Silent Generation

McBling is a mid-2000s aesthetic characterized by tacky displays of wealth, celebrity culture, fake tans, and bleach blonde hair. According to Vogue magazine it emerged in “2003, following the American invasion of Iraq, and ended with the onset of the Great Recession in 2008.” McBling arose organically in popular culture and was only later identified as an aesthetic by the Consumer Aesthetic Resea...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration  This week Joseph and Nathan are joined by Breanna, a Silent Generation listener who works as a software engineer for a major online dating company, to discuss online dating. They detail the early history of online dating (such as how the first person to develop a computer based dating service was a working class British w...

Pokémon is the highest grossest media franchise of all time, but has it declined in quality? On this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan use Pokemon as a case study to talk about gamer culture, nostalgia, and fandoms more broadly. After breaking down the history of Pokémon into three booms and one bust, the boys detail what they like about the franchise (Ken Sugimori’s artwork, HM moves, and their fa...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration  Why did Joseph go to Copenhagen last week? Did he bike around a lot? How many hot dogs did he eat? How was Malmo, Sweden? These are some of the important questions Nathan asked Joseph on this week’s episode.  Artwork: Street photo Copenhagen ... Summer and sun by Ivan Naurholm Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-...

Hyperpop is a music genre that is noted for its hyperfeminine, artificial, and childlike sound. The term “hyperpop” came into popular use after Spotify staff created a hyperpop playlist in 2019. The music the term described emerged much earlier however, with the earliest examples coming out of the renowned UK record label PC Music starting in 2013. This week Nathan is joined by his friend E to del...

Kevin Heckart is a Kansas City based artist who created the artwork behind seapunk’s original aesthetic. This special episode coincides with both the one year anniversary of Silent Generation and the relaunch of the seapunk clothing line Mainframe, which features many of Heckart’s designs. The first half of episode is an interview with Heckart that serves as a spiritual threequel to Silent Generat...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration     For this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan watched Francis Coppola’s latest (and likely final) film, Megalopolis. The film draws parallels between Ancient Rome and modern day New York City and has been met with widespread confusion. The boys discuss the film in the first half of the episode, detailing the performance of...

What is Chautauqua? Chautauqua began in 1874 in Chautauqua, New York as a Summer camp that trained laymen to be Sunday school teachers. President Ulyses S Grant visited the assembly shortly after its founding in 1875, which gave Chautauqua widespread attention and engendered a national movement; the original Chautauqua (now known in the modern day as the Chautauqua Institution) gave rise to hundre...

In a more anecdotal direction, this week’s episode is on American Summer camps. The boys detail how camping was first developed in 1861 by Frederick Gunn before discussing their own experiences as campers and counselors at American Summer camps. Amongst other things they discuss how modern Summer camps have felt the need to hyperspecialize and give parents an ROI, how Summer camp aesthetics are 19...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   Scouting is a grassroots, child-led movement that began in the early 1900’s after children discovered Robert Baden-Powell’s written accounts of his time working as a scout for the British Army. After learning of children’s interest in his work, Baden-Powell conducted an experimental scout camp at Brownsea Island in 1907...

Why was Nathan in Rio de Janeiro last week? Why was he there in 2018? What did he do there? What new fruits did he try? These are some of the important questions Joseph asked Nathan on this week’s episode.    Links: Brazil with a Z vs Brasil with an S - example 1 Brazil with a Z vs Brasil with an S - example 2   Artwork: Picture of Rio de Janeiro taken by Nathan from Pão de Açúcar   Recorded on 9/...

How did the spy-fi literary and cinematic genre come to be? This week Joseph and Nathan chronicle how detective fiction authors took inspiration from sensational espionage cases such as The Dreyfus Affair and The Rosenberg Trial to imagine what the front lines of The Cold War might look like. The boys cover “realistic” spy movies such as James Bond’s Dr. No, Three Days of the Condor, and The Bourn...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration     This week the boys are joined by local filmmaker Charles Livingston to discuss male desire. They begin by first discussing straight male desire (the derision of the male gaze, male jealousy and possessiveness, and gender performance) before going into a deep exploration of Nathan’s thesis that yearning is the most univ...

On this week’s (sans Joseph) episode of Silent Generation, Nathan is joined by his friend Kamara to discuss antiques. They talk about how they first got into antiques, the best antiques that they own, and the defining characteristics of several antique furniture styles (Victorian, Arts & Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Mid-century Modern). Amongst other things they discuss how Vict...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   This week the boys cover a listener suggested topic that is closely associated with their lines of work: unions. Nathan is currently a librarian represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Joseph works in the heavily unionized construction industry. Amongst other things t...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration     Christopher Lasch identified narcissism as the dominant pathology of the Baby Boomer generation in his seminal work The Culture of Narcissism and suggested that prior and future generations of Americans would also exhibit collective pathologies. What is the dominant pathology or ideology of the Millennial generation? O...

Ivy Style, otherwise known as Ivy League, is a style of men’s dress that became mainstream at Ivy League schools during the 1950’s. Students started wearing casual versions of the traditional menswear staples worn by their fathers and started wearing clothing originally designed for recreational activities outside of sports fields. On this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan delineate various Ivy Sty...

This week Joseph and Nathan are joined by Marissa Macias, a local artist and fashion designer who owns the insect-inspired clothing brand Petrichor, to discuss insect aesthetics. They begin by examining 7 of the ~30 extant insect orders: hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps), odonata (dragonflies), coleoptera (beetles), orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets), mantodea (mantids), lepidoptera (butterflies, m...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration     Originally started as a Facebook page by three Portland natives, health goth was an online internet aesthetic that proliferated from 2013 to 2015. Health goth imagery and fashion incorporated monochrome color schemes, performance wear brands (particularly Nike, Adidas, and Y-3), chav culture, light weaponry, face masks...

While many recent episodes of Silent Generation have focused on decline, this episode explores how movie theaters have had multiple golden eras. Vaudeville theaters, nickelodeons, movie theaters, drive-ins, and multiplexes have each offered unique ways for moviegoers to enjoy films. Joseph and Nathan begin by discussing the history of movie theaters before examining four iconic movie palaces in Ch...

In response to the Berlin Crisis of 1961, President John F. Kennedy chose to encourage everyday Americans to construct homemade bunkers. Civilians could suddenly mitigate their fears of a nuclear holocaust through consumption, and thus prepper culture was born. This week the boys are joined by the writer and community builder Anna Savina to discuss preppers, survivalists, and other groups that hav...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration   Many themes thus far discussed on Silent Generation are present in fast food culture: car-centrism, postwar decline, Americanism, and uniforms. This week the boys are joined by Mathieu (who goes by Sleepy on Discord) to talk about McDonald’s, CosMc’s, Taco Bell, In-N-Out Burger, Wendy’s, and Culver’s in detail. Chicago h...

On this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan examine sportswear worn by both athletes and their fans. Episode 14 of Silent Generation already covered Olympic sports, so this week’s episode focuses on major league sports. They cover each of the following: baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, and soccer (plus rugby, road cycling, and tennis for good measure). Amongst other things they discuss h...

Why has the general public been skeptical of nuclear energy, seemingly even before the technology existed? Joining the boys on this week’s episode of Silent Generation is Madison Hilly, founder and director of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal, to discuss how the discourse around nuclear energy has been heavily influenced by its depictions in popular culture. They examine The China Syndrome, T...

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration     Many parents today tell their children to simply “be a good person” and do not offer them moral guidelines beyond that. “Being a good person” isn’t a robust enough moral framework to deal with the complexities of everyday life, so many people resort to creating their own moral codes (either completely independently, or...