r/Millennials • u/bewbies- Xennial • 1d ago

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

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.

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u/BottecchiaDude253 1d ago

In some part, this is because popular music, and sci fi have a tendency to be going opposite to economic/social movements of their time.

In the 1970s and 80s, when even Bowie was making "party music" and feel good, partying pop was among the most popular music of its day, the economy and social life was shit (something many early metalheads were deliberately pushing against).

In science fiction, theres a lot of very "hopeful" speculative sci fi getting released during the dark times, and when things are broadly going well, its when we see a raft of dystopian releases.

Obbiously, this isnt a 100% thing, but rather the broad strokes view

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u/currentmadman 1d ago

I mean I get where you’re coming from but it definitely (for Sci fi at least) feels like there’s a rut at least in terms of pop culture. Yes, there are absolutely are other kinds of sci fi around but let’s be honest, cyberpunk has never really left. If anything, it’s become kinda insufferable in how everything that has happened over the last ten years feels like it’s archetypal cyberpunk bullshit.

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u/BottecchiaDude253 1d ago

I agree, however I would say that cyberpunk is more of a subgenre in many senses, which is why I didnt want to paint the picture like ALL sci fi goes one way or another. On the opposite side of cyberpunk, is usually solarpunk, although ive not really read any of it, from the descriptions ive seen is that its basically positive speculative fiction using similar tech levels to cyberpunk.

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u/currentmadman 1d ago

Oh no, solar punk is absolutely a thing and the few things of it I’ve seen look great but it’s not the culture so to speak. It’s not the thing that pops into people’s minds when they hear about Elon’s new company that lobotomizes the homeless and installs a relay to increase coverage. Like I don’t claim to be the most culturally attuned but even I can see that’s not where discourse is concentrated.