The 90s were seriously such a bop.

The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

Put a bird on it.

Hey, at least you got to enjoy humanity's peak as a teenager. I was a kid, so I never got the chance to fully appreciate the 90s. My memory of almost anything pre-1993 is incredibly hazy. My strongest childhood memories didn't take hold until the decade was almost over.

I'm a public librarian. Just dreading the day we are defunded. They’ve already attacked our national orgs.

Absolutely know the feeling

When I quit a few years ago are my last employer, I was thinking, I'm the rat leaving the sinking ship

Fucking card house still hasn't collapsed somehow and old employer is now my main customer.
So...not much changed, besides that I don't have much security anymore

But hey! Illusion of freedom, when being self employed! ;⁠-⁠)

The Upper Peninsula is starting to look quite nice this time of year...

Plenty of my gen X friends have come to accept that they will never retire like the boomers. A lot of millennials never thought they would.

This is the saddiest shit ever. Young men being angry at the « Men » will vote for the men that will sold them to the bone mill in a heart beat.

There’s a Turkish proverb : and the forest vote for the axe because they were made of the same wood

I know a surprisingly large amount of MAGA/Trump adjacent fans because of my type of work.

• They're all single dudes. Maybe divorced. Maybe never went on a date.
• There's Joe Rogan involved.
• After a few beers, they all will unprompted share their views on Jews, blacks, trans, lesbians, or some other racist shit then back off and pretend it's just a joke.
• Tell them anything involving empathy "Sorry your dog died" is met with silence or coldness.
• They all don't give a shit about anybody else besides themselves. And often see themselves as the victim. "Oh Trans person was brutally beaten? Yeah it's a violent world like one time some guy threatened me gotta stay strapped."
• They may not like Trump's antics. But to them, the Democrats aren't helping THEM. Remember that lack of empathy?

Who are the positive role models? Weve got all these young guys watching sniveling cucks like andrew taint

I'm also 40 something. Oh for the dizzy optimism of the 90s...

Idk man, I’d kill just to have mine agree on the trump bad part. You do you, but tuning out our shit news cycle is low on the offense scale for me. It can be much worse.

In effect the relative lack of news back in the day was how people could feel optimistic, at least in the US and Western Europe. We could be pretty oblivious and happy about USSR going away and all seemed just fine because the news barely covered the bad stuff and the Internet was barely a thing and we didn't get a whole lot of global exposure.

Things can get better and we have to work at it, but we don't need to be hopeless. If we can't believe good things can happen, then what would be the point anyway...

The under 40s are going to be the ones fighting the wars, as always. Even if there is an other side for humanity after what's coming, no one alive today will ever have a peaceful life ever again.

The under 40s will be sent to die at the front

over 50 and felt this way for over half the millenia and before that felt it likely to be that way given how things were going.

I am well over 40 and I agree with OP. Then again, I didn't give up my empathy at the door to adulthood.

I turned 40 this year. Sadly it hasn't helped my existential dread at all.