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Welcome to I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today, a conversational, culture-savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. We’re here to unpack the issues that boggle our minds, all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility.
Room recording - Apr 27, 2026
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Chris: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to episode 17 of, I'm Not Even supposed to Be here today. This is our conversational cultural savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that's gone super duper weird. I'm gonna come up with a different way to say sideways every time does. I think I can do that forever.
Desiree: Yeah, possibility.
Chris: I'll give it a go. So it's gone super duper weird. Um, again, like every, every time we record this, it's like crazy things have happened since the last time. but we're here to unpack that craziness, that super du duper weirdness, uh, all the things that bogle our minds, all rooted in history, culture, humor, group therapy, and of course, always humility.
I'm Chris Pello, owner of Baring 2 87, an organization that's fighting the good fight to make the world a better place. For all and the sponsor [00:01:00] of the show. And I'm joined by my co-host Dez, who is a social impact comm, strategist by day, and who spends her nights remixing history to make sense of the present.
Hi, Dez,
Desiree: Tomorrow, Christopher, shall I say? Annie, are you okay?
Chris: Amy, Annie. Are you okay? That's the best scene ever of the office. you remember that scene where they were, where they were trying to learn CPR and the instructor said that you should go with, um, the beat of staying alive to him staying alive. And then, um, what's his name? The guy who, who sings acapella and acapella group starts singing.
Everybody starts dancing to sting.
Desiree: I don't remember that. I like that's an episode I was actually referring to Michael Jackson, the Eric, but that's lovely too.
Chris: Wait, what was the lyric?
Desiree: [00:02:00] Annie, are you okay? Are you okay? Annie? Annie, are you okay? You know.
Chris: yeah, he's singing about CPR. No, I don't know what he was singing about. We'll get to that. We'll get to that in a second. Uh, first of all, I think last episode I'd made the mistake of saying, woo. I was a heavy lift doing a three part episode on Myth of America. We should make it, take something lighter this time. Um, no, we're going the other way. We're gonna introduce a whole new series, a three part series that. We're calling the kids are Not All Right to Electric Boogaloo, which is the best name ever. Uh, we may alter that, but that's the name of the series, which is a nod to the sequel like Treatment of Youth in crisis in this country.
We're going through that again, the manosphere, blah, blah, blah. Uh, the truth is every generation produces some kind of moral panic about youth. Uh, that's, that [00:03:00] oftentimes starts with boys, but then becomes kind of split among genders. And the, the situation changes and the specifics change and the focus change. what doesn't change, which is the sequel, like nature is adults are terrified. The world is ending. Uh, it turns out that kids actually do go through things, uh, but. We all end up okay at the end. So instead of asking, what's wrong with our boys, what's wrong with youth today? Uh, we're instead gonna take a look at wrong with how we look at this situation, how we talk about it. and we're gonna start with, uh, kind of going back in time. gonna go back to like when the idea of teenagers became a thing, which is not that long ago. we'll kind of go up through my youth, my youth in the seventies and eighties, which will be quite fun. Before the internets, before social [00:04:00] media for all that, we had four channels.
Cable, cable TV was introduced. Uh, so come back with us in the way back machine to electric Boogaloo two. Um. That's so good. So good. So that's what we're gonna talk about and then the next episode we will, we will move into Desi's Youth, millennials and then we'll look at today's youth and we'll study all of this through the lens of like, what's going on for real and why US adults need to chill the F out. So, but first Des, you had something really important you wanted to talk about. seen a movie that you'd like to
Desiree: Yeah, I don't, I don't know about how important, uh, it's definitely in the conversation and I felt deeply conflicted about going, but at the end of the day, I'm just like, I, I stand Michael Jackson, the Jackson five, I know, problematic af um, and a lot of [00:05:00] controversy around like, what's gonna be in the movie or like, what's not gonna be in the movie.
And it's like, hello, Catherine Jackson is still alive. Okay, you guys, the siblings, the brothers are still alive. We're not getting that story in, maybe even not in our lifetimes, but for me, this is definitely a incentive to do preventive care so that maybe I stay alive long enough to get that biopic or that miniseries of like all the things that went down.
But yes. Uh, the Michael movie. Um, yeah, y'all might have heard, uh, about it this, this past week since it opened up. But curious, are you, are you gonna go see it, Chris?
Chris: I'm not gonna go see it. No, and not, I mean, not necessarily because of the controversy though. I do think it's interesting, like we're not gonna get that movie yet, but I think that is the controversy. It'd be like saying like, oh, have you gone seeing the Epstein Global Financier movie about all his [00:06:00] financial ties?
And it was like, oh, we're not ready for the. For the other thing, but we're gonna put this movie out.
Desiree: Right.
