I'm over 40 and struggling not to conclude life on this planet peaked 30 years ago
The 90s were seriously such a bop.
The Matrix was right.
At this point we can only hope the Matrix is real and they reset this simulation soon because what we're seeing are the side effects from the uprising outside.
9/11 was suppose to be the reset point, but the simulation kept running for some reason.
You might even call it an Mmmbop.
If you were a kid in the 90s, sure. Your parents shielded you from all the chaos.
The 90s also had terrorism (IRA, WTC bombing, German and French hijackings, Israeli settler massacre, sarin gas attack in Japan, Oklahoma City bombing, bombings of US service members in Saudi Arabia, PKK suicide bombers in Turkey, Dagestan bombing in Russia (possibly a Putin-orchestrated false flag)). It had the ongoing AIDS epidemic, which was terrifying. It had the first Gulf war. It had the LA riots of 1992. It had the columbine shooting.
It's much worse today
The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.
Put a bird on it.
Yep. It peaked right around Ronnie Reagan's sell-out to the wealthy. If folks want a better quality of life they will have to take it back from the rich.
I remember agreeing with that back in 2021 when it was posted, and now, well...
I landed a job a job at a company that’s circling the drain, I feel like a parasite feeding off a host until it’s gone and I move to a new one
I'm a public librarian. Just dreading the day we are defunded. They’ve already attacked our national orgs.
Maybe this varies geographically, but our town's libraries are directly funded by the town. We recently improved a millage for renovations. I hope they would be pretty insulated from... sillyness.
Most libraries also have significant federal funding, and rely on resources maintained with federal funding, even if state and local funding is higher
Absolutely know the feeling
When I quit a few years ago are my last employer, I was thinking, I'm the rat leaving the sinking ship
Fucking card house still hasn't collapsed somehow and old employer is now my main customer.
So...not much changed, besides that I don't have much security anymore
But hey! Illusion of freedom, when being self employed! ;-)
A while ago, I was talking to my mum and offhandedly said that I'd have to move north at some point in my life, due to climate change. For me, that's just a given, with record hottest summers coming in regularly and current summers already incapacitating me for weeks at a time.
But my mum's reaction was basically "What's this about now?". She's lived in her childhood town or close-by for basically her whole life. And she's old enough that she doesn't have to worry about the aftermath. But yeah, that was still brutal, how different our realities were in that regard.
The Upper Peninsula is starting to look quite nice this time of year...
Not just those under 40.
Plenty of my gen X friends have come to accept that they will never retire like the boomers. A lot of millennials never thought they would.
Well, interestingly, gen z men are the Trumpiest demographic:
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/11/american-gen-z-podcasts-trump-harris
I guess the meme still holds true, but their concerns about the future are very different. TBH I can totally understand them becoming disillusioned with other old politicians following old voters who will just “do nothing at let it all happen.”
This is the saddiest shit ever. Young men being angry at the « Men » will vote for the men that will sold them to the bone mill in a heart beat.
There’s a Turkish proverb : and the forest vote for the axe because they where made of the same wood
I know a surprisingly large amount of MAGA/Trump adjacent fans because of my type of work.
They may not like Trump’s antics. But to them, the Democrats aren’t helping THEM. Remember that lack of empathy?
Unless they make 6 figures that point is true though. Not that Trump is going to help them either. But at least he pretends to care about them, whereas the Democrats outright said that their life reality of rising prices and stagnating wages is fake because the stock market is making new record bubble numbers.
At this point, it's gotta be in the high six-figures with the decades of unending price gouging.
Who are the positive role models? Weve got all these young guys watching sniveling cucks like andrew taint
It's easy to paint a picture on a blank canvas.
Hell, I'm 46 and it's really hard to not be cynical these days. I want to believe there's still good people out there but I run into so many assholes.
I'm also 40 something. Oh for the dizzy optimism of the 90s...
I will forever seethe that I missed out on the 1990s, especially considering how IT was a money printer back then & the rave scene was top notch. I just about caught the tail end of the old internet as well, even that has gone to complete corporate dogshit.
And owning a house wasnt a Pipedream : (
I think they've got it the wrong way around. The under 40s have a chance of rebuilding after the war. Yes, there are hard times ahead but they are young enough to come out on the other side.
At 49, I'm quite sure I either won't make it through the coming storm at all or at least won't be able to enjoy the aftermath for long once things get better again.
The under 40s are going to be the ones fighting the wars, as always. Even if there is an other side for humanity after what's coming, no one alive today will ever have a peaceful life ever again.
I'll take prison or a bullet to the head before I decide to fight for a nation that has pulled the rug out from underneath me.
I hope more young people see it this way, maybe we'll actually get to a point where we can watch all these leaders duke it out in person because no one will fight for them
In my 30s, feel the same way. Why would I offer myself to the meat grinder for a nation that bitches about me all the time?
My parents just stopped watching the news about anything and just sit thinking everything will be okay. Its starting to get difficult to have a relationship with them because they are so out of touch with reality. They even go to protests but for them its just a thing to go do because they're not doing anything else. They have zero understanding of any of the reasons they're happening other than trump bad.
Idk man, I’d kill just to have mine agree on the trump bad part. You do you, but tuning out our shit news cycle is low on the offense scale for me. It can be much worse.
My Mom is so disappointed that my kids are not active, do not goto protests. She wants to leave a better world for them but is no longer able to help make that happen, so needs to see her grandchildren turn the world around.
At this point we have to contend with small wins like Die Linke getting almost 10% of the vote in Germany, Elon Musk getting bullied out of politics, and Carney winning in Canada.
I won't contend with small wins anymore. I want it all, heaven or hell
am 40. still feel this way.
over 50 and felt this way for over half the millenia and before that felt it likely to be that way given how things were going.
I'm glad to see folks talking on here. Makes me feel better knowing we're here all going through it. Gives me that Band of Brothers vibe "We stand alone, together."
Kind of feels like there's two kinds of people out there right now in the US. Once you think we're fucked, and the ones who think they have enough generational wealth that "their" kids won't be fucked.
There's probably a sizeable third pool out there that are just watching propaganda and going everything is fine everybody's overreacting or I don't care it doesn't affect me. I think even that pool's shrinking a bit.
Half a century here, I've never had a time in my life where the next year was better than the last
If the cure to existential dread is turning 40, it can't come soon enough.
I turned 40 this year. Sadly it hasn't helped my existential dread at all.
It's really sad that many young people are so pessimistic about the future. Despite some setbacks the last years, in many ways the world is still in a better place than it has ever been in human history.
Child mortality is still lower than ever, (extreme) poverty is still on a declining trend, we're actually on track to stop the worst climate change (thanks to massive Chinese investments), AI could vastly improve our lives in the future...
That said we do live in uncertain times, fascism is on the rise again, a nuclear war could still kill us all, fighting climate change is not done,l and AI could ruine all our lives; but pessimism is not the right mindset.
Extreme poverty may be declining but that doesn’t mean more people in the west are not being pushed into food scarcity due to stagnated wages and corporate greed.
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