Stuff That Makes You Feel Old

[schteve_d]

I caught up with an old high school buddy while I was on holidays in Kelowna this summer. Once we started talking about when we last saw each other it was a "HOLY POOP" moment!

Also I'm getting really tired of picking little white hairs out of my goatee! Really tired of it.

Oh well, getting older sucks but it's definately better than the alternative!

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by BurningYears

I'm not even that old, but when checking ID's for Alcohol and seeing 1993 soon to be 1994 being the legal age. damn I was in Elementry when you were born.

damn i was in high school when you were in elementary and they were born!!!

I only date girls with 1989 birthdates as a tribute to the flames - makes me feel young~

[return to the red]

The other day my co-worker (24 years old) and I were talking about Guns 'N Roses. Little ####### insisted the band formed in the 70's because they had been around "forever". The conversation came because we were talking about what we used to listen to in the dressing room and I mentioned Appetite for Destruction.

Also it was recently pointed out to me that in a few years the girls entering university will be half my age

[Barnet Flame]

Was in Dublin airport a few years back when I saw Joe Elliot and Phil Collen seemingly being hassled by a teenage fan. Then I remembered, Def Leppard don't have teenage fans. Just middle aged farts like me.

Turns out it was Phil Collen's son.

Saw Def Leppard a few years later, Cheap Trick were the support and it was an awesome night.

[Cowboy89]

It doesn't really suck that much getting older, as long as you evolve with age. Every so often just for fun I go out and do things I liked doing when I was 18-24, and typically realize that my interests have evolved past doing those things and no longer care, or they are more awesome than I remember when I was 18-24 because I have the scratch to enjoy them more!

[username]

I know I'm getting old because I almost qualify for the "over 35 divisions" in rec hockey. I can remember talking with my buddies about how bad those divisions must be with all those old people playing in them.

Damn.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Deelow

Next week is the 20th Anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind...and this dude is the naked baby...

Man when Smells Like Teen Spirit came out on the radio what a game changer.

[Cowperson]

I was teaching a class of Grade 9's in Junior Achievement once when I realized they were all born in the same year I graduated from High School. . . . . . . which made me feel old at the time.

And today, in recalling that story for this thread, it's occurred to me those Grade 9 students are now in their mid-thirties.

Time flies . . . .

Cowperson

[Table 5]

This upcoming winter semester I'm going to be teaching in the same program that I graduated from what only seems like a couple of years ago.

If I would've known then that their hiring standards were so low, I would've taken my money elsewhere....

[Itse]

I've never really felt those "wow I didn't realize it was that far back" moments, maybe I'm just good at keeping track of time.

Except it's really freaky that wife and I have been together for 10+ years. I remember both of us feeling like battlescarred veterans of life at that point. Oh how young we were... (Although to be fair, life has been better=easier in many ways since.)

However, I re-entered the Helsinki university 10+ years after the last time, and while I don't actually feel that different from the younglings in general (and mostly they are pretty shocked to hear how much older I am, which I take as a compliment), I feel ancient when sometimes every other thing I say refers to events and things that happened when the kids around me were, well, smaller kids

Propably the one thing that sort of weirds me out is this, as it touches close to my heart.

In the early nineties, which was propably the last time this situation existed, peopl who were seriously into rock could and often would know more or less all the classics starting from the sixties (at least by name) and have an opinion on most bands that were even remotely commercially significant at that time. There really weren't that many. There was a store in Helsinki about the size of my bedroom that had pretty much everything you needed to reach that level of knowledge and plenty more. That common ground is now unreachable, there is just too much going on all the time and even the sphere of classics has grown huge. This point was actually reached quite some time ago, but I still find it an odd how we've reached a point of no-return in that.

The Rock Police with All The Right Opinions are replaced with hipsters who mostly just talk out of their butts and don't actually know much anything.

Also, albums seem to be a bit of an fuzzy concept to kids these days. It's bands and songs that matter, not albums.

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by fotze

Speaking of decrepit old ball bags, where is Reggie Dunlop lately?

Bunch of rabid Oiler fans finally caught up with him?

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by Itse

In the early nineties, which was propably the last time this situation existed, peopl who were seriously into rock could and often would know more or less all the classics starting from the sixties (at least by name) and have an opinion on most bands that were even remotely commercially significant at that time. There really weren't that many.

Rock existed but 50 years if you start counting from the Beatles. If you started out in the 90s, all the 80s stuff should be current to you and you only needed to go back 20 years in the 70s and 60s which you mentioned there weren't that many to catch up on the "classics".

If you started out now, you would need to catch up on classics like Nirvana Peal Jam or even go transatlantic to Blur/Radioheads/Smiths/Joy Division ... which is a huge undertaking in comparison.

It is inevitable you witness this. If you look at classical music which spans a few centuries, eventually, something less important will just die and be forgotten and only the Beethovan/Bach/Mozart remain.

So I predict the Stones/Beatles/Pink Floyd/Clapton will remain relevant in 100 years but the lesser acts like Police/Dire Straits/Pearl Jam/Soundgarden that were once creme of the crop of their generation will fall into obscurity.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Rock existed but 50 years if you start counting from the Beatles. If you started out in the 90s, all the 80s stuff should be current to you and you only needed to go back 20 years in the 70s and 60s which you mentioned there weren't that many to catch up on the "classics".

If you started out now, you would need to catch up on classics like Nirvana Peal Jam or even go transatlantic to Blur/Radioheads/Smiths/Joy Division ... which is a huge undertaking in comparison.

It is inevitable you witness this. If you look at classical music which spans a few centuries, eventually, something less important will just die and be forgotten and only the Beethovan/Bach/Mozart remain.