Chris: I mean, I've seen the documentary that really goes deep on the, the, um, accusations. And so I, it's, I don't know how to think about it, Des because we have talked about it on the show briefly. Maybe, maybe it's worth a podcast episode at some point. How we just have this bifurcation in this country, in this culture and that we're, we're all against pedophilia, but like, or, or rape. I'll use both of those, we're okay with some people who were accused of either one of those. Um, and it's kind of disturbing
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: about it. Um, I mean, I think that where the opening is, is because there was never any like criminal findings. In the case of Michael Jackson. So it leaves that door open a [00:07:00] sliver as to really, was this true or not? But, yeah, it makes it hard.
Desiree: Yeah, it does. And like, thinking about that era, so you were referring to the Leaving Neverland documentary that came out. This was around, this was around the same time that the r Kelly documentary, um, two-parter, three parter, I forgot how many parters, uh, that came out. And essentially it's like also who goes down for these things versus who doesn't, and like the, the ramifications of that.
Uh, but yeah, very, very interesting. Of course, the movie was just primarily like a highlight reel of, you know, his life from, of course, being in the Jackson five and then up until like 1988 and then like, and then the curtain drops and like y'all fill in the rest. Um, obviously for obvious reasons. But, uh, yeah, one day, one day we'll get that, that series.
Um, I hope. Maybe when I'm 90 we'll get that. Everyone's like dead and gone. [00:08:00] Uh, but you know what, though, watching it, it, it, it got me thinking about like that, that, that idea childhood. And like you said before, earlier on, the, the invention of the teenager, uh, only has been around since like what post World War ii.
'cause like when you think about it, like who had a childhood back then, especially to the level of like when we think about like childhood today and how it's like very much like, oh, no one is really looking out for that. And like, especially not your generation, um, but as we talk about, but like it, each year it ratches up like, oh, like our youth and our young people and like we gotta take care of them.
Meanwhile, silent generation was, uh, deeply on their own.
Chris: Well, I, it is interesting to, to kind of think about the history of it because forever, if you were a kid, you basically worked until you got married and had a family of your own, which could have happened at like 13 or 14 if you're going back to 18 hundreds. [00:09:00] and that didn't really change in terms of kids being expected to work until like the 1930s, like the thirties and forties. So you come out of the forties, which is World War and all of a sudden the, the culture has to kind of go, oh, what is this? Like, this is a set of people that have, like, they're now defined being defined by work.
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: They're obviously getting married later, though even then people would get married.
What we would consider early, like 18 or 19, which is even when I was younger, that was really traditional. People got married in the early twenties. and that's really shifted. So some ways you can understand why, like what do we do with this whole quarter of people right there?
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: a problem too, because they're not, they're not, you know,
Desiree: Producing,
Chris: They're
Desiree: right?
Chris: in any way. They're not building
Desiree: [00:10:00] Mm-hmm.
Chris: What the hell are they doing? Let's fill that vacuum with what I like to call Elvis's hips, which you just refuse to let me call this series The Hips of Elvis. Um, 'cause a lot of people aren't gonna know what the hell I'm talking about, but we'll get to that.
We'll get to that.
Desiree: So, yeah. Shall we, shall we jump in?
Chris: I think we
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: in. Why don't
Desiree: All right. Yeah, I mean this all kind of came from, you know, as you had noted before the the manosphere, there's a lot of conversation about like, oh my God, the boys are in crisis. What's going on with young men? And like, we need to save them, what have you. And it got me thinking about how have we, like I, I've been watching a lot of like historical, like television documentaries and, and there's a lot of stuff that just.
Has occurred then that is reoccurring now. And one of them, I think we talked on an earlier episode, was around the, the Nazis and the brown shirts, right? So this is, [00:11:00] you know, thirties, forties, and it's basically a bunch of young men running around not really having, uh, a ton to focus on. And that they were able to be like, oh, come, come over here, come, come join our crew.
Um, and how, like, this has been, there's been a version of that, like essentially, like ever since, not that exact thing, but this idea of,
Chris: Hopefully not.
Desiree: hopefully not that. Um, but this idea of a what's going on with young people and kinda like what you were saying, like if, if we're not producing, you know, they're, they're just kind of seating around idle, uh, which then.
I, I wanna go through the history, but obviously you and I were not in our seventies, so we did exactly experience, you know, this time period. So we can't, like wax p poetic, but there's something to be said about that invention and it, it dawned on me of the, um, the James Dean and essentially like the rebel without a cause and like happy days and like all of this stuff that were a depiction of the teenager.
And it's always like, happy days was kind of like [00:12:00] a, oh, we're good. But there was always this at this piece of like, ah, like what are they up to? You know, like they're causing, they're wreaking havoc they're doing, they're. You know, rock and roll is, you know, causing all kinds of issues. And like maybe they're dancing with their hips and like, oh my God.
Um, but I also started thinking about the fact that everything feels like it focuses on men and boys because the patriarchal society and like what about what young women. Are going through or have gone through. And so then that's what maybe wanna really unpack this, this whole series. And so as if we're looking at this, is that the fact is this panic is, you know, it's, it's cyclical and that we will look at like how different pieces of culture or the inventions of technology kind of shape this.
