About Me: I Like Modern Stuff
A blog is supposed to be about me. I realise I share a lot about my passions: books, music, entertainment and comic books/graphic novels, but perhaps not a whole lot about myself. So here’s my first blog post about it.
I consider myself very much a kid of the ’80s and the ’90s. Not just because obviously I grew up in that era, but that’s where a lot of the modern developments happened, which shaped a lot of who I am today.
One of those modern developments certainly was fun, colour television. From Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends (to which I attribute my love for the character Iceman) to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to Ghostbusters, these set the stage for going forward. Once you’ve watched these shows, you want more. More action, better animation, better voice acting, etc. You tend not to want to rewind back to the ’70s and watch the Batman TV series or the Hulk. And that explains a lot about me.
In almost every medium, I don’t like checking out stuff pre-’90s. In fact, I barely like checking out stuff pre-1997, when I entered secondary school, because that’s when my preferences and tastes started solidifying.
I had to literally force myself to sit down and read “The Hobbit“, and was then disappointed by the amount of action. I tried reading “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but couldn’t even make it to the point where the hobbits meet Strider. I just couldn’t understand why Tolkien had to write “and the hobbits walked through the fields of grain and corn and mushrooms and could not help but want to eat some, for mushrooms are a hobbit’s favourite food”. And then they would break out in song.
“The hobbits crossed the field”. That’s that.
Same thing when it comes to comic books. I picked it up seriously in 1997 (see the trend?) and my collection has very little that dates pre-Onslaught, or pre-1995. Even though the supposed “great” stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga occurred in the ’80s, I could never get past that clunky writing. I only read Crisis On Infinite Earths (published in 1985) so I could see links to present-day stories.
The one area that I can stand pre-90s content, is in music, and again selectively. I grew up listening to the Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Gloria Estefan and Abba in the car and do like listening to their music, along with the Beatles.
However, in experiencing music - meaning hearing it live or at clubs - I don’t understand why people my age (and younger) go crazy over the retro stuff. We didn’t live in that era, there’s nothing to connect to! I can’t enjoy music that I don’t identify with, or is not relevant to me.
So that’s me. What about you? Which era do you identify with? When was your favourite content produced? Is there an explanation for liking retro music even though you weren’t even a fetus at the time? Let me know!
….you’re old (lol)because I can’t relate to the things you’ve mentioned.
I guess this just proves how the scene has progressed throughout the years.
kinda inspired to write an entry on this.hehs.will do so after my submissions!
I had to literally force myself to sit down and read “The Hobbit“, and was then disappointed by the amount of action. I tried reading “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but couldn’t even make it to the point where the hobbits meet Strider. I just couldn’t understand why Tolkien had to write “and the hobbits walked through the fields of grain and corn and mushrooms and could not help but want to eat some, for mushrooms are a hobbit’s favourite food”. And then they would break out in song.
“The hobbits crossed the field”. That’s that.
—–
FINALLY!
I had to literally force myself to sit down and read “The Hobbit“, and was then disappointed by the amount of action. I tried reading “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but couldn’t even make it to the point where the hobbits meet Strider. I just couldn’t understand why Tolkien had to write “and the hobbits walked through the fields of grain and corn and mushrooms and could not help but want to eat some, for mushrooms are a hobbit’s favourite food”. And then they would break out in song.
“The hobbits crossed the field”. That’s that.
—–
FINALLY! Someone who shares the same sentiments as I do. But then we have to argue, that they have poetic license and it is his ’style’ of writing that have appealed to so many others. Though we argue that he could have just said they crossed a field of corn, occasionally stopping because the hobbits were particularly fond of it.
Have to say that I’m guilty of writing in such a manner. Sometimes! Not always! Bleh.
well, I don’t think i can explain why i like oldy music. But i don’t like A LOT of the music that they’re playing now or most of the music i listened to on the radio from perfect 10 in secondary school.
about half of my music library is Gold 90.5FM music while the other half is rock music (mainly Dream Theater, Metallica and Iron Maiden). So i guess maybe you don’t have to like music in a chronological (you can tell i’ve been playing Red Alert) order but rather by genre?
cartoons are different. I was watching a couple of videos on youtube and it helped me to remember all the cartoons i used to enjoy when i was younger. and somehow it seems that i remember watching most of them even though i could only watch TV on sunday evenings. i’d definitely would get the whole series of Centurions or Visionaries. I already have Transformers. ahaha
link = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46jF-OnHQTE&feature=related
@Yin: Apparently the excuse is not shorter-forms of entertainment (ala TV) weren’t huge in those days (if in existence at all), so they made up for that with exposition *shrug*
@Reuben: Hey you know they’re coming out with all these crazy dvds from the ’80s! Retro comeback! I guess it’s okay if people LIKE the good ol’ days and listen to it as a from of experiential enjoyment, but I don’t get it when they’re like “OMG MAMBO/RETRO” cos it’s like “where were you in 1979 when this song was playing to get such a reaction?”. oh that’s right, you were 6 years from being conceived. you know what i mean.
lol! yes, interesting post. I agree with the techy bit. we’re techy generation kids. I remember playing my first com games when i was in k2? I think…haha
and then there’s michael jackson…
@Nicole: Yeah we are! Even though I only got my computer at sec 1, I think my usage since then has made up for the lack of usage in all the previous years before. lol
yeah, i know what you mean. i might be partially guilty of that anyway. HHAHAA
kthxbai
If JRR hadn’t described the field, it would’ve been so difficult to recreate Middle Earth on film. So I forgive him for that. Its a shame our attention span is so bad. I can’t stand some old stuff myself, but there are always writers and musicians who were alternative and ahead of their time and its fun to stumble upon their work and go, “hey, this is actually cool!”
@Manya: I’m pretty sure the man wasn’t writing with a movie in mind back then! haha! And yeah it’s an equal comment on both their “era” and our instant-gratification, short-attention span era.
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