Increasingly I think absolute history created by landmark events is what we end up confusing for Strauss-Howe “generations.” The long 60s are much better defined than “boomers” even though it coincides with their coming-of-age years.
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Biggest correlates in out time are: classes of computing, styles of mainstream movie-making, and broad political mood
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Correct. I was thinking of 2-year microgenerations for a while driven by social media platform cohorts. But I think that’s a shallow higher harmonic of a derivative thing (generations). The 12-15y time constant probably comes from time to adulthood
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Replying to @vgr
Implied prediction: eras are not accelerating further?
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“Generations” are largely meaningless overlaps between eras and education years.
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One reason I’m pondering this is I finally have a “full” sense of the long 80s and long 90s. Both feel narratively complete somehow. Like they’ve settled down in critical ways. There’s still loose ends but they won’t change the endings. You could make complete movies about them.
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The long Weirding also feels complete but too fresh to narrate
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But 2022 is definitely the beginning of an era. Look to 2008, 1994 and 1980 for insights.
There’s a whole “new chapter” feeling. This is a cultural rebase year. Many stories are starting right now.
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One way to tell you’re not just seeing things is that the “seam” in history doesn’t usually line up with important seams in your life. Human lives have seams every 3-7y so chances are some life transition will be close enough to every era seam. You’ll be tempted to conflate.
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But a historical seam will tend to be visible in lives of people of all ages. People will remember “1994” in different ways.
Where a historical seam coincides closely with a life seam chances are, you’ll make unusually drastic moves.
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2008 was the middle of a stable 4y job stint for me so very low resonance and my life didn’t change at all. Didn’t even get an iPhone till 2011. But 94 was freshman summer and first taste of Internet. Some radical reorienting happened.
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People vary in strength across era phases. I’m strongest at middles, next strongest at endings, weakest at beginnings. Not much of a pioneer, but a strong settler, and mediocre town planner.
I segment my writing into grandiosely named 6-year eras for fun, My blogging started almost aligned with long Weirding. 2007-12 was Rust Age. 2013-18 was snowflake age. Unnamed 2019-24 will have to be cut short at 21 I think. History seam is breaking flow.
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2022 is my worst writing year ever I think. 8 months in I’ve written nothing that feels like an evolutionary level up. Treating it as an era gearshift retooling year. Down round year. Thanks to all who’ve stayed pro-rata invested anyway 😆
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American apocalyptic movies are an indicator species of a historical era. Compare:
Atomic age
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Long 60s
Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Towering Inferno (1974)
Long 80s
Mad Max (1979)
Terminator (1984)
War Games (1983)
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Long 90s were a bonanza of world-scale disaster epics
Blade Runner, Outbreak, Water World, Deep Impact, all the way to 2012 (2009, outside range, but spiritually a long 90s movie)
Long Weirding had surprisingly few major disaster movies. Contagion (2013)
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We had Monsterverse (Godzilla, Kong…), Pacific Rim…
Don’t Look Up is not an apocalypse movie so much as culture war satire.
There’s a garbled signal here I can’t quite sort out. Improving FX abilities confuse things a bit.
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Japan is the other indicator species, but Godzilla franchise feels like a special case of post-Hiroshima PTSD. I recall a 1975 movie called Bullet Train that was techno-disaster rhyming with Poseidon adventure type stuff. It inspired a Bollywood knockoff called Burning Train.
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The signal here I think is growing fears of technology getting more complex than humans but also more capable in a way that made plots like Deep Impact possible. Comet impact would not be a story unless there was some agency in trying to stop it or survive it.
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Technological complexity is the index function of historical eras now, and the biggest “realist” disaster movies measure our era-defined attitude to it.
But not non-realist disasters/apocalypses as in superhero or fantasy movies. That’s a measure of something else.
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