[mdom]

shutter shades were popular a few years ago!

[bluebird]

i always remembered them as kanye glasses

[littl3chocobo]

^ pretty much that. if anyone else did it then they were doing a parody of some sort XD

[Den]

They were also popular in the 80s, iirc.

[littl3chocobo]

yeah but i was still of the nose-picking and pants-wetting part of my life in the 80's X''D i knew nothing of fashion good or bad, hahaha

[Biomecha]

Do you consider yourself as part of the Oregon Trail Generation or Xennials? I like how it kind of encompasses that in between stage with the way digital technology took over.

[littl3chocobo]

neither of those terms are familiar to me but for sure i straddled the line between 80's media consumption and 90's media consumption which does actually make me a millennial

[Kory]

I am on the cusp of being a millennial and being a gen Z.
I'm a 1995 child. Some people say I'm barely a millennial, some people say I am a Gen Z.

Honestly, it doesn't even matter to me. :P It's just a label

[littl3chocobo]

yeah, you are right on the line for it XD

it is though it is a useful one when trying to suss out cultural experiences without having to ask the over-personal question of birthdays. that and you can yell at old people for being ignorant on the progression of time X''D

[Kory]

It's definitely really sad to see how some of the "older generation" thinks about things!

My parents' marriage seems to be testy right now, since my father has retired, he's fully immersed himself in news and politics. So much, to the point where he says a lot of random racist things and while he was once a hard-working, open-minded and caring person... he's almost completely changed into someone I don't recognize anymore.

We used to be good friends, Papa and I. We could talk about comic books, music (my dad was a hippie back in the day, and so he introduced me to a lot of good ol' classic American rock and folk bands... We really bonded over our eclectic tastes of music.) My dad is just as big of a movie buff as I am too, so he's introduced me to thousands of really good movies. We watched so many crazy movies and it was fun to watch movies with him...

He's changed, though... Oftentimes, mom and I will go to the coffee shop and stay there all day just so we can avoid my dad's constant barrage of spewing negative news and racism.

I feel this might be happening to a lot of the "older generation".... I think they retire, then they realize they don't have a life outside of working, so they just stay at home, enclose themselves in a room and watch the news and they're pretty gullible sometimes and they believe whatever the news says. It scares them, then they're like, "this generation is going to hell! We're all going to die!" But they are also like, "Nah, climate change isn't real! We don't have to take any precautions"....

I think the main thing is that, a lot of times, the older generations (from my experience) usually only listen to what they want to hear. If they have their own hidden racist thoughts, they are likely to believe stories in the news that supports their beliefs.

[littl3chocobo]

i can understand that. my husband is intermittently banned from watching the news for that reason. it is easy to tell when he's been on it too much because he will unthinkingly slip in uncomfortable and disagreeable things. the thoughtless parroting of dangerous ideas and expressions are a problem that comes with consuming for-profit media that is based around making people unhappy and unable to reason


assuredly the young are just as vulnerable to such things with the only real difference being that younger people have a wider pool of peers and so get called out on problematic behavior more readily, i've made effort to call out these things when i see it in my family and it makes a difference. vigilance is important when predators wish to take advantage of the unwary and access to people who will keep you in check helps out

without the full story i cannot say it is the best idea but i would recommend finding things for him to do outside of news media even if it is not pleasant at first. give him opportunities to get a breath of clean air sometimes so his head can be cleared

[Kory]

I completely agree! I went somewhere to take a permit test/get a new ID and because I didn't have the right papers, I was refused. My dad was like, "Well, I bet if you were an immigrant they'd have given it to you." And I asked him, "Who told you that?" And he said, "It's all over the news!" And I said, "*Who* is giving out these IDs?" He said, "Well... the state of Minnesota." And I said, "Is it the *whole* state? Is it just ONE office? Is it just ONE person?" And he said, "Well... they didn't say."
And I tried to tell him that that's what the news does. It's still TV, they still want ratings! They'll leave out most of the truth and tell you something outlandish because that's what brings in the viewers!

I wish I had someone like you in my family. Right now, my mom is the black sheep of her family, and my dad's family aren't very close. All of my grandparents died so I no longer have ties with anyone in my family other than my parents. I don't have many friends here since I've moved, and the ones I do have, I can't really get close to. I think I'm just too scared that they'll see me for who I am and they won't like me anymore. I'm currently in a rather bad situation, and it sucks because I only have my mom to talk to about it, but she's the first to say, "I told you so!" So I don't talk to her about things much anymore... Predators are everywhere and unfortunately, I feel without close friends, it's harder for me to see the red flags and the warning signs before it's too late.

Mom and I have been trying to get him out of the house. Even just to go for a walk. Now that we live in California, we're able to go outside and actually walk places! Back in Minnesota, it was usually too cold 6 months out of the year and since we lived in the woods, you really couldn't walk and actually go anywhere. :( There's soooo many opportunities here and it's rather disappointing that he doesn't take them. But, it's whatever. I feel for Mom, though. She's always like, "Well... if he's going to be lazy, I'll just do extra work" and I told her, "That's not fair to you. There should be compromise. If a spouse doesn't carry their weight, you shouldn't have to carry theirs and yours too!"

I dunno what's going to happen with them. Mom has been saying he should go away for a while. Like, visit his family because she's really getting tired of the bad attitude and the constant news. Honestly, I'm getting tired of it too...

[littl3chocobo]

it sounds to me like you might be trying already to be the 'me' of your family. i have no real suggestion though. i don't know enough to say anything

[MonBon]

If I get wet will my pasties fall off

[mdom]

what is the oregon trail if I might ask

[MonBon]

I'm too lazy to read to get context so I'll just both.

The Oregon Trail references the path that people in America took to colonize the west coat. They were in covered wagons and it was a pretty dangerous thing, but people were obsessed with manifest destiny and thought there were untold riches.

For some godforsaken reason, there is also a game called The Oregon Trail, where you basically simulate going on the Oregon Trail. Your people can die and stuff. One of the most common deaths was dying of dysentery, so there's a meme where you're playing Oregon Trail and you meet this guy name Terry who you make fun of. You end up dying of dissin' terry *drum tap*