Episode 634 - Boomer-myth
May 8, 2023
Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc, but it's also just as popular too defend them and debunk myths associated with younger people, we don't have that with older people and I find that a bit sad and disturbing. This cast tackles the myths associated with “boomers”.
Topics and Show Notes
The idea is that “boomers” are all wealthy, they're out of touch, they ruined the environment, they own everything, they're homophobic, transphobic, racist, conservative, they own their own homes (which they bought cheap), They were all hedonists in the 1970s and 80s and splurged on expensive drugs, they own EVERYTHING, they all had it easy with no issues in their lives like younger generations, their parents were a generation of heroes that fought in WW2 and they were losers, they're in all the senior positions, they all went to university for free and so on.
Like everything there are seeds of truth from which the myths grow. As you get older you have a tendency to accumulate and you usually want to keep what you have, you acquire more responsibilities, you rise to more senior positions if you hang around long enough, you have more time and seniority so you CAN go into things like politics. This is why politicians and CEOS often tend to be older- a simple demographic tendency. Though those people make up a tiny, infinitesimal portion of Baby-boomers and you'll probably find that more and more of those are in reality Gen-X anyway now.
They often had jobs for life because the culture and the economy supported that back then but it also kept them in those jobs and gave them very little mobility or creativity. They bought houses and started families because that was the path that most of them were utterly locked into, their jobs were their whole lives. Most of them never went to university at all, it was only a comparatively tiny elite, this is why university was cheap- because it kept most of the baby-boomers OUT. There was no reason for big student debt because there were so many less students so there was more public money to spend on the lucky few.
Lest we forget that the Baby Boomer generation suffered many issues- unlike Iraq 2 and Afghanistan which were very short wars with 100% volunteers and mainly hostile occupations, Vietnam was a hot war where many unwilling conscripts were forced to fight and die for many years. The terrorism that Babyboomers had during their lives was terrifying- with passenger planes regularly being hijacked and blown up, car bombings all the time, mass shootings, ships and buses regularly hijacked, mass-kidnappings and so on. Not to mention the constant threat of total nuclear annihilation. Many grew up with almost nothing and very little food during and after WW2 as rationing still continued many years after in a lot of countries. There were huge economic downturns in the 1970s and many were forced out of work. The oil crisis in the 1970s made driving almost untenable for a while and started the development of electric cars.
The Boomer generation were the first to seriously tackle sexism in the workplace in a big way, fighting for equal pay and conditions. They were the first to successfully fight homophobia and make sure we had gay rights. They tackled the nuclear issue and instituted the non-proliferation treaties, test ban treaties, and disarmament treaties, they fought for animal rights, they got whaling banned and fur hunting of seals, they fought for the rights of indigenous peoples, they gave us De-segragation, they fought apartheid, They tried to save the environment, they saved the freakin' ozone layer, they gave us safer cars, they gave us environmental protection and pollution laws and controls, and so much more!
Ironically with ALL that we blame the Baby-boomers for, they tend to be responsible for most of the good stuff that younger generations wrongly take credit for.
Of course not every baby-boomer was behind all those things but enough of them were that it created real and massive change in the world, so much that we're still all benefiting. And remember too that not all the the people in the younger generations are involved in good, positive measures today either.
No, the “boomers” did NOT ruin all the stuff.
As a Gen-Xer myself I just know they we ride on their coattails. ;)
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Ballad of Bill - Awesome, jazzy, gloriously meandering rock tune! The bass guitar opens the door, followed by cymbals, violin and an almost Arabic sounding distorted electric guitar!
Topics and shownotes
Links
- Future topic: War-cast?