So I predict the Stones/Beatles/Pink Floyd/Clapton will remain relevant in 100 years but the lesser acts like Police/Dire Straits/Pearl Jam/Soundgarden that were once creme of the crop of their generation will fall into obscurity.

I disagree with many of your points, although the basic point that there's just so much more music is obviously true. It's not even just a factor of time, it's simply that there is insanely more music coming out these days than there used to be. (Also btw I'm from Finland, so the nationality of music outside of Finland has never had much significance here, English or American is equally foreign )

As to classics in general, first I'd like to say that I'm guessing Clapton has all but fallen into obscurity already in the under thirty crowd, and the Stones are so much more about the phenomenon than the music that I think they'll be gone surprisingly fast after they stop touring. But that's kind of besides the point. Also, surprisingly many people NOW have only a very vague idea that there was a band called the Beatles.

Most importantly, I think the whole idea of "classics" in the traditional sense is going away to some extent. To start with there are already too many classics for it to mean much, and more are coming every day. It's not just that time has brought more of them, but also more bands and artists have come back from obscurity through re-releases and some have even reached classic status in some genre.

Also, kids don't identify themselves as strongly through music. Everyone listens to different things, mostly depending on the context. Listening to a genre is not a personal statement as much as it used to be, it's mostly just music, and genrecrossing is so common that it doesn't even mean anything anymore. (There's plenty of studies on this subject actually.) This lessens the personal significance of classics (as classics tend to be more or less genre speficic), and through that the cultural need for classics.

Music is also becoming more detached from time. As a part of the digital revolution in music, it doesn't really matter anymore when music was made, everything is equally available and equally current.

In the last century music was still a scarce resource. When bands went out of style they were gone; after their albums made the rounds in the "used" bins, most bands were gone for good. That has changed. Bands long gone have had their albums re-released, they have new fanpages and new fans, and they're on Spotify and Pirate Bay.

To put it bluntly; in the digital age, everything that was, is, and will forever be. So it used to be that music history moved forward simply because what was available kept changing. Now the amount of music available just keeps expanding. It used to be that "classic" meant a very concrete thing: availability. Now it's just a label you either attach to something or you don't.

I'd also like to add here that were only seeing the beginning of the digital revolution in culture, but I think it's clear it will radically change the way culture is seen and consumed. Music has already been touched by it, and books, movies and television will all follow. (Only thing that's slowing it is old people making laws and running companies and courts, who have no idea what's happening and completely fail to wrap their heads around it all.)

It's already clear that the television is something very different these days than what it used to be and in a decade I think the traditional concept of television will be pretty much gone, as shows will no longer be "aired", but instead they will be "released".

I just bought my first television (I've had TV's before, but none that I have bought myself), and I think it might very well also by my last.

[Chump]

Originally Posted by Itse

As to classics in general, first I'd like to say that I'm guessing Clapton has all but fallen into obscurity already in the under thirty crowd, and the Stones are so much more about the phenomenon than the music that I think they'll be gone surprisingly fast after they stop touring. But that's kind of besides the point. Also, surprisingly many people NOW have only a very vague idea that there was a band called the Beatles.

I'm 23 and pretty much everyone I know knows who Clapton is and lots of us including myself listen to his music fairly regularly.

[iggnuef]

Hangovers last for days!!

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by Itse

Also, kids don't identify themselves as strongly through music. Everyone listens to different things, mostly depending on the context. Listening to a genre is not a personal statement as much as it used to be, it's mostly just music, and genrecrossing is so common that it doesn't even mean anything anymore. (There's plenty of studies on this subject actually.) This lessens the personal significance of classics (as classics tend to be more or less genre speficic), and through that the cultural need for classics.

Music used to be a generation identification marker. But after a few iterations, this trend stopped progressing. My kid can't outdo me anymore, someone who knew about Jim Morrison, touched by Ian Curtis and lived through Kurt Cobain. They can't use music to seperate their generation from mine.

So yes, you are right, musical taste stopped being a personal statement right after the death of Kurt Cobain. Even back in the 90s, someone said it is cooler for kids to turn on the computer and play Doom than it is to buy new music.

[WhiteTiger]

What really made me feel old?

A couple years back my wife bought me a copy of "Transformers:The Movie", the original cartoon movie. It was the 20th Anniversary edition, and it was a couple years after THAT release date.

Yeah, I felt pretty old right then...

[ranchlandsselling]

I remember about 5 years ago lying in the sack with some broad I met on a dating website. Somehow I mentioned guns and roses - she had no idea who I was talking about... I felt old... and awesome

[Sr. Mints]

When I get a doctor who looks 22, or one of my regular doctors sends in one of his doctorlings to do my checkup, I feel ancient.

Doctors are supposed to be older than you. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it's supposed to work.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Music used to be a generation identification marker. But after a few iterations, this trend stopped progressing. My kid can't outdo me anymore, someone who knew about Jim Morrison, touched by Ian Curtis and lived through Kurt Cobain. They can't use music to seperate their generation from mine.

So yes, you are right, musical taste stopped being a personal statement right after the death of Kurt Cobain. Even back in the 90s, someone said it is cooler for kids to turn on the computer and play Doom than it is to buy new music.

While I think you're timing it about right, I'd like to point out that kids that want to listen to "my dad thinks this is incomprehensible crap and intolerable noise" still have stuff to turn to.

I'm pretty open with my tastes, but that J-rock noise/pop stuff... I hate the music and I'm sort of freaked out by the whole package that goes with it. J-rock kids in Helsinki recently organized a Lolita-badminton tournament. I have to say that kind of weirded me out. I don't get the dolls either. Why the hell would 16-year old girls waiting in line for Motörhead tickets want dolls dressed in those japanese dresses standing on the pavement in front of them?