Okay first of all obligatory “generational labels are bullshit” disclaimer.
But I just noticed a lot of humour made by millennials as adults is very “cutesy” and “dad joke”.
If anyone grew up in the 90s or 2000s, you know that we were the total opposite as kids. Seriously it wasn’t long ago where the hight of our humour was homophobia and jokes about SA. We were the fucking horrible edgelord generation.
How did we go from being kids that would beat each other up for even looking at the colour pink, to the heckin’ wholesome cat video generation?
Honestly I know we make fun of ourselves for the “HECKING POGGER PUPPERINO” shit, but honestly, it’s a step up from the edgelord shit we grew up with.
This is, of course, ignoring that a lot of us didn’t grow out of it and became your Ben Shapiro’s and your Steven Crowders (I am so sorry Zoomers, we failed you hard)
The point is trite, since it’s been echoed since the 90s and 00s, and is and was much of Gen X’s cultural expression: The choice presented by @peppersky of being a suburbanite robbed of humor and youth, or a manchild, is a form of colonization of the mind via capitalism. Our unique selves buried under consumption of content and fulfilling social roles and goals determined by the capitalist system. (Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with either of these choices, but living like this also turns life into a purgatory of repetition and variation. It deprives life of color and purpose that become filled by junk ideology.)
Instead, we should be aspiring to be self-actualized adults with our own individuality and aspiration for life beyond checking milestones or consuming media.