Your own frame of reference

[amadeus]

For me, I feel like many things can be broken up into my life, at least in a certain sense, between before 9/11 and after 9/11.

Remember the Spice Girls? That to me has a distinct feeling of “oh, this is a before thing.” Same with Regis hosting Millionaire, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and other varying things.

9/11 itself had nothing to do with any of those things, but I feel they are connected to me for some reason I can’t explain.

Do you have anything like that? It could be any event.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I have three such points in my life:

1. Before I met my wife
2. After we had had our first child (and second)
3. After we moved to NM

A fourth is developing now: after retiring

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The older you get, the more of these pre- and post- landmarks there are. For me the most noticeable one is life pre-internet and afterward. Some things are so incredibly different that I rather doubt that anyone born in the last 25-30 years can really understand what it's like to have that divide.

 

[amadeus]

I was thinking more in the sense of a landmark that is impersonal and has objectively little to do with the other things we think about. The collapse of the Soviet Union was hugely important, but I don’t think of Michael Milken as “pre-collapse.”

 

[dusters]

USSR collapse was huge for Latvia. We went from nice, thriving place to poverty, banditry and rapid stratification of society. Few millionaires appeared, but many people were left eating potatoes and carrots for years. Wages went down like 3 times in buying power. So for me end of 1980s was time of change, but early 1990s were chaos.

1. I started playing chess at age of 5
2. School started, I got bullied badly
3. I got into wheelchair at age of 12 due to nervous breakdown as a result of being bullied for 5 years
4. I didn't try to get into prestigious school, because my mom decided that paying for taxi and me writing an entrance exam in a wheelchair would be too much (this changed my life)
5. I had to go to much lower quality school at age of 13. I developed computer games addiction, mainly to Runescape
6. My first depression episode started at age of 14
7. I finished 9th grade in homeschooling due to depression
8. Finished secondary school at age of 22 due to depression
9. Met my first gf who wounded me badly due to my naivety about relationships at 22
10. Economical crisis in year of 2009
11. Started giving private lessons in math in 2014, first decent income
12. Met my wife in 2016
13. Got disability benefits finally in 2018
14. Cured my disability and depression at 2021
15. My wife passed away at 2022
16. Renovated about half of my flat from the money I earned giving lessons in math/English/Latvian and my roommate's money in 2023

Edit - there are little to none impersonal landmarks besides collapse of USSR in 1991 and Economical crisis of 2009.

 

[Estebonrober]

08 collapse, followed by first kid, graduation... all within two years...

went from economic conservative born and raised to a red commie according to most of my fellow Americans (who have no idea about communism beyond boogeyman nonsense)...

 

[Synobun]

I was thinking more in the sense of a landmark that is impersonal and has objectively little to do with the other things we think about. The collapse of the Soviet Union was hugely important, but I don’t think of Michael Milken as “pre-collapse.”

By this measurement, I have no frames of reference. External events fade into the wind for me. All my before-and-afters are internally driven.

 

[GenMarshall]

For me, the landmarks are: 9/11, The Great Recession and Gamergate.

 

[Kyriakos]

By this measurement, I have no frames of reference. External events fade into the wind for me. All my before-and-afters are internally driven.

Same

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Gamergate

And what lessons did you take from this very impactful, definitely not hateful event

 

[amadeus]

Pool rules:

no peeing

 

[GenMarshall]

And what lessons did you take from this very impactful, definitely not hateful event

I only use it as a clear demarcation line when pop culture got inundated with the culture war and intertwined with politics.

I never thought I would say that I’d rather want to see MLP:FM fanworks (even if ponification annoyed me a bit during its zenith) being circulated across the net and hang with bronies, than put up the toxicity within fandoms that the culture war brought in and magnified. But here we are.

 

[amadeus]

I don’t find that to be of any significance to me, but I appreciate the explanation.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I only use it as a clear demarcation line when pop culture got inundated with the culture war and intertwined with politics.

I never thought I would say that I’d rather want to see MLP:FM fanworks (even if ponification annoyed me a bit during its zenith) being circulated across the net and hang with bronies, than put up the toxicity within fandoms that the culture war brought in and magnified. But here we are.

...what?

Pop culture has always been inundated with politics, it's an intrinsically political medium, you should look up the 80s and 90s and you'll see similar issues to today

 

[amadeus]

...what?

Pop culture has always been inundated with politics, it's an intrinsically political medium, you should look up the 80s and 90s and you'll see similar issues to today

The question isn’t about whether or not there is politics in anything, it’s about if there’s some formative event (I should have specified the following part here) out of your own individual control that acts as kind of a landmark or a checkpoint for things that have no other relation to it.

