Hello fellow readers,
This post is about an analysis of social changes in 2015.
Introduction
Social movements are usually noticed after their effects due to the fact that they are more apparent once the transition has been made. Moreover, the first persons who capt the wave before others are the elders, the old schoolers of their times. Our parents used to tell us that it wasn’t like that in their time, that we’re totally wrong.
We might have been wrong in some sense but who can stop a movement made slowly and unconsciously by a huge group. A revolution that is probably for the benefits and stability of the whole population, even if it’s hard to argue in some cases. Remember that evolution works better when it’s driven by entropy, by changes, by mutations, and crossovers (of ideas and people).
For each their own fuel.
Multiple inventions, and historical events, were made and happened during our lifetime. We are now left wondering how the new kids will miss out on those and grow not knowing the history of what they’ll assume being the norm. Doesn’t that remind you of what your parents used to say?
Here we are in 2015 and I’m going to attempt to take an eagle eye at today’s big trends and moves. What makes the world turn, what are the milestones that will decide how the future will be. Are they just flinches, signals to warn us that we’re going in the wrong direction as a whole population, or are they engraved to stay.
The Background of a 90s kid
It is an important step to do a little flash back because the 90s kids are now the parents/adults for this new generation. They are the ones that are running the world while the older generations slowly fade out. They are determining what mentalities will be the norm.
The 90s, for kids, were the years of outside sports. Everyone was christened by, or bicycle, or roller blades, or skateboard, or camping, or swimming, etc.. No one really hanged inside for a very long period of time. If we stayed inside for more than an hour our parents would scold us and tell us that we were wasting time and electricity.
The consoles we had were the SEGA, NES, SNES, N64, and PS1. Most of us didn’t even know what a console game looked like but the ones who did worshiped the damn magic thing.
The internet was something mysterious that only a few knew about. I was one of the few. For my friends and I the internet was similar to a console but that took more time to buffer. We let the lame Flash games load while we played outside to come back to play them later.
The cartoon TV shows were crazy mad. Looking back at it today, cartoon networks was full of things that looked like they were made by people high LSD. We just loved the shows, at least for the short amount of time we were allowed to sit in front of the television.
I won’t dig in it too much but all lot of the artistic movements were colorful. LSD was running the art scene!
Overall, the childhood of a 90s kid was full of discoveries. Discoveries because we were pretty much forced to stay outside and meet other kids. Computer technology grew with us. Thus, the constant drive to try those new gadgets, which in terms were more affordable than any other generation before.
There’s the vibe that those computers were part of us, precious, thrilling, our babies. There was also that huge hype for adventure, maybe it was because we were surrounded by all the discoveries of the last 30 years or because we stayed outside. We learned to constantly evolve with our environment. If we didn’t we felt lost amongst others.
As a cause some got stuck in some transition stage or didn’t adapt correctly and fell to the vice of the new society. Lazies, shut-ins, extremists, sexual identity disorders, etc..
Then came the teenage crisis which is, in every generation, a revolt against the current movement. We created gamers, goth, and others from the un-transition.
Kids in 2015
How do kids grow nowadays. We might not have the same technology as in
“back to the future” but we are still surrounded by it. The most lazy of us can
literally spend their whole days in front of a screen without ever having the
need to get up, without even feeling boredom. Laziness has become the new
standard for anything that is going to be sold on the market. Remember how many
times you’ve heard the sentence someting has never been easier. It’s the
main point of sale. It affects our minds into thinking that everything is taken
for granted, that the world has become such a small and silly place. Children
now grow up with those concepts predefined. That globalization of
internationalization of our thoughts & communication. It’s not that easiness
is wrong, on the contrary, it has helped us so much, but we need to just think
about how it will affect the mental state of the next generations.
On the subject of communication, social interactions have become simpler, instantaneous, and yet so distant.
This simplicity we praised has turned against our future. It might be fabulous in a corporate environment to be able to do offshore deals without having to travel but those communication means might not be so great for the casuals talks. The worst we get out of this are lazy bums with no guts to go out and meet others. A generation that finds all their pleasures in a virtual world that merge with themselves.
All the human knowledge is available online but with a mindset of laziness it’s hard to overcome the step needed for brighter days. It’s undeniable that this capacity to search has helper scientists, development, and the build up of the geniuses of the next generation.
Shamefully, most are satisfied and find self affirmation on online social media, memes networks, and porn websites. Children have brains like sponges, they absorb all the liquids, all the propaganda. And hek we got a pollution of propaganda on the internet.
News have never spread so fast in the entire history of mankind. News have never been as altered that much from the objective truth in the entire history of humankind. And it doesn’t stop with news, it’s manipulation all the way down.
Talk about crowd manipulation on a giant scale, a brainwashing. The problem is that people don’t take a propaganda for a propaganda until they realize it is propaganda. It’s a group movement. The entity takes over the individual. We’re driven by something we can’t control. Add to this that it moves so fast that it’s unstoppable and unjudgeable.
In conclusion, if we want to extract the dirt from the next generation it’s going to be the self satisfaction by technology instead of dream for a future.
