-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Bill Maher Has A Point
- Thread starter Kelly A
- Start date
Money for nothing and chicks for free!
The other observation I have of that commentary is how long it is. If he was talking to a millennial or gen z, he has to get to the point quicker. I have found they don't have patience to sit through an 8 minute commentary. Especially when it can be distilled into one sentence. People wonder why talk radio is mainly used by boomers. The answer is only boomers will sit and listen to another boomer talk that long. Young folks know about the edit function. Boomers don't.
My daughter may not own a radio, but she's a huge consumer of both new and old music.
Some of it I really like, some I could do without, but we have a lot of fun listening together and going to shows.
I've learned a lot about how much creativity and artistry is out there among the younger generation, and it's at least keeping me from becoming the kind of crotchety old codger who spends all day on message boards complaining that nothing is as good as it used to be.
Some of it I really like, some I could do without, but we have a lot of fun listening together and going to shows.
I've learned a lot about how much creativity and artistry is out there among the younger generation, and it's at least keeping me from becoming the kind of crotchety old codger who spends all day on message boards complaining that nothing is as good as it used to be.
The thing I notice about the current stars is how much they know about the music that preceded them, and how much admiration they have for the past. And so when you look to the big pop stars or big soul stars of the past, what stands out? The bling. Start with Elvis. Then Elton John. Bill mentioned Madonna. But keep in mind that music became visual over 40 years ago. Once that happened, it's hard to push it all back into the tube. On the soul/R&B side, you had Diana Ross. Nobody could outdo Diana for bling. Then you have Prince with his solid gold microphone. If you want to know where the stars of today get their influence, just turn back the dial a couple dozen years.
The fact that many younger people cannot pay attention for more than 30 seconds is not something to be proud of. A nation of illiterate rubes should be a warning sign. The World doesn't revolve around these self absorbed clods.
Maher makes many valid observations. A lot of modern music is extremely vapid stuff. However, there are still quality musicians making new music. "Popular" music of any era never had to be of high quality. Sometimes it was.
Showmanship was always another component. Think of David Bowie, Little Richard, James Brown, Elvis, Elton John and many others. Lady Gaga stole her ideas from Bowie...
Last edited:
I assume you mean they aren't listening to AM Talk Radio. There's no reason to think they should be. That's a wasteland.
Maher still has valid points, even if you think he is just a "Cranky old guy". 99 percent of Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter (X) content is essentially self absorbed vanity bulls***...
Last edited:
You have to go about 6 minutes in before he admits that for some of the black artists, this is their first experience with money. They've spent their entire lives living in poverty, and one day they wake up like the Beverly Hillbillies. They call it "nouveau riche" or newly rich. They spend on everything because they can. So they get gold teeth and Lamborghinis and big mansions. MC Hammer went through that almost 30 years ago. Then the money ran out. Nothing wrong with that. Just part of life's experiences. I'm reading how GenZ doesn't want to own things. They don't care about cars and homes. If that's true, then Bill shouldn't worry so much about the music they like.
Here I take exception to actually agree with you. The level of education that we see among people under 30 is astoundingly poor. We have been seriously considering moving and are looking at properties in Medellín, Buenos Aires and Estoril.
Maybe it's the born-to-be-cynical Gen Xer in me, but I have never put a lot of stock in generalities about generations... even my own.
I don't envy my kids the things they've already had to deal with in their generation, especially the last few pandemic years, but also navigating growing up in a social media world that's a lot more pressure than anything we had to deal with as kids in the 70s or 60s or 50s.
But having said that: when you get to know them as actual people and not cliches, I find many of them to be incredibly adept at handling all the crap we've dealt them.
One thing I notice in particular is that they tend to be a lot more accepting of each other than kids were when I was their age. They're good at finding their own tribes where they can be themselves and not especially interested in fitting into whatever we all had to pretend to do to be "cool" when we were teenagers or 20-somethings. They don't put a lot of value on conformity, and they really don't care what we old folks think of them.
Don't tell my kids this, but I find myself enjoying their company, and that of their friends, too. I'm looking forward to seeing what their generation does when it gets the chance to clean up the messy world that's being left to them.
I don't envy my kids the things they've already had to deal with in their generation, especially the last few pandemic years, but also navigating growing up in a social media world that's a lot more pressure than anything we had to deal with as kids in the 70s or 60s or 50s.
But having said that: when you get to know them as actual people and not cliches, I find many of them to be incredibly adept at handling all the crap we've dealt them.
