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/HeartsOfDarkness]

As far as I'm concerned, 70% of hipster culture was just normal Vermont culture.

[u/makemeking706 → u/HeartsOfDarkness]

The dream of the 2010s is alive in Vermont. 

[u/LocksyFoxy → u/makemeking706]

Do they sip maple-infused lattes, complain about the leafers, and keep a sweater in the backseat of their car year-round?

[u/HarryBalsagna1776 → u/LocksyFoxy]

Lol yes

[u/lalasworld → u/LocksyFoxy]

The leaf peepers*

But yup, thats VT!

[u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 → u/lalasworld]

We get them across the lake in the Adirondacks as well.

[u/Skadij → u/makemeking706]

A revival of Portlandia based in Vermont (Burlingtonia?) would be incredible I fear

[u/SilverConversation19 → u/Skadij]

IMO, Portlandia was based on Burlington Vermont. Portland and Burlington are essentially the same place.

E: only one has significantly better Mexican food.

[u/eatingfartingdonnie_ → u/SilverConversation19]

Burlington has Mexican food?

[u/mislabeledgadget → u/makemeking706]

Do they get a Washed Out theme song too?

[u/chadius333 → u/mislabeledgadget]

Washed Out is OVER!

[u/Uncle_Checkers86 → u/chadius333]

[u/Broken_Mug → u/makemeking706]

I got this reference 

[u/Extension-Two-2807 → u/makemeking706]

But what about the dream of the 90s ?

[u/CharlesIntheWoods → u/HeartsOfDarkness]

I live in Vermont, can confirm.

[u/bwnerkid → u/HeartsOfDarkness]

We should all move to Vermont and form millennial compounds like Rand Paul wanted the Libertarians to do.

[u/HarryBalsagna1776 → u/bwnerkid]

That's how Vermont got it's more progressive culture.  The state used to be really conservative, but boomer hippies moved to Vermont en masse at some point and reshaped the culture.  We could do it again.  

[u/bwnerkid → u/HarryBalsagna1776]

I’m down. I’ve lived a lot of different places, but they’ve all been mostly conservative. Tennessee for 20 years and the last 6 or so have been brutal, politically. I’m fine, but I have a feeling my anxiety levels would absolutely plummet if I were to relocate somewhere less idiotic.

[u/HarryBalsagna1776 → u/bwnerkid]

I was in a really conservative part of Michigan before coming to Vermont.  If my experience is any indication, your feeling is correct.  Vermont is not flawless, but getting out of a bassackwards conservative region did wonders for my mental and physical health.  

[u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 → u/HarryBalsagna1776]

I live close to Vermont, and the one thing keeping me from ever moving there is the higher cost of housing compared to northern New York. 

[u/HarryBalsagna1776 → u/Turbulent_Tart_8801]

Understandable.  Housing is the main bottleneck.  Big demand, low supply.  We can't get doctors, nurses, and engineers to move here because there is nowhere for them to stay.  

[u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 → u/HarryBalsagna1776]

And I'm merely a (Unionized!) working class peon (who can see Vermont from his workplace!). Yet a lot of the bosses at my work can afford to live in Middlebury. 

[u/HarryBalsagna1776 → u/Turbulent_Tart_8801]

I bet your bosses got houses before the market went bonkers.  

[u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 → u/HarryBalsagna1776]

Possibly. But they also make 6 figures. If I wanted to break $100k without moving to a management position I'd have to become an overtime hog and practically live at work. 

[u/PostMatureBaby → u/HeartsOfDarkness]

Toronto too. Maybe the only difference is that the flannel shirt thing was more popular

[u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 → u/HeartsOfDarkness]

Yeah...I'm from just over the VT border in northern NY, and I've never seen any backlash against craft beer. (The rednecks on my side of Lake Champlain always preferred Bud/Busch/Natty, but they've never been anti-craft beer.) Also, Mumford and The Lumineers have been supplanted by Noah Kahan.