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How the internet (and mainly places like reddit) has contributed to the infantilization of adult culture
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I stumbled across this Simon Pegg quote earlier today which reminded me of something I've been thinking about for a while:
“Obviously I’m very much a self-confessed fan of science-fiction and genre cinema. But part of me looks at society as it is now and thinks we’ve been infantilised by our own taste. We’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes... Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously!
“It is a kind of dumbing down because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys. Now we’re really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.”
I have a theory about this sort of thing which I've been sitting on for some time. On top of stuff like “adults getting excited about superheroes," I think this theory explains things like adult fascination with ball pits and blanket forts, or why there's a cache of nerf guns at my office, or how I know several people in their 30s who own fidget spinners, or the recent growth of the adult Lego community.
Here goes:
- People are tribal by nature. They want to be part of the "in group", and one way these groups are identifiable is by cultural signals
- Exposure to lots of people saying they like something makes a person more likely to get into it themselves. On some level, they hear: "everyone else in my tribe is really into this thing. There must be something to it. I feel left out right now, and I want to be 'in' again." For more detail on the psychology of this, check out social influence theory
- When people read 1st person narratives, they tend to visualize the author as similar to themselves.
- Commentary online is disproportionately produced by younger people who generally have more time, opportunity, and desire to goof off online than adults with jobs and families and other obligations.
- Most of this commentary is anonymous or pseudo anonymous. Consequently, adults don't know when they're interacting with children or teens online, and probably do so was more often than they realize.
- Adults consequently get exposed to a lot of younger people taking about what they like. They interpret this on some level as: "other people like childish stuff, I should too so I won't be an outsider," incorrectly assuming these "other people" are adults when they're often not.
- The result of this blurred/lack of border between adult and youth spaces online has been youth culture increasingly influencing adult culture to the point that it's getting increasingly difficult to distinguish the two.
I'm not pushing a value judgement here: whether or not this is good or bad is a completely separate conversation (which I'd be happy to engage in the comments). I'm just proposing a mechanism for how this came about.
EDIT: u/Mantipath and u/dreamfall17 raise good points, which can be summarized as:
"You only attribute that stuff to 'youth culture' because it was your youth culture. The youth culture of yesterday necessarily influences the adult culture of today."
That's a really good point and I don't have a good argument against it. I don't work with kids or have any of my own, and my friends' kids are all toddlers, so I'm definitely not an expert in contemporary youth culture. That said, I'm clearly not the only person who believes this "infantilization" phenomenon is real: at least Simon Pegg sees it too (not that he's an expert either). I'm at work so I don't have time to poke around, but I'm fairly confident I've read articles over the last few years discussing this as well.
You're probably correct to criticize some of the specific examples I cited as biased by my own childhood. But I'd still assert that adults today value "childishness" in a way that other generations didn't previously. Consider the workplace for example: pretty much every generation prior to ours put much more value in a kind of serious professionalism which has been relegated to only certain occupations today. I'm probably the only person I know my age who owns a briefcase, and I only know a handful of people who are expected to wear a suit to work. Hell, most people I know wear jeans and colorful shirts around the office, and I was actually specifically advised against dressing up for my last job interview. Obviously a case can be made that this is a shift in business culture specifically, but I think it's a symptom of this larger cultural shift I alluded to above.
My post presupposes that this shift has happened and then moves forward discussing a theorized mechanism, so if people disagree that the phenomenon I'm trying to explain is even real then I guess I should've put more effort into finding sources to back up the existence of the phenomenon to begin with. I'll try to get around to that research later tonight, but I probably won't have the time :(
Top Comment: We’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes... Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously! It is a kind of dumbing down because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys. Now we’re really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.” I know you're not pushing a value judgement here but the quote you based your premise on definitely is. I disagree with Simon that... Movies used to be "challenging, emotional journeys" That comic books are ruining this That comic books are necessarily childish That comic books can't be about "challenging, emotional journeys" or "real-world issues".
Method in EU Pit Series?
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Where did Method come from? I could have sworn they weren’t one of the 8 teams in the EU bracket when the tourney started. Also do they play in EU CL?
Top Comment:
Replace Vitality because Vitality is playing the Major Qualifiers.
Pretty much any other event has priority to the teams.
(Bear in mind that most of the teams attend several different events, so the big teams are not gonna use their strats.)
[Media] Sora vs Pit Death Battle - No spoiler
Main Post: [Media] Sora vs Pit Death Battle - No spoiler
Top Comment:
Kinda disappointed here. I mean I was always for Sora winning. But these guys used the most boring moveset ever. They're supposed to use the characters at their strongest. They took kh1 Sora and Shafted him from his strongest spell in reflega. Then they give him Kingdom key and no drives. No flowmotion, no balloons, no nothing.
IIL Canadian indie rock bands with interesting guitar, like Peach Pit, Barr Brothers and Half Moon Run
Main Post: IIL Canadian indie rock bands with interesting guitar, like Peach Pit, Barr Brothers and Half Moon Run
Pit 101
Main Post: Pit 101
Top Comment:
That’s a nice kill. Great video