Early Access: Daria, 90's Nostalgia, Millennials, Neoliberalism

"We're not getting anywhere by looking back" is the second thing that hit me hard. More and more so this is the prevailing conversation I'm having with my parents. They want to go "back to normal" and can't understand why I "don't want to go back" — not understanding that I want to forge something new and different and that what happened before is what lead to now. That this was an inevitable conclusion. That to not repeat this, we cannot go back. We have to go forwards.

Josh Grey

At 9:50 that "get what millenials didn't get" and following hit me hard, it's exactly the argument I've been making to my parents and their friends for years and they just don't get it. In 2005, at a career advice fair one of the "careers" I was recommended had an average salary that my father pooh-pooh'ed as "not being enough to be worth pursuing a career for". Fifteen years later and that's what I'm earning. What my father deemed was not enough in 2005. I think about that a lot.

Josh Grey

This reminds me once again of how I used to be so disappointed our generation didn't 'turn things around' (really, how could we have?) and save/protect Zoomers. It made me feel like a bad older brother, because unlike Gen X we saw what was happening, but we still haven't been able to do enough about it. I've come to peace with the fact that what we *have* done is (in gamer terms) tank for a long ass time, making (at least some) space for our generation and those behind us to get traction and break the momentum in the wrong direction, if not build some in the right direction.

JinxedJoker

It depends on where you're reading it! The most common cutoff for Gen X is 1980; I'd always assumed that means 1979 was the last year of X but apparently Millennial starts in 1981, unless you're reading one of those other sources that put it as late as '82 or '84. But I think '81 is the most common.

Ian Danskin

Baby Boomers are post WWII babies, so in their 60s and up at this point. Gen Xers are in their late thirties to their fifties. Millennials are Mid-thirties and I think as young as 20, maybe? And the youngest generation is Gen Z.

Kait Hatch

Yes! This! I don't think people realise how old any of the generations are. Like, my parents are boomers, but they are at the tail end, so boomers are in their mid 60s and older. And then there's how Millennials get talked about like they're all still petulant teenagers at home and like, um...I'm 35.

Kait Hatch

SO. GOOD! Also, a fascinating watch as an elder millennial raised in Canada who didn't have a TV until I was twelve and didn't have the internet until 14 who is married to a Gen Xer who was in the right place at the right time to benefit from the Dot Com Boom. The only reason I'm a homeowner is because my partner is *just* solidly Gen X enough to have an established career before the financial collapse happened. I have been in charity and side-hustles my entire adult life.

Kait Hatch

Except Gore was another milquetoast centrist who couldn't win because he didn't inspire people. Bill Clinton was viewed as a departure from the Democratic norm at the time, more progressive than most, and, similar to Hillary Clinton following Obama, Gore represented a turn back towards the center. The truth of the matter - that Bill Clinton wasn't actually that progressive, that Al Gore was more progressive than he was sold, that Hillary Clinton was actually to Obama's left on several issues - is irrelevant. That's what Gore represented. That's why the Dem establishment rallied behind him. And that's what lost the election.

Ian Danskin

I didn't say Obama did nothing, I said he did the same kind of 90s style liberalism as Clinton and not the sweeping reforms he promised in his campaign. And you have a same sex marriage because of a Supreme Court case, not because of Obama, who opposed same sex marriage at the Federal level.

Ian Danskin

No Democrats are saying we should go back to the 90s. Saying Obama didn't do anything is hecka ignorant. I have a house, a same sex marriage, a passport, all these things because Democrats.

Crissa Kentavr

Weird? This is my favorite so far. The part where you said something like "things havent been good" really hit me. I was too young to experience the 90's, but I feel the same underwhelming feeling about how this is "the best time to be alive" real short end of the stick we got

Indeed you did! Well worth a read. Thank you!

Pavol Vaskovic

And if the 🤖 still gets triggered, make them move a little😋

Pavol Vaskovic

Ian, as a last of the Gen-Xers (b.1980), I feel so seen… and guilty in the end. Your analysis is absolutely spot on. Thank you!

Pavol Vaskovic

I missed out on Daria (family couldn't afford a cable package with MTV) but as a millennial born in the very late 80s, this really hit home.

J. Francis

This is good, and interesting - I was basically absorbed by college and then grad school in the 90s and pop culture penetrated my bubble only slightly. I have to say though: I don't think Gen-X ers like myself turned our back on the younger ones with "I've got mine". Rather: We still don't have any fucking power. Look at congress. The baby boomers still run everything, and still won't fucking die or get out of the way. They hang onto positions like grim death. This is also where hope lies. A lot of the GOP is old. They will eventually have to give up power just because of entropy. God help us if life-prolonging tech is discovered in the next five years...

Nathaniel Tagg

At least I'm not the only elder Millennial with Gen-X older siblings who never had to worry about things like unemployment. But remember how for a hot minute several years ago we were supposedly the generation that would save the world? And then Gen Z supplanted us there too.

