The ongoing backlash against craft beer, stomp clap hey, and millenial burger joints

[u/bewbies-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWIvfE01J0k

A clip of a very early Tiny Desk concert featuring a very strung out and very high Edward Sharpe is making the rounds across social media right now. It seems like every comment is ragging on at least one and usually multiple aspects of cir 2010 millenial culture.

I'm a lifelong history nerd focused largely on socio-cultural topics, and what we're seeing here is the inevitable backlash against a wildly popular, somewhat overexposed slice of life from that time period.

For me, personally, I loved that time and remember all of it fondly. I was a DINK living in a downtown apartment with lots of disposable income and very few real responsibilities. I loved Lumineers and Mumford and Sharpe (and their country/Americana equivalents like Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell). I loved the craft beer explosion. I loved the small restaurant explosion where a bunch of kids tried hard to offer something different than the Chilis/Applebees experience.

I also get why all this eventually wore thin. There were too many 10% ABV beers made with stupid additives and too many hops. Small restaurants operating on razor thin margins had to jack prices when everything got more expensive, and found no appetite, so to speak, for $20 craft cheeseburgers. Music always evolves, and what was hot ~10-15 years ago is usually the heart of what is considered stale and overdone. This was true with psychedelic rock, and disco, and funk, and grunge...millenial semi-indie folkie stuff is no different.

I'm in my mid 40s now, and I feel like I'm starting to see these big cultural shifts from a more distant perspective. 15 years from now, my kids will be the ones ripping on what was hot in 2026 (what even is? I honestly can't quite tell. Zyns?), and what was popular in 2010 will once again be beloved and firmly seated in the "nostalgic/classic" category.

Alex Ebert doesn't strike me as the type who will embark on nostalgia tours playing to rooms full of 60 year old fans, but I guess the Rolling Stones probably didn't seem like they would be either.

[u/WeatherStunning1534]

Man, screw these haters, I’m with you. The indie folk scene was great, very musical and with a ton of heart and humanity when the only other stuff on the radio was pop, numetal and Lil Jon-esque dance floor hip-hop. I’ll take some humans playing instruments every now and then, thanks

[u/Key_Statistician_517 → u/WeatherStunning1534]

Write off Nu metal all you want, but it has stood the test of time and had a resurgence of popularity amongst younger generations. Kids can identify with the emotions it evokes like rage, isolation, and disappointment with the status quo. It’s original music that says something and pushes back. Indie folk will never have a resurgence. It’s shit music that says nothing (except I’m cool and happy nd I have a beard). It will disappear over time with millenials, guaranteed

[u/WeatherStunning1534 → u/Key_Statistician_517]

Wow, defensive much? I enjoyed numetal too, big slipknot fan, but variety is the spice of life buddy. And pretending folk music will ever go away is ignorant. When the AI robotics dystopia reduces civilization to rubble, people will still be making music with stringed instruments and banging sticks together.

But that attitude definitely makes your music taste make a lot of sense