Goodnight, Mtv – Gen X Fades Along with the Network
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The article 'Goodnight, MTV – Gen X fades along with the network' discusses the decline of MTV and its cultural significance, sparking a discussion about nostalgia and the changing media landscape.
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Oct 29, 2025 at 8:26 PM EDT
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All that said, I will accept that you believe these two types of childhoods are just different (eg: on the whole equitable in a way neither of them are absolutely preferable over the other).If that works for you, we would seem to be done.
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.