} WE NEED MORE ANGST

i have finally figured out why i am irritated by tumblrs filled with nice pictures of cups of coffee/neat furniture and stationery/picturesque blue skies/pretty houses/etc (i hope you get the picture), the Monocle lifestyle, and modern songs.

first, the songs. if music defines a generation, then it would seem that 2012 is one big long party, and/or pretty couples singing to each other with a ukulele (in a music video that looks nicely grainy like "vintage"). WHY?? Compare e.g. the band Train. in 2001, they made Drops of Jupiter, a beautiful, meaningful song. in 2011, they made Hey Soul Sister. and while the latter is a perfectly decent song, it doesn't have the same sincerity... (it also gets demerit points for (1) using a ukulele, and (2) using the word "hey" multiple times, coupled by the extension "hey-eh-eh-eh".)

WHAT is the obsession with pretty things about?? yes, japanese/scandinavian furniture very nice. yes, bookshelves full of books very nice. yes, lounging around at a cafe very nice. but as much as i acknowledge and appreciate the pretty-ness of all these things, even though i enjoy looking at them, it irks me that they are all i see. why has it become unfashionable to be ugly and unpleasant (i guess that is a stupid question..). in the Monocle image, even the sad and the ugly somehow end up being packaged in a clean beautiful way. i want DIRT AND GRIME, undiluted.

also look at the new obsession about gourmet food. i guiltily enjoy these tv shows too, and looking at nice food photography. but similarly, something IRKS me because i know they are not real.

i want honesty.

i want the 90s and the 2000s, when we embraced the ANGST in our lives. in our blogs and journals we didn't post pictures of food, or picturesque holiday destinations. we actually talked about our feelings. neither did we pretend that the blog is a platform for airing our views that no one really cares about.. we didn't take ourselves too seriously.

in the past we listened to boybands pouring their idealistic hearts out and rock bands singing about the darkness in our lives. we didn't try to make heartbreaks sound like a fun thing to have. we didn't try to make it seem like being an awkward teenager is just fun and quirky and not too difficult.

this whole post is very confused/mixed up but i am just so upset. the world today is not a happier place than it was ten years ago. so why is it that we don't have outlets for all the miserable things in life???

2012-09-03, 11:37 p.m..
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