Anyone else cutting off all ties to modern day culture and society?
Recently, I've been losing myself in a lot of retro TV shows, music, books, etc. The reason why is that it feels to me as if modern day culture and society is becoming more dehumanizing and nihilistic, to the point where more people are forgetting what it means to actually be and feel human, as well as live in an actual society where you have to share a space with others.
For example, this will be the 20th anniversary of 9/11. I'm a New Yorker who lived through that experience, and I can tell you that the culture and people were a complete 180 from what they are today. I remember walking through the streets of NYC in the weeks after and legit feeling if the entire country was united and all pulling for each other. And now it's the opposite. We went from the entire country going ape shit because almost 3,000 people die on 9/11, to the entire country not giving a fuck that 500K died from COVID.
The reason why so much has changed is social media, to be sure, but modern entertainment has been fueling nihilism and anti-humanistic values for well over a decade now. The generations that grew up being taught to get a hard-on for antisocial sociopathic characters (seeing them as sexy for being damaged or cool for being non-conformist) are now coming of age.
To me, an example of how fucked up culture has become--and how it's destroying modern day society--is that song Pumped Up Kicks. I remember hearing that song and loving it because of how romantic it sounded...only to hear the lyrics. This is a romantic-sounding song about a sociopathic kid that wants to kill people.
Another example is anime. Don't get me wrong--I do love anime but it's weird what gets pushed in this country. It's the demented stuff in Japan that gets pushed in the US, not the more wholesome fare. The worst example is Death Note, where the viewer is made to experience most of the story from the perspective of the villain, who's basically a serial killer.
Anyway, the point is that I'm pretty much done with modern entertainment and culture. I'm just going to lose myself in anything that predates 2010. It's nothing to do with age. I'm just sick of nihilism and anti-humanism and wonder if anyone else is feeling the same way.