Art / culture that unites generations

[EmilyMiller]

@EmilyMiller, I have a good friend in her early 40s who doesn't know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trak. Doesn't care, either.

I’m kinda selective, I know SW inside out (not the fanboy extended universes and cartoons, but proper SW). But I have no real clue about Star Trek. I totally failed to get a joke @Djmac1031 made about red shirts a while back. It stuck in my mind as I had a character refer to ‘red shirts’ in a later story.

I do use (ND-coded) ‘fascinating’ memes though…

 

[Djmac1031]

The Muppets.

There's a revival of The Muppet Show coming and even the trailer remarks on just how many generations have grown up on some version of them.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The Simpson's are on, like, their fourth generation of fans.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The Muppets.

There's a revival of The Muppet Show coming and even the trailer remarks on just how many generations have grown up on some version of them.

Good call - and Sabrina Carpenter is the guest - how 2026 is that?

 

[MrPixel]

Allergies

That's a shame.

When he and I go out (like that dog bar), there are giddy squeals from 4-year-olds, "How adorable!" from the senior set, "Can I pet?" from mid-lifers... and giddy squeals from the 20-something cuties especially when he does tricks on command. Everybody loves a friendly Dalmatian.

Except the guys who make the mistake of leaving their slice of pizza on a lounge table. Oops. He's quick!

 

[Djmac1031]

I totally failed to get a joke @Djmac1031 made about red shirts a while back.

I assumed even non Trek fans at least understood the reference, kinda like "Luke, I am your father" is known even to people who never saw the film.

The interesting thing was how it evolved. In the original Trek series, anytime a redshirt extra beamed down with the main cast it was a pretty good possibility they'd be dead within minutes.

When The Next Generation came around, most of the main cast including the Captain wore read uniforms. But it still remained true that anytime an unknown security officer or whatever beamed down to a planet with a main character, that extra was pretty much only there to die.

This was such a common thing that Galaxy Quest poked fun at it with Sam Rockwell's character because he was one of those extras that died in an episode and so he spent the movie in fear he was about to die any minute.

 

[old_prof]

I think the kids still like the Beatles and Nirvana, even if most other 20th century music has lost its universal appeal!

I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of my students over the last decade (ranging into current college students) prefer listening to classic rock of some variety to almost anything current. I would say more than a third of my students listen to some portion of 60-70's music on a regular basis.

Maybe there is hope for the world.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I assumed even non Trek fans at least understood the reference, kinda like "Luke, I am your father" is known even to people who never saw the film.

The interesting thing was how it evolved. In the original Trek series, anytime a redshirt extra beamed down with the main cast it was a pretty good possibility they'd be dead within minutes.

When The Next Generation came around, most of the main cast including the Captain wore read uniforms. But it still remained true that anytime an unknown security officer or whatever beamed down to a planet with a main character, that extra was pretty much only there to die.

This was such a common thing that Galaxy Quest poked fun at it with Sam Rockwell's character because he was one of those extras that died in an episode and so he spent the movie in fear he was about to die any minute.

 

[PennyThompson]

I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of my students over the last decade (ranging into current college students) prefer listening to classic rock of some variety to almost anything current. I would say more than a third of my students listen to some portion of 60-70's music on a regular basis.

Maybe there is hope for the world.

Social media and streaming platforms have a lot of negative effects in terms of fracturing culture, but they do sometimes cause older music and other content to bubble back to the surface.

I'll admit that I was turned on to Fleetwood Mac because of a viral video in 2020, and Kate Bush because of Stranger Things in 2022!

 

[Britva415]

Sabrina Carpenter is the guest - how 2026 is that?

*sniff*
"2024, maybe"

 

[AG31]

It's really hard to find many candidates. It makes me yearn for the days when the whole family gathered to watch Your Hit Parade. All generations shared the latest pop songs. Those were the days. Oh!! Is Archie making a comeback anywhere?

 

[dirk2024]

I think the kids still like the Beatles and Nirvana, even if most other 20th century music has lost its universal appeal!

but...but...Led Zeppilin!

 

[Britva415]

Honestly, I feel like Lady Gaga is one of these acts. I know legit true Boomers (like actually born during the Baby Boom years) who like and appreciate her, all the way down to college freshmen. Alphers, I guess we're calling them? idk

I don't know enough tweeners to know whether to include them too, but the ONE who I do know well enough has her on their thumbs-up list.

 

[dirk2024]

Hating on Boomers.

 

[Britva415]

I think the kids still like the Beatles and Nirvana, even if most other 20th century music has lost its universal appeal!