So if we're starting at the fifties and sixties, I'm thinking of television and movies and like the depiction of teenage, uh, [00:13:00] life and like the music and all this kind of stuff. And like that's what really got, um, people riled up. Um, and so for then, for women, for Girls, it's like this, this idea of, um. Like, almost like sanctity and it's like, how are we dressing, you know, especially going from like the rebelliousness of the twenties and the flappers and the short dresses.
And then we go to this deep conservatism in the fifties. Um, and then going into the sixties and then the experience of also black teens and, you know, their roots are in the black press. And there were so many different, um, you know, outlets there talking about the, essentially, you know, what's going on with, um, the young boys, but especially around the, uh, what's the term?
The, oh, it's the Bill Cosby term. It's basically the respectability, um, which is a theme throughout all our lives. But I'm curious, just from like growing up, I feel like even though we didn't grow up in these eras, we [00:14:00] were privy to pop culture of like the depiction of, and so I'm just kind of curious your thoughts on like just some of the shows that you saw back then and like you were a kid watching it, but then also kind of how it translates to today and almost like, oh, this is just like the new updated version of that, or like the new outfit of that.
Just kind of curious your thoughts.
Chris: Oh, well that's, that part I think is everybody will relate to, right? I it feels like every generation goes through this. So you said cyclical. I think it's generational. That's the cyclical part, right? So the, the boomers were the ones that came of age when adults were like, oh my god, rock and roll is the devil.
That's where you get Elvis Presley and his hips. Um, and so you get the rubble without a cause and all of that, and then you just go down the line, right?
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: we were the slackers, we were the next generation. We were the slackers. Millennials entitled Z, always online. Like you just go
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: uh, manosphere, all of that stuff that's coming. So to me it's just like. Every single time [00:15:00] it's, um, you know, kids these days, kids these days, and it's always derogatory. It's
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: something wrong with them. It's always inflated as to be like, oh my God. Um, no, I didn't grow up in the fifties and sixties, but my family was really rooted that.
And what I mean by that is, especially my dad's family and my dad rock and roll. Like my dad taught me all about rock and roll in the fifties. Um, you know, he would, he would talk about all the, you know, what they wore and what they, how they slick their hair back, and just all the things that you see stereotypically, he lived through that. Um. And so that was foundational for me as a, as a kid of the seventies. Uh, so what we listened to is rock and roll music, fifties music. Like I didn't even listen to [00:16:00] really sixties music until I was older in our household. Like Grease was like the coming of the second coming of Christ when that movie hit in 1977.
'cause it was like everything that epitomized that area, the music, the sex, all of it. Um, and so I really, that was a huge influence for at least in my family. Um. so all that was positive. But you heard, you know, you just heard the hand wringing and the, my God, like Elvis Presley was the focal point it.
Like the, the adults just really thought rock and roll. But Elvis Presley was the epitome of it because of the way he did, the way he danced and the way he moved. Like he was on tv, they cut out below the waist. They wouldn't show him on live On, [00:17:00] I think
Desiree: Provocative.
Chris: show, because Yeah, like that's how scandalous it was. They wouldn't show him like doing his little hip sway. Um, I mean, and then you could just take that and just apply it to different things as we go, which we're gonna do. But, um, a lot of positivity for my family, but like. I, I always remember hearing about just the like, my God, what's wrong with the, the
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And the, they have idle time and they're smoking the ganja, and they're, um, there was that movie that hilarious black and white movie about marijuana and, just all of this stuff.
Desiree: Is that briefer madness or did that come later?
Chris: that was way earlier. Fra Manis was
Desiree: Okay.
Chris: but it was just like,
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: porkies
Desiree: God. Porkies, that came out later, but it was about that era.
Chris: Early [00:18:00] eighties.
Desiree: You had, so you mentioned Elvis and of Of course, I'd be remiss Yeah. You know, as a black, southern, uh, person, to not note that essentially the, you know, we all know that where Elvis learned his moves, got his moves from, and essentially it was black youth, uh, in Memphis.
And given that this was a time period where we were still very much deeply segregated, and this idea of the mixing that was like a big, like, oh my God, the mixing of the races. 'cause like when you're young, you're, I mean, depending on where you are, but essentially when you're young, allegedly you're more open-minded and you're like, oh, like why, why can't we, you know, be, uh, friends with like the black kids down the street, or like, they listen to their music.
There's all, all this separation. And so I'm wondering like, even how much of that had to do with that? Like all of this like, oh my God. Um, because of like, um, the sexualization. Of black youth, and especially like black, um, girls, [00:19:00] which we, we hit on a little bit when we were talking about, um, the Tiana Taylor movie, uh, one battle after another.
Um, but anyways, it it just like that, that Elvis piece, it's like, oh, how much of that is like, also just like race related and trying to keep people like separate and that's dangerous. The mixing that's so dangerous.
Chris: I, I'm just gonna say a hundred percent. I don't remember explicitly any of that tied to race, but there's no way to look at the reaction to the, um, what's it called when something that's niche goes, goes broad.
