What year is it?

Literally never. Not once. I was your nerd at school who’d find joy in a science encyclopedia, and really thought everyone else my age acted like the dumbest people on Earth.

Today’s “67” was yesterday’s something else. And it’s never not made me cringe.

67

Brother I have never once been “with it”, as the kids say, and the rock I live under gets comfier every year so I probably won’t try to change that.

Like… 5th or 6th grade. I could at least hang up til then. I walked into class on the first day after summer break one year and was just like “wtf is everyone talking about? Why does the brand of clothes I’m wearing matter? Why’re everyone being dicks?”

The day my boss, who asked for my help, said “That’s not what GPT said” and promptly ignored my input, wasted 2 days of a customer’s time and $700 of their money (refuses to walk back his time doing what GPT said), then finally allowed me to fix the actual problem using my meat popsicle intelligence’s output, which took 14 minutes.

We’re doomed. He votes.

I searched my newsgroup indexer by year and all of the movie titles since 2020 looked like the fake ones from Seinfeld.

Probably always been a bit out of touch. Never really enjoyed pop culture. The first time was probably around 10 when everyone started getting into social media and I was like why the fuck would you ever put your real name and face on the internet.

For me it was about ten years ago, when i started working in a company with a lot of people 10 years younger than me. They all listened to new French rap, so i gave it a shot as i am a fan of the 90s stuff so i figured i’d like it. The truth is i couldn’t understand any of it… not that i hated it, but it was just so alien to me. I didn’t understand enough of it to even form an opinion.

I realized that i had missed not only that moment in music, but also all of its precursors, so i really had no point of reference to it. I guess the pop music i grew up with, even the stuff i hated, was always one or two generations away from some genre of music i could identify. But this was based on a whole chain of influences that was unknown to me. A great feeling tbh.

When kids didnt know what CDs were. Or when people didnt know what the address bar or Ctrl+F does.

To be fair I live 30 years in the past when I can so I’m not susprised.

Never been in touch!

As soon as I cut everyone out of my life and just started going to work coming home and gaming. I just let life pass by because it seems like too much work to be involved in it.

I have always been “out of touch”. I used to reject pop-culture because I thought I was too cool for it. Now I avoid pop-culture because it’s a habit. Whenever I attempt to participate in pop-culture I quickly realize why I made avoiding it a habit.

If you have kids moving into their teens you figure it out fast.

They start speaking an entirely different language.

As you grown into an adult you follow your peer group and friends through whatever social life, maybe going to places like bars or events that keep up with music trends. You all like the new banger from whoever that shows up on the playlist or New Year’s Eve party. You talk about new series, what entertainer is in concert or on social media, you still remain connected to trends.

But at some point life intrudes, work starts wearing, maybe start a family, and you have less time for these excursions. Crowded, noisy, expensive bars get way less attractive and maybe you have a couple favorite chill spots that play music you like. You’ve got your playlists set. Your streaming music is “bestof” a decade a lot of the time. This is where diversion starts, you choose the familiar over seeking out the new and exciting. But you don’t really notice, you got shit to do.

But eventually you do. Younger coworkers start talking about entertainment and people more and more often you don’t know. They start using phrases and slang you have to figure out. And like I said, if you have kids, you’re gonna have to learn 6-7, gyatt, and the most irritating - the repurposing of words and symbols you already knew. # is number or pound, not just hashtag you illiterate heathens. Maybe your closet, too. You’ve now had the same jacket for 15 years, among many other pieces of clothing that have lasted; jeans, shirts, pullovers, whatever. That’s ok, why keep buying new throwaway fashion? They’re still good to wear.

So now you listen to “old” music, maybe some of your clothes are old enough to vote, and you spend time on Urban Dictionary or KnowYourMeme so you don’t feel lost when younger people sart talking about pretty much anything.

That’s when you know.