One thing I notice in particular is that they tend to be a lot more accepting of each other than kids were when I was their age. They're good at finding their own tribes where they can be themselves and not especially interested in fitting into whatever we all had to pretend to do to be "cool" when we were teenagers or 20-somethings. They don't put a lot of value on conformity, and they really don't care what we old folks think of them.
Don't tell my kids this, but I find myself enjoying their company, and that of their friends, too. I'm looking forward to seeing what their generation does when it gets the chance to clean up the messy world that's being left to them.
My parents never bothered getting an answering machine. Their attitude was if we are home, we'll answer the phone. If we don't answer, it means we are out to dinner or movie. They felt no need to be "in contact 24/7". They enjoyed leisure without being a slave to a device.
I was quite happy with life in the days before cell phones.
You could go to movies, concerts, theatre, and other places and enjoy the event without cell phone distractions. It's called living in the moment. More people should try it.
Sure, technology has many upsides. Obnoxious people who don't pay attention while walking or driving because their eyes are glued to their phone isn't one of them.
Keep in mind, previous generations had Vietnam, WW II, The Depression and other major issues to deal with. I don't think it's accurate to say that kids now were dealt a losing hand or are under more pressure. They are free to disconnect from Tik Tok and all the other "Social Media pressure" at anytime...
I was quite happy with life in the days before cell phones.
You could go to movies, concerts, theatre, and other places and enjoy the event without cell phone distractions. It's called living in the moment. More people should try it.
Sure, technology has many upsides. Obnoxious people who don't pay attention while walking or driving because their eyes are glued to their phone isn't one of them.
Keep in mind, previous generations had Vietnam, WW II, The Depression and other major issues to deal with. I don't think it's accurate to say that kids now were dealt a losing hand or are under more pressure. They are free to disconnect from Tik Tok and all the other "Social Media pressure" at anytime...
Last edited:
And I attribute a lot of that to parents and the way they raise their kids. Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe the other day pointed out something we've probably all seen; parents rolling their toddler into a restaurant sitting in a stroller wearing headphones while staring at an iPad. I'll admit that I discovered this with my youngest. We would be going somewhere and I'd try to strike up a conversation. Instead his attention was glued to his phone screen while his fingers tapped furiously as he was texting his friends and on social media. After several of these car trips of him ignoring my questions, I grabbed his phone, and tossed it out the car window. At least he took the time to scream at me: "DAD, WHAT DID YOU DO???" Told him since I bought the phone, it was my right to destroy it if that's what it takes to have him pay attention.
Destroying something expensive that you bought for your kid to use isn’t going to get him to want to talk to you more. If he took something he bought you and destroyed it because you didn’t want to drop what you were doing and do what he wanted, then claimed it was his right to do that because he bought it for you and thus he owned it, you’d hit the roof too.
Last edited:
Reminds me of something that happened at work a couple months back. I work at a tech company with a lot of young people, so it was interesting to find myself sitting in an impromptu book club during some downtime. Four women - all under 30 - talking about what books they were reading and sharing recommendations. We've had a lot of downtime lately, and more often than not it's me and the other "old guy" who are watching videos on our tablets while "the young people" have their noses buried in books.
And of course, Maher is being very selective on purpose. He went looking for things to complain about, because that drives viewership among the demos he's going after. He says "OK Boomer" isn't a good answer, but he's very much being that "rich old white out of touch talk show host complaining about the kids today."
If you want another perspective, every few months Rick Beato goes down the Top 10 on Spotify from the perspective of a music producer. He calls out the bad, but praises the good, and while he's a Boomer, he's actually open to new music.
I am an old guy, but have no patience with listening to somebody drone on. If I look up instructions on how to do something I want a list, not a 20 minute video. Then I see podcast episodes that are 2 1/2 hours long? Really?
Seconded about the books. My daughter has library cards both in NYC and back home here, and every trip I make down there seems to end with me lugging books back here to return for her.
I would bet if you compared screentime between her and her 50-something dad, mine is higher - but then for me (and all of us) there's a generational wedge that's hard to process between having watched all of this technology develop incrementally over our adult lives, and having been born into it.
I would bet if you compared screentime between her and her 50-something dad, mine is higher - but then for me (and all of us) there's a generational wedge that's hard to process between having watched all of this technology develop incrementally over our adult lives, and having been born into it.
It was my expensive device to destroy, and on several occasions, it became the priority over interacting with his parent. Not sure if you're a parent, but sometimes you need to do something shocking and inconvenient to get their attention. Especially true for a teen. Ultimately he lost his phone for a week before I replaced it. He never ignored my questions again.
- Status