Desiree: Main mainstream. Oh.
Chris: of rock and roll. There's no way to look at the backlash to that at that era as not having racial undertones. It just was like it. And I'm sure there actually is documented, you know. People saying that, people speaking to that. Uh, but yeah, I mean, I don't think [00:20:00] white people realized that rock and roll in large part was stolen from black culture that Elvis had copied not just his dance moves, but I, his musics, I, I don't think that was like, most people were, were realized that was even the case, but they could tie it back to like, oh, that's where that came from.
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: sounds like that. It looks like that. you know, even the reaction to some of the, the black stars in their early rock and roll era,
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: where they were just, you know, they were ostracized. They were not treated the same as their counterparts. Um, they're very popular. Some of them are very popular, but Chuck Berry, James
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: um, those just fueled that fire of, this is the devil's, this is the devil's music, essentially.
Desiree: And speaking along those lines of the Chuck Berrys, you know, the, you know, another one of the original architects at Rock and Roll. Little Richard. When I think about rock and [00:21:00] roll throughout the years, it's also, it, yeah, throughout the decades, it pertains to the performance or the, uh, basically how we.
Like dress, you know, how, how long our hair is. So looking at Little Richard, uh, I don't know. There's a great documentary about his life, which was Oh, so good. I, I want, I think I've watched it twice already. I'm like, ready to watch it again. Um, but that idea of like sexuality and gender play and he wore makeup and all of this stuff, and you look at like some of the biggest like rock and roll stars throughout history, sixties, seventies, Bowie, uh, the metal bands of the eighties, what have you.
There's always this like, uh, why is your hair so long? Like, cut your hair. You're like, that's like the thing that, like that, that gets teared down. It's like that gender expression of like, oh, you're, you're navigating too far away from what like masculinity is supposed to look like or, or what have you.
Chris: Cut your hair. I mean, we [00:22:00] could have called this whole series, cut your hair, because I mean, you can almost apply that to each of the generational pushbacks. I mean, in the, in the fifties and sixties, you were a straight arrow. If you had buzz cut. But if you had long hair, what did you become in the sixties?
You were a hippie, right? You were, uh, you were a good for nothing lazy hippie that just smoked drugs and, and didn't do anything productive. Um, all tied to the hair and yeah, you go to my generation, um, I think that changed in the seventies a little bit where long hair was cool, but then back in the eighties it was, I mean, the rockers were cool until they weren't cool. Um, we'll talk about that in a little bit. But the hair, the music, clothing, all of that, um, these are all
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: things
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: is kind of, is all thrown into the Youth in crisis bucket. Look at this. Look at that. Listen to this.
Desiree: So, yeah, [00:23:00] let's pivot to the seventies. Like, I don't wanna go down a hole like fifties and sixties rabbit hole. 'cause again, wasn't there, but the seventies and the eighties, you were there. I was there partially the eighties. Uh, obviously a different perspective as like a child. Um, but curious, you know, what were some of the things that you were kind of seeing as it pertained to, you know, whether it was just like looking at teens, looking at like gender roles or any of that.
Like what, what, paint us a picture of the seventies.
Chris: So again, like growing up in the seventies as a kid, so I was born in 67, so in 1977 I was 10. So my childhood was the seventies. And what's kind of cool is. All of my formative years were the eighties. Like I started seventh grade, which was junior high in 1980. I graduated from college in 1990, so essentially junior high, high school, college, all in the eighties. Um, so growing up in the seventies was, was really for, for me, and I think for a lot of traditional families, [00:24:00] far more about the fifties and the sixties than what was going on in the seventies. Right. But as a kid, you're not old enough to be in the, in the, in the cool hipster generation of the, of the 1970s.
We just weren't there. So a lot of it was like, again, happy days, huge. The movie about the fifties, huge West Side story. I mentioned that before. Just Greece, all of that nostalgia for the fifties was way bigger as a kid. Now that's my family, but I think that's reflective of most of my friends. I grew up in Ames, Iowa, so middle class, Midwestern.
This wasn't East Coast, west Coast, could have totally been different. Uh, we played war when we were kids. Like we, that's what we did. We played
Desiree: What's war?
Chris: oh yeah, yeah, you played war. We, like, we had, we had like plastic M sixteens and would like go down into the rail yard and like, like go up over the hill and pretend you're in battle.[00:25:00]
Desiree: Oh my God.
Chris: That was the fifties. war, um, a lot and we played a lot of sports.
Desiree: Hmm.
Chris: traditional male roles for the boys soldier sports figure. Um. Our heroes were sports figures. primarily then maybe N-F-L-N-B-A was not even in the mix in the seventies. It just wasn't a thing. dads worked. Some moms worked. So in the seventies when I was growing up, moms were starting to, women were starting to get into the workforce far more. My mom had an MSW, so a master's of Social work, very rare for a woman to have a master's degree. So I was the classic latchkey kid, which we'll talk about when we get to the eighties. Um, but that was our generation. We're the ones that drank from the, from the garden hose and all that kind of stereotypical stuff that we're so proud of today. Uh, but that was true, like we knew how to, we knew how [00:26:00] to cook up a mean swanson salivary steak the oven. we were responsible for making our dinner going home, all of that.
