I’m gonna have kids just so I can make sure to raise them on the correct media diet. They’re getting all the classic video game consoles, in order of generation, so when they get to something like Elden Ring they have the context all the way back to Space Invaders to appreciate it. And we’re going to be a home of physical media, god damn it. We’re not streaming things. We’re putting CD’s and vinyls and blu rays in their respective players. No iPads. Only books, comics, coloring books and notebooks.

How the fuck did parents start giving their kids iPads, anyway? Nintendo Switches? My first Gameboy cost $90 and I bought it with my own birthday money. A children’s book from a young reader series cost $6 new in the 90s and is probably not much worse now. Less, if you buy it used, which is much easier now. And people are just like, “here, my 12 year old child, have an Xbox Series whatever, and an iPad, and a Galaxy phone. They’re all pre-connected to your YouTube account. Don’t let your other parent know that I told you that for Christmas we’re getting you a gaming PC, Logitech C920, condenser microphone, wireless headset, gaming chair, scissor arm, and LED lighting array so you can chase the completely impossible dream of being a professional streamer. Can I kiss your feet while I’m at it? Will that make this a good half-birthday for you?” Unfuckingthinkable. Knock it off.

It’s already saved me from accidentally tapping a recent or favorite number because they hang up a split second faster than my thumb lands on the end button. I approve of this change.

If Lemmy had awards this succinct answer would get a pile of them.

Anything that is, or once was affiliated with Gawker / GMG is, in its current state, a cringe-inducing, shambling husk of whatever it once was. My muscle memory still directs me to a number of those blogs and everyday I recoil at what has become of them.

That ‘motivation’ bit is so important. Former educator, currently still working in education, and I’m always wary of anything that makes a sweeping statement about ‘the kids’ not being ‘all right’. But there are important, substantial contributors to undesirable outcomes that need to be acknowledged. Poverty being one, as well as the cycle of poverty and abuse which is deeply tied to white flight and de-industrialization (which we might collectively assign to the death of the American dream if we aren’t too concerned with being precious about the the notion of patriotism).

Saying ‘iPads’ or ‘TikTok’ is the culprit doesn’t help anyone. But iPads and TikTok are contributing factors because they both exacerbate the feeling that being entertained is enough to scrape one’s way through life at the bottom of the barrel of expectations…as well as over-informing young people (and adults) that there is positively nothing left to look forward to. Industry is collapsing, housing and transportation are unaffordable, everything you once expected to purchase (and let’s not get lost talking about purchasing as a metric for determining whether one is living a good life) has now moved to an ever-bleeding subscription model; inflation is compounded by corporate greed (and maybe we should talk about how the business incentive of endless growth contributes to every other problem) and corporate greed (something no one but the executives and their shareholders can influence, let alone control) is raping all the natural splendor, wealth and even health and stability of the very ground we walk on and air we breathe.

Why the fuck wouldn’t some young person whose future job prospects (which were shit to begin with) are being devoured by AI, just turn toward the boundless font of readily accessible entertainment rather than going uphill toward seemingly fruitless self improvement? Why would they bother to rise to the level of literacy that allows them to appreciate a 19th century classic translated from the original Russian, or to parse the dense theming of some modern masterpiece? What’s the reward, to someone whose entire life to this point has been flavored with instant gratification? To them it’s all just ‘content’, and there’s plenty of content more accessible than literature. Art may mean nothing for many reasons, not least of which is it can be falsified to a level of acceptability (AI songs by dead artists, for example).

It’s a Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Brave New World living nightmare. But what is the alternative? What systems or entities or organizations are coming to save the day? There are none. This moment is a gruesome forbidden experiment: it is a post-Reaganite, neoliberal race to the cultural bottom, and the youngest generation are the lab rats.

Speaking as someone who never really plugged into Twitter much in the first place: the notion that tweets have any sort of real value and that putting caps on consuming them is a meaningful control measure is the funniest fucking thing. Like no doubt he I actually trying to ruin it, that’s happening. But this is clearly supposed to elicit some kind of reaction, and I just can’t imagine feeling like, “oh, no, this only 600?” 600 of what? Brainfarts? Serious ideas that, if they were written by serious people would be in a long form medium? It’s like saying “you can go to the grocery store but you can only buy 60 chew toys for your dog per day”. Like, okay, I wasn’t going to do that anyway and I think it’s funny that you thought I was going to, or that I’d care about this new limitation.

Speaking as someone who never really plugged into Twitter much in the first place: the notion that tweets have any sort of real value and that putting caps on consuming them is a meaningful control measure is the funniest fucking thing. Like no doubt he I actually trying to ruin it, that’s happening. But this is clearly supposed to elicit some kind of reaction, and I just can’t imagine feeling like, “oh, no, this only 600?” 600 of what? Brainfarts? Serious ideas that, if they were written by serious people would be in a long form medium? It’s like saying “you can go to the grocery store but you can only buy 60 chew toys for your dog per day”. Like, okay, I wasn’t going to do that anyway and I think it’s funny that you thought I was going to, or that I’d care about this new limitation.

Speaking as someone who never really plugged into Twitter much in the first place: the notion that tweets have any sort of real value and that putting caps on consuming them is a meaningful control measure is the funniest fucking thing. Like no doubt he I actually trying to ruin it, that’s happening. But this is clearly supposed to elicit some kind of reaction, and I just can’t imagine feeling like, “oh, no, this only 600?” 600 of what? Brainfarts? Serious ideas that, if they were written by serious people would be in a long form medium? It’s like saying “you can go to the grocery store but you can only buy 60 chew toys for your dog per day”. Like, okay, I wasn’t going to do that anyway and I think it’s funny that you thought I was going to, or that I’d care about this new limitation.

Speaking as someone who never really plugged into Twitter much in the first place: the notion that tweets have any sort of real value and that putting caps on consuming them is a meaningful control measure is the funniest fucking thing. Like no doubt he I actually trying to ruin it, that’s happening. But this is clearly supposed to elicit some kind of reaction, and I just can’t imagine feeling like, “oh, no, this only 600?” 600 of what? Brainfarts? Serious ideas that, if they were written by serious people would be in a long form medium? It’s like saying “you can go to the grocery store but you can only buy 60 chew toys for your dog per day”. Like, okay, I wasn’t going to do that anyway and I think it’s funny that you thought I was going to, or that I’d care about this new limitation.