Mark Paglia

There was a solid third of us Gen-Xers who saw what was happening in the 90s, and we are sorry for the rest of our peers. In 1992, I worked with the PIRGs on Capitol Hill for the renewal of the Clean Water Act, and we were canvassing to get support to give it more teeth. More than once I had people my age asking "How is this business friendly?" I got several doors slammed in my face by my saying "Well, if there will be more customers since they won't be dying of preventible cancers if factories aren't allowed to dump toxins into the drinking water." I saw GOP House members make a point of letting us see them throw huge stacks of signatures in the trash. While I was doing that work, I would regularly see wheat paste posters around DC that said "The Future is red necks, white skin, and blue collars." I wasn't hard to put all of this and the rise of people like Rush Limbaugh together to see what was coming. Especially when you factor in how ill-equipped the "let's compromise on everything" liberals were, and still are, in stopping the GOP from pushing the Overton window to the far-right. And while I was able to drift aimlessly and BS my way into a career in IT without a degree, I do have several peers who have six-figure student debts that they are pretty sure they will never be able to pay off. The benefits of the 90s for Gen-Xers really depended on your socio-economic position, and how financially savvy you were. Even though it didn't start until my mid-to-late 20s, I totally got Daria, because I was just like her in high school in the 80s.

This is good. Thank you for turning into words complex feelings that I strongly relate.

Lunar

Man. One of the best videos you have done.

GregD

Wow. Stunning stuff. I'm a late boomer & I think I'm missing a lot here. But it actually kinda makes me want to go watch Daria. As always, excellent work!

Jacque Marshall

This was very gratifying to me to watch, because I made many of the same arguments in an... essay(?) on my Facebook wall back in 2018 (if you want to read it, it’s at https://www.facebook.com/645384917/posts/10157307957214918/ )

Jamie Moffatt

Ah, a video game reference that I don't know about. There goes a piece of my nerd cred.

Shisa Sensation

Such a strange video to watch, as someone born in 99, who never experienced the 90's outside of pop-culture and older folk's nostalgic "oh, the 90's were the best" takes. And yeah, as the emerging generation z are slowly growing older, and therefore, taking more and more of the blame from many older generations, this video hits pretty hard. I don't know exactly what to make of it in regards to my own generation. But I will definitely be thinking about it a lot from now on.

whelp, guess I'm rewatching Daria again.

Bikzimus Maximus

Shit Ian, you knocked this one out of the park! It's clearly resonated with lots of us here, it's probably going to resonate a lot with your wider audience too. I'm thinking how Zoomer's relationship with the world at a young age is so markedly different. We had Daria, they have Greta Thunberg, Emma Gonzalez...

Damn. That hit me like a fucking truck. Amazingly personal and relatable. Thank you.

Elissa Harris

Another great video, Ian. Coincidentally, I turn 34 today, and a look back at the 90's (what they were and how they are remembered) was kinda perfect. And I laughed out loud at your realization of "the next W".

whmchrish

Great video, Ian. Thanks for putting it together. This topic of nostalgia for 90s politics, as well as culture of irony vs culture of sincerity, is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. Even though your take is US centric, it applies in the UK too, with many people nostalgic for Tony Blair, a war criminal. But they're not nostalgic for the Blair that supported Bush going to war, they're nostalgic for 1997 neo-liberalism in exactly the same way you've described. I enjoyed an episode of The Blindboy Podcast recently covering postmodernism and the culture of the 90s culminating in 9/11 and then that being the end of cynicism and the birth of metamodernism and sincerity. Great stuff!

Sarah Hall

I'm rather ignorant of the generations or their divisions but your point about us being the "sincerity generation" really sticks with me. I was listening to some writers discuss the power of sincerity and use a similar example from SU & agreed there too.

I'm a elder millennial who have been very lucky to be in a privileged position where I actually have what seems to be a promising career and own real estate. I'm living the 'dream' of neo-libarism (highly educated with free capital) - but I also live in a social democratic welfare country (Denmark), and I'm firmly a socialist. I say all this just to acknowledge how extremely lucky I've been and how I don't feel I deserve this. I long thought it was imposter syndrome, but it makes sense that I feel guilty for getting what our generation was promised when so many didn't.

Vincent Aaskov

P.S. I'm just curious, what's your beef with the term "Xennial?"

Shisa Sensation

Hi. Long time listener, first time commenter. I have found most of your videos to resonate with me both intellectually and emotionally. It is your Alt-Right Playbook that played a significant part in my gradual radicalization from milquetoast liberal to burgeoning lefty wannabe critical theorist. Your take on Daria as a patron saint of the 90's teenager was spot on.

