Silent Generation

Witch house is a music genre and internet aesthetic that emerged in the late 2000s as bands combined occult imagery and sounds. On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan begin by noting that it was the very first internet aesthetic, with the earliest example being the 2005 blog Runawaytoday. They then talk about common witch house aesthetic elements such as horror, “the woods,...

The United States once had the best public transportation system in the world. Private companies built subway, elevated, interurban, trolley, and long distance train lines with passenger service in mind. But as the automobile rose in popularity, ridership declined, and the country’s transit systems eventually became publicly run.   But what made privately owned rail during that era so great, and w...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   “Civil servants” are employees of the municipal, state, or federal government. Within cities they often live in far-flung areas that are colloquially referred to as “police neighborhoods" or “firefighter neighborhoods.” The tendency of civil servants to live amongst each other has caused them to develop a distinct set of...

In 2017 a new uniform emerged for men employed by the financial industry: fleece/ puffer vests, dress shirts, slacks, and dress shoes. The unadorned look was first documented by the Instagram account Midtownuniform, and it became the signature outfit of “finance bros.” Finance bros are the latest “corporate subculture” to come out of Wall Street, but they are far less fashionable than previous cor...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan talk about father figures in their personal lives and in society more broadly. The episode opens with a discussion of familiar archetypes such as coaches, scout leaders, teachers, and bosses. The boys also note that children sometimes latch onto “parasocial f...

Nothing expresses the aesthetics of infrastructure as clearly as American rest stops. On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Nathan is joined by artist and professor Madeline Rupard, whose paintings “consider the American landscape” and frequently depict rest stops. They begin by defining what constitutes rest stops (fast food chains, gas stations, motels, and plentiful car-oriented infrastr...

The aesthetics of infrastructure are often treated as an expensive afterthought, noticed and appreciated only by artists. But can it even be beautiful to begin with? On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan begin by discussing the four primary ways that infrastructure achieves beauty: engineering and design, paint, public art, and disguise (as is the case with stealth towers)...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration This week’s episode attempts to address how and why many American cultural practices and institutions have been replaced by those of Disney adults. Nathan is joined by his friend Tiffany Wright, a Disney theme park aficionado with a deep knowledge of the community, to discuss the topic. They begin by defining “Disney adult...

On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan discuss all things men’s fragrances. They begin by weighing the reasons men typically wear fragrances (“sex sells,” general presentation) versus why they might not (fragrance sensitivity, “men should smell like men”). They then review several fragrances: Dior Sauvage, Bleu de Chanel, Paco Rabanne Phantom, 4711 Original Eau de Cologne,...

Gorpcore is a hiking-inspired aesthetic that was first identified in a 2017 article published in The Cut. On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph begins by interviewing Nathan about his gorpcore-esque wardrobe. The boys then detail the various elements of the aesthetic (outerwear, technical fabrics, face concealment, and high definition landscapes) before introducing a vintage sub-aest...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration This is the third and final installment of Silent Generation’s three part series on Bohemianism. In this week’s episode, Joseph and Nathan finally address the most popular definition of “bohemian”: the trope of the impoverished artist living on the fringes of society. They detail how the combined impacts of the French and...

On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph interviews Nathan about his recent trip to Poland and the Czech Republic. He recaps his travels to Gdansk, Warsaw, Krakow, and Prague. Amongst other things he discusses how Gdansk was once a city-state known as the Free City of Danzig, how Warsaw’s Museum of Communism is above a KFC, how one of Krakow’s largest tourist attractions is a salt mine...

Manouche jazz is a musical genre (or musical idiom) pioneered by Django Reinhardt, a French-Romani jazz guitarist and composer who lived from 1910 to 1953. He developed manouche jazz in collaboration with Stéphane Grappelli after being inspired by American jazz musicians, and the genre is notable for its percussive guitars, virtuosic lead guitarists, and reliance on acoustic instruments. Joseph an...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration    On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan discuss one of the biggest culprits of car-oriented development in the mid-20th century: malls. The boys begin by surveying several malls in Chicago (900 N. Michigan, The Water Tower Place, Block 37, and Ford City Mall) before delving into the largest malls...

On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan detail all of the garments men wear to the beach and the various ways they make men look attractive. They begin with beachwear bottoms (speedos, jammers, box leg trunks, swim trunks, boardshorts), before discussing tops (tank tops, Hawaiian shirts, button downs, Italian knits), and accessories (straw hats, sandals, dive watches). After...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   “Gayborhoods” (also known as gay villages) are gay neighborhoods that emerged in the United States at the end of World War II. Returning soldiers were sent home to port cities like New York City and San Francisco, and the sudden influx of gay veterans in those places caused a profusion of gay bars to appear. But how did...

Normcore is a “a post-authenticity coolness that opts into sameness.” The term was first coined by the trend forecasting group K-HOLE in their 2013 report Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom, which was a larger philosophical deliberation on the degree to which people should remain alternative into adulthood. This week’s episode of Silent Generation focuses on how the fashion world’s misclassification...

Utopian Scholastic is an aesthetic that was popular in the education field from the late 1980s to early 2000s. It consists of stock image collage, early CGI, references to academia, references to surrealism, and serifed fonts. On this week’s episode, Joseph and Nathan go into a deep dive of Utopian Scholastic and begin by discussing how the aesthetic was first identified by someone inspired by the...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration    On this week’s episode of Silent Generation the boys discuss what makes IKEA one of Joseph’s favorite companies. They begin by briefly summarizing how IKEA was founded by Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 before detailing the various innovations that made it successful (the showroom model, flat packing, and se...

Scene is a youth subculture that evolved from emo in the mid to late 2000s. Members of the subculture were typically referred to as “scene kids”, but scene kids with large online followings were also referred to as “scene queens” or “scene kings.” On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan begin by sharing their theory that scene spread in a diffuse manner throughout exurbia (p...

Vernacular architecture is architecture that uses local materials and traditional techniques to construct buildings without the guidance of licensed architects. It is surprisingly common in the United States despite the country's young age, including in cities like Chicago. This week the boys are joined by Will Quam, the founder of walking tour company Brick of Chicago, to discuss Chicago's rich v...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   Historical dressing refers to the act of wearing clothing that is authentic to a specific time period, while historical reenactment refers to the act of recreating past events (such as battles). These two overlapping activities and communities have much in common but are rarely analyzed together. On this week’s episode o...

World’s fairs, now called World Expos, are large global expositions that exhibit the achievements of nations. They originally focused on industry and technology before shifting to a focus on cultural exchange and nation branding in the mid-20th century. On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, the boys go into a deep dive of several notable world’s fairs including the 1851 Great Exhibition in...

Metrosexual is a term first coined by British journalist Mark Simpson in 1994. It is a portmanteau of the words “metropolitan” and “heterosexual,” and it describes straight men who care about their personal style in a similar manner to gay men. The term only entered mainstream discourse in 2002 after Simpson “outed” David Beckham as metrosexual in his Meet the Metrosexual article. On this week’s e...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Joseph and Nathan examine all things related to air travel. They begin with a historical deep dive that breaks air travel down into six distinct eras: the invention of aviation, the first golden age, WWII, the jet age, deregulation after 1978, and the modern era. The boys then...