Depending on how old one is, what their upbringing was, and when they became more cognizant of the world around them is going to change the answer. I hoped that this thread would be a place for those of us that have this sense to exchange our experiences and maybe get an opportunity to see things from someone else’s perspective.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I only use it as a clear demarcation line when pop culture got inundated with the culture war and intertwined with politics.

I never thought I would say that I’d rather want to see MLP:FM fanworks (even if ponification annoyed me a bit during its zenith) being circulated across the net and hang with bronies, than put up the toxicity within fandoms that the culture war brought in and magnified. But here we are.

I had to look up both Gamergate and bronies, and... yikes.

I'm just going to say that misogyny toward female gamers didn't start in 2014, though evidently that's when it blew up across the internet and offline life. I myself experienced harassment and doxxing on the forum I will no longer name, back in 2006. Even on CFC, I was told, "You can't be a girl. Girls don't play games."

Well, we do. We always have. We always will. Anyone who doesn't like that can go crawl back in a cave.

As for bronies... as I understand it, it refers to guys who like the My Little Pony characters. My take on this: I don't see a problem, and am confused as to why it's anyone's "problem" what other people like or don't like.*



*I will vehemently disagree with people on the Dune vs. nuDune issue, but I will always defend the point that people are allowed to like what they want to like.

Pop culture has always been inundated with politics, it's an intrinsically political medium, you should look up the 80s and 90s and you'll see similar issues to today

This is very true, and I've just watched a couple of clips of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, when they were in Montreal in 1969. One of the things they did, in addition to their "Bed Peace" event, was to meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

The question isn’t about whether or not there is politics in anything, it’s about if there’s some formative event (I should have specified the following part here) out of your own individual control that acts as kind of a landmark or a checkpoint for things that have no other relation to it.

There are many things out of my own individual control that were a landmark, as they affected me because they previously affected older generations of my family. And you can't really exclude politics, because politics tends to be part of most formative event.

 

[amadeus]

There are many things out of my own individual control that were a landmark, as they affected me because they previously affected older generations of my family. And you can't really exclude politics, because politics tends to be part of most formative event.

I wasn’t trying to exclude politics, I was talking about the specific question of there being politics in pop culture (there is) and whether or not it is something new (it isn’t.) My specific point is that everyone’s approach is going to be from a different angle to something they see as significant.

In your case, for example, you are Canadian so something that happened in Canadian politics may have left you with this invisible demarkation line as it were, but I can’t think of any Canadian political things in my lifetime where I would think it would be more impactful to me than you.

Hope that clears it up!

 

[Nick723]

Everyone knows the big watershed was late 2005, the release of Civ IV to the world

(Or pick your favourite iteration)

More on topic, I’m with other posters in that external events pale in comparison to events in my own life.

The most significant external transition point I would say for me is the pre/post smartphone era.

 

[amadeus]

The most significant external transition point I would say for me is the pre/post smartphone era.

That’s an interesting because in some cases for me the contrasts are stark, but I don’t think about it ever. When was the last time I used a fold-out map or printed out directions to go driving? I’m sitting on my balcony now posting here when years ago I would have had to boot up a big tower PC, dial in to a online service, and then wait for all these pages to load. Now I’m doing it in my hand! But I don’t think about it?

 

[Moriarte]

Internet was the big one. 1992-93 for me, a 14400 modem was the first upgrade. Before that I was playing football outside, every day, with neighbouring kids. Lots of people in the neighbourhood - just walked slowly along the promenade, talked to each other, played board games, went to visit each other. Every summer evening the yard was filled with chatter, music. Winter sports in the winter - hockey mostly. And then dad brought me decommissioned IBM 286 from work. The world had changed forever that day. The first game I managed to install and run, after fiddling with an alien thing called Computer for a week, was called Dune. Last I checked, no one is spending time outside in my old neighbourhood anymore. It is not considered appropriate.

Also, 9/11. Before that, airport travel was much more relaxed. There were security checks, obviously, but there were loopholes, negligence in airports small and big could be spotted regularly. Much less security overall. 9/11 reshaped worldwide airports forever. Incidentally, I was flying frequently at the time, so I felt that change and the indignant reaction it was causing in me at times. I also remember a shaky Alitalia flight high above the Alps. Entire airplane filled with Italians was chain-smoking and talking. Something to see! Anyway, every time I have to take my shoes and belt off in a modern airport, take out my devices, have myself scanned by various scanners I remember what was the original reason.