Big Movements in 2015
Let’s put some light on some other big movements that are currently in trend. Most of them have strong proponents and opponents. Remember that those nudges in society are most of the time extremely good for the shift in evolution and might on the long run, as a whole, lead to something that will help us. Be it the awakening of the mind to the wrong doings or the realization that we should continue on that track.
- Fat Acceptance
The fat acceptance movement (also known as the size acceptance, fat liberation, fat activism, fativism, or fat power movement) is a social movement seeking to change an alleged anti-fat bias in social attitudes.
It’s all over the internet and it got a lot of very strong opponents. Blame it on social networks for making some people realize that standards were too high and that they were mad for not fitting correctly with the “norms” of big media.
- Gaming addictions
Video game addiction is an excessive or compulsive use of computer games or video games, which interferes with a person’s everyday life. Online game addiction has a negative image and is becoming a public concern. Many people categorize addiction with either alcohol or drugs, but addiction can play also a part in a person’s behavior.
- The “I’m more pitiful than you” movement
Headlines are all about “Joe fought cancer but still did X”, and titles of this kind. We praise people for their disabilities. We bring those up all the time and everyone seems to enjoy the victimhood mindset.
- Feminism extremists on social media
With media this movement has taken another huge importance. Women have been revolting for their rights for a long time but it’s now 100 folds bigger. There’s really nothing wrong with it as a whole if we remove the extremists and unrealistics. Maybe this movement was exaggerated because we are missing strong personalities and live in a gap of peace.
- Religious extremists on social media
Also, like other movements, this one has been amplified by social media. I won’t develop too much on it because I might get black mailed for it :) .
- Other extremists on social media
Any extremist movement has the opportunity to develop online and viral spread.
All those are fueled by the fact that we are loosing focus to some real values. People, as a group, unconsciously feel the need to take control back, to revolt even if this may make it worse. Still, it wakes people up to problems that have developed during the last 30 or 50 years. It’s a sort of defence mechanism that auto-created those entities to clean things up before a bigger disaster happens.
Evolution has always been about differences, conflicts, and changes.
Those movements have risen because the persons that strongly stood against them are gone, or some of our norms have slowly shifted towards them. Spice that up by the speed of nowadays life and you get a nice recipe.
Social Networks
We’ve reached the generation of social networks. As far as they are concerned Facebook is the biggest pig in the sty. It sowed the seeds so that anyone can take part in the show. It’s social network for the masses.
In summary, for all social networks we have:
- The selfies movement
Selfies are self taken pictures of oneself. This movement grew out of a self affirmation and egotistic needs. One wants to prove his worthiness to the group, one wants to feel normal while still showing his personality.
- Categorization of Personalities
Social networks regroup persons depending on their similarities. This has brought something that mitigate social circles. It closes individuals in subgroups. By simplifying meeting through categorization the individuals are lost within their identity. Are we what we like or are we more? Affinities are way beyond common denominators of likings.
- Propaganda & Brainwash
This has been discussed before in the movement section. Let’s add to this that with social networks we get the black sheep effect that we find in groups.
In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family. The term stems from the genetic effect in sheep whereby a recessive gene occasionally manifests in the birth of a sheep with black rather than white coloring; these sheep stand out in the flock.
Furthermore, when this is accompanied by the movements mentioned above we notice a rise of epidemic pro and con movement participants. They echo and complete each other. Hilariously, by doing this they contribute to the other part of the balance.
There are examples for every single thing mentioned above.
The big topics have been the “battle of the sexes” with “feminism” and “red pillers” (as usual throughout history), and the “trigger” or “over politically correct” movement.
Both have big brainwashed networks and followers that are drawn towards them. One should realize that none of those movements is highly beneficial and that is why there is a raging equilibrium that is automatically created by the creation of another counter group. Society itself has its own healing system.
- Detachment From Reality
On social networks people can build up their life and what other perceives of their life. This creates a detachment from reality and a detachment from their own personality. Delusional persons are found more frequently.
What’s Next
If we follow the second law of thermodynamic, entropy should increase with time moving from temporary equilibrium states to others.
Communication through technology will become the norm. Computers will starts to be incorporate with our outdoors activities (wearable devices).
Social networks will merge with wearable tech.
It will radically change the way we interact with each other, for the best.
Depending on how we handle the big movements we might have a comeback of the strong man and conservative society, or we might have something totally unexpected.
As far as politic is concerned we might get more green movements and alerters of climate change taking power, or we might continue on the same brainwash train we are in.
Wake up people and maintain the future.
☆*･゜ﾟ･*(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆
EDIT: After reading this article by the aeon magazine I feel like I have the need to clarify some things.
I’m a strong proponent of the fact that you can’t have movements without a specific generation mindset. If by puting labels it means categorizing a single individual then no, it’s not appropriate. Dividing generations isn’t what I was trying to view in this article. Generations are more of a gradual thing, we should look at the movements instead. I apologize if I swapped the terms freely here.
The focus was on the overview, the step back that people make to look at their achievements. Many tothers do the same and try to predict changes, for instance economist, sociologist. It would be equivalent to people talking about totalitarian regimes in the Europe of pre-world war II. You can’t label that generation as the “totalitarian” generation but the fact is that the whole society was moving towards it.
I had to point out the extremes that moves the current world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_gap
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