Goodnight, MTV – Gen X fades along with the network(unherd.com)
unherd.com
Goodnight, MTV – Gen X fades along with the network
https://unherd.com/2025/10/goodnight-mtv/
9 comments
This reads like a boomer Facebook post based on anecdotes extrapolated into a worldview centered around the core idea that everyone but you is raising their kids wrong.
Norms evolve from generation to generation, always have, there's no need to exaggerate and appeal to emotion by calling a whole generation of kids "imprisoned". I listened to supposedly satanic music as a kid, I turned out okay despite what the older generation predicted.
Norms evolve from generation to generation, always have, there's no need to exaggerate and appeal to emotion by calling a whole generation of kids "imprisoned". I listened to supposedly satanic music as a kid, I turned out okay despite what the older generation predicted.
I'm glad you're here to judge and approve everyone's posts, you smug moralist.
> This reads like a boomer Facebook post based on anecdotes extrapolated into a worldview centered around the core idea that everyone but you is raising their kids wrong.
For your criticism to be valid, my assertions would need to be factually inaccurate - in that they do not well represent the my generations' childhoods and the same for my kids' generation.
Otherwise, it seems like you're just vibing at me for having vibes.
For your criticism to be valid, my assertions would need to be factually inaccurate - in that they do not well represent the my generations' childhoods and the same for my kids' generation.
Otherwise, it seems like you're just vibing at me for having vibes.
The burden of proof is on the dramatic claim that a generation of "imprisoned" children haven't been "allowed a childhood".
Removing the critically descriptive adjectives from my quotes and then presenting that as my argument - there's not much good faith attempt at discussion in that. It just seems like more lashing out.
The fact is you are wrong. You had a childhood as did every other adult. It was no more real or better than modern childhoods.
It was just different, and maybe one of the last periods of non-digital childhoods in mainstream human history, yes, but using that to just take a big fat emotional glory dump on every person born after you is pathetic.
It was just different, and maybe one of the last periods of non-digital childhoods in mainstream human history, yes, but using that to just take a big fat emotional glory dump on every person born after you is pathetic.
> It was just different,
If you accept the details I offered, I can accept this an honest opinion on your part. Just as I am the only one of us who can factually speak to the details of my childhood, you are the only one who can factually state your opinion.
Your opinion would seem to be fairly unique, however.
Conversely, I have never met (nor heard of) anyone (else!) who believe that these two utterly desperate experiences are similar.
If that works for you, we would seem to be done.
If you accept the details I offered, I can accept this an honest opinion on your part. Just as I am the only one of us who can factually speak to the details of my childhood, you are the only one who can factually state your opinion.
Your opinion would seem to be fairly unique, however.
Conversely, I have never met (nor heard of) anyone (else!) who believe that these two utterly desperate experiences are similar.
A childhood entirely spent in one
tightly-restricted, adult-poulated, adult-curated space
after another.
A childhood spent with continual access to adult-free
time to travel and free range in a manner,
reflective of what children have had throughout history.
If that works for you, we would seem to be done.
> You had a childhood as did every other adult.
Yep
> It was no more real or better than modern childhoods.
Real fits your pattern of introducing descriptors into the thread and then falsely attributing them to me. Real stand out for being a particularly poor measure of the facts in play and it's a wonder why you conjured it up.
That my childhood was no ... better than modern childhoods is absurd assertion to make, approaching comedy. Your absence in my childhood means you are as ignorant about those events as it is possible to be. Lacking that knowledge, it is self-evident that your contradiction can not be truthfully offered.
All of this is coming amidst a tone that checks all the boxes for lashing out. It isn't clear is what is driving it.
Yep
> It was no more real or better than modern childhoods.
Real fits your pattern of introducing descriptors into the thread and then falsely attributing them to me. Real stand out for being a particularly poor measure of the facts in play and it's a wonder why you conjured it up.
That my childhood was no ... better than modern childhoods is absurd assertion to make, approaching comedy. Your absence in my childhood means you are as ignorant about those events as it is possible to be. Lacking that knowledge, it is self-evident that your contradiction can not be truthfully offered.
All of this is coming amidst a tone that checks all the boxes for lashing out. It isn't clear is what is driving it.
We GenX were also the last to be allowed a childhood. I grew up with hours and days of adult-free time to roam, w/ and w/o my peers.
Conversely, my kids gen were the first to grow up fully imprisoned. Every minute was spent in adult-populated, adult-curated boxes. If they defied the lie-based hysteria about kidnapping risk and went outside, there was nowhere to go. In every direction are roads and trespassing risks.
As near as I can tell, this growth-killing hell is a permanent fixture of childhood. With most joy placed beyond reach of kids and parenting time up 20-fold, our modern declining birth rate is the natural, reasonable response.