We were on our, we were on our damn own. People don't believe how much we were on our own. We could go anywhere, anywhere at any time and basically had to be backed by like nighttime. nobody, not only did nobody ask where you're going, nobody gave two shits where you were or where you were going. That is not an exaggeration. Parents did not give any Fs about where their kids were. Like, we were just afterthoughts.
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: just, we will get to you when we get to you. So was kind of like some, some things in the seventies. Now the eighties are very different. We can talk about that in a little bit. But um, yeah, and I think the gender
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: are what
Desiree: Yeah. [00:27:00] Mostly what I think about like with the seventies, 'cause again, wasn't there, um, is related to the sexual revolution of like, so this is post Stonewall and you know, now, you know, queer folks are probably mostly like more gay men, uh, are more out and about primarily in the major cities. Um, but like this idea of like, you can explore more of your, your sexuality.
Um, this is also coming out of, you know, the sexual revolution of the sixties as well. Um, this idea. Um, and so, and, and when I think about the movies that were going on in the seventies, that era, there's a, there was a lot of grit. You know, there's the, what was the biker movie? There's like this just gr Easy rider.
Yeah. Maybe that was the sixties. I don't remember.
Chris: went, I mean, Chinatown and Easy Rider and Godfather series [00:28:00] and um, Cowboy, like these were real gritty. I mean, just really different than anything and method acting and things that, you know, it wasn't like, Hey, it's time to go down to the saloon. And you know, like this overacting kind of stuff that you saw all the way up through the sixties. You had, I mean, just in shift go back and watch those movies and they're quality movies still to this day, taxi driver. I mean, it's just crazy gritty down to earth stuff. But see, as a kid you weren't exposed to any of that,
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: that you had to been a, you had to been a teenager or a young adult to really absorb that were a kid. So you could have looked at that, the teenagers at that time and been like, you know, long hair, the hippie thing is happening. Drugs are everywhere for [00:29:00] teenagers at that time. So, um, yeah,
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: you know, looking at that.
Desiree: Yeah. But when I think about, like we were saying, like the fifties and sixties, there was a lot of shows that were kind of, not a lot, but like, there was a, a good amount of shows and movies that were about like teenage years. And I feel like there weren't in the seventies, um, the, like, the only reflection I have of like seventies youth was a movie from the nineties called Dazed and Confused, and it was about a bunch of teenagers in Austin, Texas, and like just being ridiculous.
Mm-hmm.
Chris: I think that scene better than anything. But I'm gonna give you a cult classic that I still remember from the early eighties. Matt, Matt Dillon's film debut. And I had to look it up 'cause I couldn't remember the name of it. Um, and it's called Over the Edge
Desiree: Oh.
Chris: is nihilistic. It's about like suburbia and a community center. And the teenagers are just bored as shit. And so they're just, [00:30:00] they do vandalism, they just do drugs. The police ha harass them. it's a very dark movie. And
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: all of the people in the community come together in the community center to like have a, a, like a town hall about this problem of the teenagers. And the teenagers, spoiler alert, surround it and like lock them all in and start a fire like it is. I mean, we watched that and we were just like, what is this? 'cause we didn't have anything, you know, like experience of that growing up in our little protected and, you know, privileged little world. And again, we're in Iowa.
I grew up in names Iowa, so anything cultural hit us way late
Desiree: Later.
Chris: that, that shit came from the coasts. And we were like five years later, like, cool, look at
Desiree: Whoa.
Chris: Yeah.
Desiree: Okay. So what I'm picking up on then is in the seventies, the teens were out wreaking havoc.
Chris: [00:31:00] Mm-hmm.
Desiree: was no time for them to be like caught up and like technology, whatever. 'cause they were out there like, 'cause I'm thinking about like New York in the, in the eighties and there's all these depictions of just like looking war torn as fuck graffiti everywhere.
Like, I'm not saying the teenager, but like, it kind of feels like, oh, is that what was going on in the seventies? So that like, when you get to the eighties, everyone's like looking around like, oh shit, what happened?
Chris: You get this, the sixties, the, the, there was a lot of causes, right? There was Vietnam, there was, there was just a, there was, there was social justice, racial justice. There was a lot to focus on the seventies. Much of that had subsided and the Vietnam War did ended in 75. So you had, I mean, I think Dayson confused is a thousand percent accurate in his depiction of teenagers at that time, which was really just like, am I gonna play football this year?
I don't know if I wanna play football. That seems kind of lame, man. I'd rather [00:32:00] hang out with the Dopers man. Like it's
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: and that over the edge a hundred percent that, um, that movie. So that's just kind of like a darker, more realistic version of days to confuse. It's not as funny. Um, yeah, it's, it's the perfect it encapsulation of kids these days is over the edge. Yeah.