Thread on the topic of the Boomer-myth - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179352/
Featured comic:
Mirage - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/02/featured-comic-mirage/
Featured music:
The Ballad of Bill - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Ballad_of_Bill/ - by TheBalladofBill, rated E
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 623 - Arrogance vs humility
Feb 20, 2023
Arrogance is a fun subject. Related to cockiness, hubris, assertiveness, self confidence and pride. It's a fantastic trait for a villain and it's really fun to write. Heroes are often arrogant too when they need to learn a lesson in order to become a better person, it's super common in stories. We're all a bit arrogant ourselves about our skills, our knowledge, where we come from, what we look like etc. It's a universal trait! It often strikes when we think we know better or know it all on a subject: the human tendency to over-reach and to speak for others.
Episode 605 - Myth of Freedom
Oct 17, 2022
“Freedom” is the catch cry in so much historical fiction but it's usually an anachronistic piece of nationalist fantasy. You fought for your lord, for pay, your honour, your small region, etc, not for “Scotland” (i.e. Bravehert). Even today it's generally propaganda: e.g. The Invasion of Iraq being called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and Russia's invasion of Ukraine being all about “freeing” the Russian speaking areas from “oppression”. We alter historical stories to fit with contemporary ideas about ourselves and to give us some form of foundation for our prejudices, motivations and identity. Good examples are the Arthurian legends, Gladiator, Braveheart, The Patriot, Robin Hood, The stories about Christopher Columbus, The 300, and The Woman King.
Episode 593 - Risky Business
Jul 25, 2022
The risks of online creative success We live in a wonderful time where you're able to turn your creative passion into a job that can support you just by using freely available online services like YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Patreon, Ebay, Paypal, Etsy, Webtoons etc. You can start with nothing more than your computer or phone and end up with a thriving business based on your passion project. It's not easy, achieving enough success where you can quit your day job still tends to take a lot of work, but once you get there it can be amazing. However, that's not the end of the story unfortunately.
Episode 583 - Why is it bad?
May 16, 2022
Spoiler- we don't actually talk much about Yu-Gi-Oh! But I feel it's a good example of a pretty bad a so-bad-it's-good story, but bad nevertheless. The idea we're talking about here is that it's useful to look at bad stories and stick with them because they can really help you write better. They're a lot more useful than good stories because you'd rather just enjoy those and it's a bit harder to examine them for technical details, but with “bad” stories the faults stand out strongly. Instead of simply dismissing a bad story or making fun of it, it's more useful and valuable to try and “fix” it: try and work out why it seems bad and think about what would be needed to make it better, then think about how that applies to your own work. Maybe you're actually making many of the same mistakes?
Episode 562 - the plots the themes - The space between
Dec 20, 2021
Merry Christmas and whatever you celebrate :) Interesting topic from Banes! It's his idea that sometimes the literal elements of a story (the plot etc.) are simply too weak to properly support the theme. He gives the example of The Truman show, where the idea is that a person is living a fake life under constant surveillance as the star of one of the most popular real life TV shows ever and he doesn't know anything about it… The themes are the power of the media, commercialism, the American dream, obsession with reality TV etc. Banes felt that although these themes were very strong the practical setup of the world and story weren't quite strong enough to support it.
Episode 559 - DD Fashion Spotlight
Nov 29, 2021
Today we're chatting about the NEW news feature that we're doing every Friday: The DD Fashion Spotlight. This is a new way to promote comics without all the restrictions of the featured comic system. To be eligible for a normal Wednesday feature a comic has to have at least 15 pages, be currently updating, not in the top ten, have good writing and artwork, not be adult rated, and not have been featured before. That cuts down the playing field quite a lot but it's what we have to do to make it worth a feature.
Episode 550 - Gaming
Sep 27, 2021
We decided to chat about games. Video game and computer games. They're now a huge part of pop-culture entertainment and they've influenced us in many ways creatively throughout our lives. There are many different kinds of games out there, but one of the really cool things about them is that they're able to deliver a kind of interactive narrative experience that takes things further than Film or comics can easily do. Games were also instrumental in the early days of the first big popular wave of webcomics with gamer comics (PVP, Ctrl Alt Dlt, and Penny Arcade) and sprite comics (8 bit fantasy), being some of the most popular.