Shisa Sensation

As a GenXer, I'm sorry I was mostly unaware what you and your generation were going through. It is only in the past decade that I only just got an idea of what was going on behind me. It is tough being in your 40s and realize that boomers sold you a bill of goods and generations ahead are going to need to pay the bill after they cash out. And yeah, my son doesn't believe there is a future, and I don't know what to tell him, other than the world has been dying all our life, and we managed to survive this long.

Jason Birzer

This was brilliant! I caught Daria one summer on MTV in a 90s throwbacks kick, and I loved it, but it did feel a bit like I was on the outside looking in (older gen z). In the end, you're right. The people want open sincerity today, and clawing for what was isn't going to help us in these God awful times. Btw, high school fucking sucked.

Onyeka A.

I encountered Daria while I was in college in the early 2010s. Relating so hard to a teenager felt a little weird (I'm no longer in highschool being tormented by clueless teachers and shallow peers!). But Daria's attitude towards her world felt like one, safe way to respond to the global catastrophes of my own early adulthood. I remember thinking: "I get it, kid. I wish I could protect you. But it's gonna get so much worse."

The Anti-War Left considers any exercise of force to be axiomatically evil and Neo-Conservative ie Also Evil. Reporters on the ground described the mass rapes and slaughter of civilians by artillery and snipers as the UN often failed to secure it's own "safe zones." Though it launched the use of Mercenaries/Contractors by the US Armed Forces (since Clinton didn't want to get full authorization from Congress for an actual war because that would mean calling up the reserves) the US's intervention in Kosovo prevented yet another genocide on European soil. This frequently invoked canard of the "Illegal war" is rarely more than a strawman to avoid considering that sometimes the American Evil Empire actually intervenes in places that don't have oil deposits and for reasons that were justifiable at the time and remain justifiable now. The Noam Chompsky Left with it's sneering moral equivalence calculus doesn't like the idea; Chompsky himself famously equated 9/11 with Clinton ordering the destruction of a Sudanese chemical plant* despite at minimum the difference that the cruise missiles fired weren't filled with hundreds of innocent passengers, but that's irrelevant to the kind of bloodless, gutless Liberal who thinks it's better to keep one's hands clean by doing nothing then to ever admit for a second US foreign interventions sometimes accomplish actual moral ends. *said factory made, among other things, baby formula, fertilizer and (supposedly) chemical weapons. Clinton's attack was unjustifiable, but rather like calling Clinton himself a "rapist" and stomping off in a huff any actually nuanced understanding requires rejecting convenient and shallow self righteousness in favor of considering uncomfortable truths.

Berettadin

"young people aren't scared about the future because they don't *believe* in a future" this scalped my socialist queerdo Gen Z ass. A+ video but the W Bush line gave me a heart attack and i don't have healthcare

This is a very good video

Clayton LeVerrier

This is a really good video. I never had a chance to see Daria or be Daria - we stopped having cable earlier than I can remember and my siblings and I were all homeschooled until we went off to college - but god, I want so badly for people to be honest with themselves and with me and to care what happens, and everything I've ever heard about Daria makes me feel like that's what the show wanted too. Thank you for talking about Daria, and for being honest with yourself and us, and for caring.

The Packbats

You know, if the next Dem play is "someone like Al Gore again" that wouldn't be the worst thing. I mean I'd like for it to be *better* but if we're trapped in this cycle, I'll take it

Alex Hambrock

What a great summary of everything felt by a generation of elder millennials. One of the best videos that you have ever made, and that is definitely saying something!

Scanlines are an inspired choice of Content ID blocker.

Katie Mastenbrook

I can really related to that feeling of growing up in the 90s and feeling betrayed. I graduated law school in '08 and was mostly unemployed for the next 4 years.

Alice

Talking about crisis relationships that absolutely do not work over footage of Kermit and Miss Piggy was sobering.

Matt Cramp

So, as someone who was born long after the shitshow that was the break up of Yugoslavia, I can only look back it with hindsight, and while I do not look at the bombing of Kosovo as neither a moral good or evil, I can't see a future where NATO refrains from bombing and it doesn't end in genocide at the hands of Milosevic. What was the perspective of most Americans on the bombing campaign? or if you feel you can't say what that perspective is, what was your perspective on the bombing of Kosovo as someone who lived through it?

Lemming

Ah this is terrific Mr. Studios! I binged Daria for the first time a few months ago, really connecting to the sweetness and anxiousness at it's core, like you pointed out. But yep as an Elder Zoomer I can confirm, there's a real and a heavy pain there looking at what the 90s had that we just don't. Namely, as you put it, a future.

If this is the kind of content you are going to keep doing after ARP I wouldn't sweat about losing Patreon subs at all. This stuff is awesome, Ian, thanks for doing all of this.

I really should rewatch Daria now that I'm older. I remember watching it a lot as a kid and liking it, but I don't think I really understood *why* I liked it.

Sid

Yay, Daria! Already a fan, haven't even seen it yet.

GregD