Desiree: So then that brings us to the eighties when they realized like, okay, we need to put out all these public service announcements. We gotta clean up, we gotta do all this stuff. 'cause again, the teenagers have been outta control. Um, but like the eighties, paint a picture as far as like what the issues were, like what people like teenagers were struggling with.
What would you say would kind of depicts the crisis of teens in the eighties
Chris: So it's interesting because I think the seventies, don't believe this is true, but it actually was true they had to run, um, public service announcements. It's 10:00 PM Do you know where your kids [00:33:00] are at? Like, that was in the late seventies and the early eighties. That was real. That was like a, that was like a, to try to get parents to pay attention, literally wear your kid. They had to run TV commercials. For parents to remind them to go, oh, where is John? I don't know. I haven't seen him in eight hours.
Desiree: who.
Chris: about, just think about that compared to where things are today, right? What changes in the eighties is the seventies was a lost time in many ways. Like Vietnam War was bad.
We had terrible inflation. The oil crisis, Jimmy Carter was, you know, kind of faded. You had Ford who was Bumbly, and then you had Reagan who brought in this whole new vibe of like America. And we've talked about this before in the last series. And also with that came financial, um, growth and the eighties were really all about money. [00:34:00] All about money. And so you had this kind of situation in the seventies for kids and teenagers particular where there was just nothing like, nothing, like
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: to hold onto. Well, in the eighties it was mainly money. So my memories of being in the eighties were, were very much about style and fashion and all of that. But some of this stuff is, it's funny when I wrote it down, it's like, boy, has anything changed? Like if you're talking about masculinity in the eighties, the jocks. The jocks were the thing, muscle cars still a thing from the seventies, but still a thing. bullies. I mean, bullying was, I think it's always been a thing, but it was a physical, it was just. This, the bigger dudes, like I can still think of the guys that were like the sport os bullies big. They were looked up to, um, but it wasn't just the kids. Like it was reinforced. And I'll never forget this [00:35:00] in, in my school, could pick between playing in the fall as a boy football or soccer. Those were your two choices and you wanted to play football 'cause that was the cool sport. But if you didn't wanna play football, you played soccer. But that was kind of dragged like, oh wow, you're in soccer. Cool. And I just remember being a math class and the math teacher's name was Mr. Black. I'm calling him out.
Desiree: Mr.
Chris: math, Mr. Black from 1980. This would've been 1982. they came over in the announcement and they're like. It was, it had been raining, so the fields were all muddy and wet. They're like, soccer, P practice has been canceled for after school, but it anything about football. And he, the math teacher goes to our math class. Well, that just shows you soccer's for pussies. he said that to all of us. And everybody just laughed. Like, [00:36:00] okay, great. Um, a lot of this came together in gym class. Like if you weren't, like I was not a, nor am I today a physically imposing dude. I was super skinny, like re like really skinny. And so I always had fear of bullying. I had been bullying at different, bullied at different times. So in, in gym class, man, all this came out. You're stripped down. Everybody had to wear the same white t-shirts and orange shorts in my high school. Um, and so it's just you and your body. There's nothing else. And it's all physical, presidential physical fitness test and all this stuff. Um, so that kind of defined masculinity, drinking tons of pressure to drink in the eighties. And then, um, I mean, it was as misogynist and awful as you would imagine in terms of The sex scene at like, [00:37:00] in, let's say high school. Um, I had friends that kept score, they literally had a scoring mechanism for their dating. Um, we had, we had, my friend group had the V club, was the virginity club, who was in and who was out. And if once you got out, you were celebrated and if you were still in it, you heard shit about that. Like, this is, and I'm not saying that doesn't happen today or it hasn't happened since,
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: was the eighties. Um, there were gay people in my high school, but you know, derogatory name for gay people left and right.
Like that just was secondhand. You didn't even think about using, um, profanities that were, that were focused, you know, on, you can, you know what I'm talking about, right.
Desiree: Oh yeah.
Chris: you wouldn't say today, unless you're a complete a-hole. We just said [00:38:00] all the time. Like it just was said and you didn't
Desiree: Yeah.
Chris: about it. You didn't even, you didn't even really say it in a way that was like, because we hate these people. It just was what you did.
Desiree: Just, yeah.
Chris: been what you did. Um, the racial stuff had had gone by then. Um, so there was no n word, for example, when I was
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: um, or when I was in the eighties. But the, the, the homophobic,
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: the homo, homophobic language, um, the bullying, the physical, um, violence against people, that was everywhere. That was the norm.
Desiree: So like hearing you list off like all of those things. It, it spoke directly to like the nineties and early two thousands of like my like formative, um, school years. And I'm like, oh, so y'all were the architects of the bullying of
Chris: No, he came before us. Trust
Desiree: before.
Chris: [00:39:00] it was handed down like the haircuts definitely handed down.
