I work with a bunch of younger kids and their ignorance to things that happened prior to their birth is staggering. They tell me I don't understand.
But it blows up in their faces when I tell them THEY don't understand. When I was growing up, the internet didn't exist. I did not hold in my pocket a device that could receive the wealth of human knowledge.
I'm knowledgeable of, and "in" to many things that came and went before my own birth:
- Muscle Cars
- 8-track tapes & LP's
- Quadraphonic Sound
- Capacitance Electronic Discs (well, ok, that happened within my lifetime but they were discontinued when I was 6!)
- Movies & TV shows from the 50's, 60's and 70's (It was called "The Golden Age of Television" for a reason!)
- Music from the 40's, 50's, 60's & 70's. And to be honest, I despise the music from my youth. (Nirvarna? Britney Spears?....
)
And I didn't have the internet! How did I learn about this stuff?
I read books, I talked to the older generation, I went to the library, I went to record stores and junk shops and record swap meets. I showed a genuine interest and a thirst for the knowledge pertaining to these things. You know, curiosity!
There are a few good eggs out there among the millennial crowd, but they are definitely few and far between.
A funny aside: About 10 years ago when I was in the I.T. field, I had a fairly well-off client call me one morning and say he was having an issue with his iPod not syncing to his PC and other minor issues. (Hilarious backstory is this was the first time I'd even seen an iPod, let alone used one) So, I did a housecall, fixed the few issues with his PC, got his home network up again and reset his iPod so it would sync. Interesting was that his choice of music on his iPod was all stuff I'm into: Steppenwolf, CCR, Eagles, Grass Roots, Raiders, etc.
So, he came home just as I was leaving and we chatted for a bit and he asked about his iPod. "Yep, I got it working." The he asks "Bunch of weird, old-folks music on there, huh?" and I replied: "Oh heck no. I've got most of those songs on 8-track and vinyl!" :music