They may have heard of the Beatles, but I think only a small minority of them have heard Beatles music, not counting the commercial clips. I really don't think many of them are going out of their way to listen to it.

 

[old_prof]

It makes me yearn for the days when the whole family gathered to watch Your Hit Parade. All generations shared the latest pop songs. Those were the days.

People our age (yours and mine) remember the country as being unified by watching a handful of national channels. But that was only true for roughly a half century.Not having the whole country watching the last episode of M*A*S*H is the norm historically, no matter how normal that feels to us.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of my students over the last decade (ranging into current college students) prefer listening to classic rock of some variety to almost anything current. I would say more than a third of my students listen to some portion of 60-70's music on a regular basis.

Maybe there is hope for the world.

My kids love 80s music, mostly not because of me but because of Spotify. They like Led Zeppelin, probably because I introduced them to the band and played their music in the car when I was with them.

But they also like Drake and Bad Bunny, and I don't get that. I've tried.

Change isn't bad, but it's perfectly OK and understandable to be wistful about it, when the things you regarded as timeless cultural monuments fade away and get replaced by other things.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Well, recently three generations of our family sat down to watch the Wizard of Oz together. Comment from me not having seen it for forty-odd years - "I know this is a ridiculous thing to say about one of the most famous movies of all time, but that was suprisingly good."

A similar thing happened with the Sound of Music. My sister would get VHS tapes of the Golden Age of musicals out from the shop whenever we went to our grandparents. As a result I've seen the first five minutes and the last five minutes of everything ("Can I have my Bond film on yet?"). Took my kid to see the musical last year. I remembered them hiding from the Nazis at the end, so had a long and serious conversation about the holocaust in the car on the way, only for it to start and for me to realize I should have been talking about Anschlus.

To my dismay, while my daughter will play Lego Star Wars with me she's never been persuaded to watch the movies and my sister's kids have said, and I quote, 'even the originals are not that good'

As a Brit kid of the 80s, Elvis had already been reduced to jokes about impersonators and dying on the toilet. While there are plenty of individual songs of his I like, even as a fan of 60s music, I've never been able to 'get into him' I'd say in Britian, if anything, Frank Sinatra has more cultural cache.

 

[XerXesXu]

A heavy sabre. American spelling.

�Sabre Jet

I remember The Beatles.

My girlfriend said I could pop her cherry if I took her to a Beatles concert. I did, we both popped together.

 

[Dodola]

I think ice cream is a uniter (not sure that's really a word).
I know some can't eat it, but they probably wish they could.

 

[TheRedChamber]

A heavy sabre. American spelling.

�Sabre Jet

I remember The Beatles.

My girlfriend said I could pop her cherry if I took her to a Beatles concert. I did, we both popped together.

"You want to hold her hand? Bullshit! If you want to fuck her, just say you want to fuck her" Grace Slick, Jefferson Airplane

 

[ADirtyPerv]

A fascination with the night sky. I once sat down at night to point out the Big Dipper to my kids, and Mars was right there by the tail of the Dipper. An elderly neighbor was nearby as I pointed it out, and he was like "no way, I've never seen Mars!" I pulled up a sky map and started pointing out stuff, and it was like I had an extra kid for a little while, his face lit up all wrinkly and adorable and shit. It was a really nice night.

 

[Bamagan]

I tend to think of culture (in the small sense, anyway) as being something like a scab. It forms in response to external events or pressures, allowing its components (either people or platelets) to work together in mutual support of one another, even while the larger body continues along mostly uninterrupted and unaffected. It's ephemeral and fades... even when it isn't being actively picked away. Sometimes it leaves a scar... something shaped by those events that persists long after the original participants are gone.

It's rarely something that brings people joy that unites them in a truly large scope, but something that wounds.

 

[alohadave]

Also, blaming Millennials for everything.

As a Gen-Xer, I feel for your generation that you are the new whipping horses, but I also appreciate that we've slipped under the radar.

 

[alohadave]

I assumed even non Trek fans at least understood the reference, kinda like "Luke, I am your father" is known even to people who never saw the film.

The interesting thing was how it evolved. In the original Trek series, anytime a redshirt extra beamed down with the main cast it was a pretty good possibility they'd be dead within minutes.

When The Next Generation came around, most of the main cast including the Captain wore read uniforms. But it still remained true that anytime an unknown security officer or whatever beamed down to a planet with a main character, that extra was pretty much only there to die.

This was such a common thing that Galaxy Quest poked fun at it with Sam Rockwell's character because he was one of those extras that died in an episode and so he spent the movie in fear he was about to die any minute.

John Scalzi wrote a book titled Redshirts that has a similar angle.