Desiree: But that's so interesting. Um, and so thinking about the, the queer and then also the black, uh, and brown experience, um, I'm obviously thinking more of like, you know, what's going on in major cities and not like across America. Um, but like in thinking, going back to the seventies, like the rise of disco music and then like, it was like the beginning of the eighties where there was like that disco blacklash where it's like, uh, disco sucks.
And all of the bros who loved rock music and metal or whatever, like burned, like all of this, um, celebration that essentially was occurring for these groups, they burned it all down because of maybe that depiction that, that expression and it's like, it's just too much. Um, but I'm thinking about like with, uh, if we're talking about like queer youth, um, in the eighties, you know, there's the rise of aids.
Right. And that's so for so long, nothing was done about it, um, by the administration. But the piece that we're talking [00:40:00] about that ties it back to this idea of, you know, masculinity and femininity. Femininity and all of that is, um, the idea of, uh, I don't tell me if you, uh, remember this or, or know anything about this, but like, in order to.
Look healthy. Like a, a lot of gay men started like working out, there's always been this focus on like body ideal and you know, all this body dysmorphia, uh, if you're, if you're really true about it. Um, but this idea of like, I need to look healthy and be desirable, so I need to get all of these muscles.
And so that was like the whole big thing. And like, that's the thing that I kind of take away, especially as it, uh, there's been times that it's been depicted in, um, some of the stories and movies or, or what have you, but that particular version of that is like this, uh, performance of masculinity and that yeah, you're right.
A lot of bullies, like every like eighties movie that I think back to, that's like a classic, I'm thinking of a [00:41:00] karate kid. I'm thinking of
Chris: Club,
Desiree: Breakfast Club, but there's.
Chris: a bully.
Desiree: Mm-hmm. There's all this depiction, but like also in the eighties, we do get back to that like, you know, thank God for some John Hughes, right?
Where he does find that opportunity to like, oh, there's this narrative around, um, he's mostly focused on teenagers in like suburban Chicago, right? Where he is from. But like, you start to see more of the depiction of teenage life because television has really, uh, blown up by this point. Like, we've had it for a while, but people have an access to their own, like maybe having TVs in their own bedroom so that you could watch these shows.
So you have that. You, um, you have like Saved by the Bell, which is like joke. It might be more like nineties.
Chris: I mean, John Hughes should be credited for bringing teenagers to cinema in a realistic way.
Desiree: in a realistic way. Yeah.
Chris: was very few and far between. Um, but breakfast [00:42:00] clubs, 16 candles, eh, that was kind of a, candles was a joke on it, but it was still realistic. And the bullying, the drinking, the misogyny, like, I don't know if people remember 16 candles, but the, but the love interest of Molly Ringwald essentially like loans out his girlfriend to the geek for help.
Do you
Desiree: Wow. I don't, I need to,
Chris: and she doesn't remember the sex. Like, like
Desiree: oh,
Chris: a combination of like, here have my sexy girlfriend. 'cause you gave me help to go like, find Molly Ringwald and then drunk and doesn't remember like, and that's funny. Um, so that doesn't age well. But, but also like, uh, pretty Pink the eighties, which was very realistic and had bullies in it.
Had like ultimate bully guy, blonde hair. What's his name? oh
Desiree: I know. I patron him in everything.
Chris: Yes.
Desiree: his name?
Chris: you'll come up with it. [00:43:00] Um, but look, the bullies went back to the fifties, like back to the future. Remember Biff, they went back to the fifties and Biff was a bully.
Desiree: Oh yeah, you're right.
Chris: And so did the muscle stuff. The Muscle Star started in the fifties with that guy who's very famous, who ran as in comic books about getting sand kicked in your face.
And it was like a little cartoon depiction of like a skinny guy getting sand kicked in his face by the big muscle guy. Um, Jack L. Lane. Jack L. Lane started that whole Muscle Fitness thing back in the fifties. So that, that's, that's old school. Um, but it just keeps like the haircut thing.
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: again that we c come back to is music, and we have to talk about the music in the eighties.
You, you touched on a little bit, but um, you went from disco, which was this free expression to heavy metal. Uh, and then even as the heavy metal became too, too, like [00:44:00] I would maybe call it FF. Feminine. Even though even the earlier, like the real heavy metal people, van Halen, Motley Crewe, A CDC, those were hard metal dudes.
They still had long hair, know? Um. That kinda thing. But when you start getting to like Bon Jovi and warrant and the, the actual hairbands, that's when that started to become not cool. what really took his place was grunge on one hand and rap music on the other. And what I think is interesting in reflecting about, you know, like, um, NWA Strata Compton came out in 19 88, 2 Life Crew, which I remember in 1989, public Enemy was in the eighties. So you've got that and you've got Hard Rock. They shared a lot of the same things about what it meant to be a man or a boy. money again, it's all about money. You've got the cars, you got, you got everything that's fancy and [00:45:00] cool. Um, a lot of violence either, either explicit or implicit what they're singing about and what they're showing in videos.
