my parents had been monitoring my anime consumption, they'd find more troubling series, of course. But yeah at first blush, characters are clothed, there isn't overt gore, they wouldn't have been able to spot problems from a passing glance.
Sailormoon is funny because Haruka (Uranus) and Michiru (Neptune) are so obviously all over each other well beyond how regular cousins behave; and also that cousin marriages are extremely common throughout history (I wouldn't call it incest).
Oh and speaking of close cousins, Sakura's aunty Sonomi is absolutely besotted with Sakura's mom, and Sakura's bestie and second cousin Tomoyo feels the same about Sakura.
Maybe these not totally cis not totally hetrero relationships have paved the way for many millennial having less horrific views of same sex relationships. Haruka is at least gender fluid, judging by choice of first person pronouns and not correcting others who refer to her with masculine pronouns. I remember being quite young, reading the manga, and loving the cozy little family when they took care of reincarnated toddler Hotaru, and she referred to them as Papa Haruka and Mama Michiru. I also want to imagine Setsuna (Pluto) as being also involved whenever she swings by.
Hot take: Theres plenty of male role models its just that the bottom barrel actual trash content is always the most popular cause humans gonna human
I'd only add that we also now have major media corporations (YouTube et al) that are complicit in pushing these dangerous ideals because it makes them money to do so.