"Damn Kids These Days!"

“Each generation is worse than the last;”

People have been saying this for ten thousand years, I'll bet, and they've been wrong for just as long.

Stupid Egyptians!

"But where are the Jerry Springers of Shakespearean times, or the Milli Vanilli's of the 1960's...

Or the Justin Bieber's of, well, any other time, ever?

What we forget is that when we look back at history, we only remember and keep track of the best of the best.  We remember Shakespeare because his works were excellent; the cream of the crop, so to speak.  Time has, however, forgotten about the hundreds, perhaps thousands of playwrights and aspiring playwrights during Shakespearean times that we just absolutely awful, derivative claptrap.  The Jerry Springers of Shakespearean times were simply forgotten, but make no mistake – they god damn sure existed. 

Even more contemporary – think of 1968.  This, my friends, was a time of musical greatness, am I right?  Credence Clearwater Revival lit up the charts, alongside of the Beattles and Elvis and just a limitless list of simply fucking amazing artists.  What happened to that?  Where are the great artists of today? 

NO, stop it.  Just stop right there!

Look at the top of the charts in ’68, and you’ll notice that the song that was on top of the charts for most of that year was Sugar, Sugar, by the Archies, which is the song that goes “Sugar! Awww honey, honey!  You are my candy guuuurrrl!”  Here it is, in all of it's turbo-sucky glory:

  

Yup.  In 1968, that was the chart topper.  Awful derivative, meaningless claptrap.  Most of the songs on that chart were pure garbage.  I don't think one of the aforementioned was even in the top ten.  We brought the great songs of 1968 with us, but forgot about (rightly so) the rest of the flotsam that was made during that same period. 

History has a way of doing that – you only remember the great men, the great playwrights, the great songs, because those things that did not achieve greatness are forgotten. 

For instance, George Washington's foppish, idiotic younger brother, Cletus Washington. 

The fact is, it has been proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that each generation’s IQ exceeds that of the previous generation by a not insignificant factor.  We’re getting smarter every generation, not dumber.  As fun as Mike Judge’s Idiocracy is, it is just so much fiction. 

"It's gots electrolytes!"

The “things are getting worse, this next generation is the ruin of us all” meme has been around so long, that I’d honestly thought that we’d left it behind years ago. Many, many years ago.  Here's what I mean:

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.” 

Guess who said that?  Guess.  Seriously.  Copy this quote into your Google search and hit search, and then tell me that the entire “these kids these days, amirite?” line is just idiotic at this point.