'cause remember where the MTV generation MTV started in 1981? So I grew up with MTV back when they showed. Videos. That's what they did. so you see this stuff, not just hear it. and then complete sexualization of women in both cases, like off the charts, sexualization of women. So that, so when, when I say I had friends that kept score of their sexual contest conquest, that's a reflection of like the culture that we were growing up in. Like that's what these guys would do, right? They're counting off all the women coming, coming to their, to their changing room after the concert. Like that probably happened in the seventies and sixties. It just wasn't stow in your face, which MTV we can thank for that I think in both cases.[00:46:00]
Desiree: Yeah, that's such a great point. And like you mentioned porkies, like it's looking back at this bygone era, but it's like still kind of telling the story of today, which is essentially that like sexualization, that fetishization of women and like just violence, uh, against women. And so like the, like you mentioned hip hop and what started up is like a music of, you know, black youth in New York, the Bronx, and then also in like on the west coast with nwa a, you know, you're talking about the experience of like always having, you know, cops trying to like, you know.
Rough you up for no reason coming up after you. What? Uh, the plight of like, not having money and like figuring out how to get money. And then it gets into, like, to your point around like not having access to funds and it's like, well, I need to get access to funds. So, I don't know, maybe like joining gangs or having access to like drug dealers.
You, you know what I mean? Like all of these depictions. But then as we get into hip hop, like as we go into the [00:47:00] nineties, it starts to become all of this like calling like women, like bitches and hoes and like all of this stuff. And it's like, oh my God. Like each, it's like you, you, you take the antsy up like another notch to.
To what we are today, but where we're just like, rampantly doing this stuff and like, ah, there's like all this footage anyways. Um, but like you see these touchstones of like the, the versions of this at the time, which felt like major crisis for that moment, but when we look back on it today, it's like, oh, that's child's play or whatever.
Um, but at the time that was like very, very serious. Um, but that idea of like the technology, again, this is still like lu dyed era and we're just like out here running the streets, uh, going wild, doing whatever, having access to whatever.
Chris: it the Lu era? Like it's the beginning of the, the beginning of the end because TV took off in the, really started hitting in the, in the late [00:48:00] seventies. Um, but in the eighties it was, the HBO was the thing, right? So you're starting to get cable news networks, CNN, you're starting to get, you know, some of the things that today wreak havoc on our culture.
24 hour news cycle. Um, again, MTV depicting visually, all of these things. Um, and, you know, so. generation, generation X. It, it's interesting to think about like, what w what were we, you know, what was the crisis with us, right? So if it was, um, you know, the Elvis and his Devil Hips in the fifties and it was the hippies in the sixties and seventies, what were we, what's interesting to me is we were the latchkey kids, as I mentioned.
We grew up, we were independent. Like we could make our own dinner, we could drink out of the hose. We did all this stuff on our own whenever we want to. Yet when we came of age in the eighties, what were we named? We were named as slackers. We were the slacker generation. [00:49:00] Um, which is ironic because we really weren't slackers.
I don't know where that comes from. There's no real truth in it that I can find. There's a movie called Slackers, but that was trying to change the, the narrative on what it meant to be a slacker. Um, what I would say is the eighties. The eighties was a fake decade. was just fake. Everything was fake. was all about presentation and money and putting up a front. And the nineties, when you think about the nineties, shit got real, right? So we had like the fall of
Desiree: The real world.
Chris: grunge which was like, screw warrant, we're gonna talk about real shit and we're gonna do it in a real way. In terms of rock and roll, you had, you know, you had rap and hip hop that was going, going after [00:50:00] the establishments. Um, so the nineties was a real rebellious era. And so I think a lot of it was like you, guys in your, you know, your. Long hair hairbands you, didn't have, like, we didn't worry about anything in the eighties. We, we didn't, we didn't worry about causes, which is one of the, the derivations of being the slacker generation. We just weren't motivated to do anything, there was nothing to motivate us. We had, I was in college, so I went to college from 86 to 90 and in at Iowa State and in 1988 I think it was, we had riots on our campus. These were real riots. Police car, like attacked cars turned over. We had like, people created a massive bonfire in the middle of a popular street and there was like two or 3000 people.
Riot Police came, [00:51:00] it happened over an entire weekend. It happened over what was called a Visha celebration, which was like the celebration of the school. And everybody would come from outta town. and you know what? There was literally no reason for the riot. Nothing it wasn't, the sixties we're like anti, there was no reason. It was kind of that movie over the edge it was just like, we're bored, we got nothing. So we're just
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: we're just gonna go crazy for no reason. And I think that says so much about that era that like we caused property damage and had this massive riot for literally no reason. So I don't know if that's an emblem or a emblematic of the slacker generation.
Meaning like, you guys don't stand for anything. You don't, you're not really fighting for anything. You're just like, you're, you're surface level, so.
Desiree: Well, it's like there's, there's something about like the, [00:52:00] the thinking of the, when you're young, like you're just so full of law and like that energy has to go somewhere. And the decades before it went towards, I'm gonna protest the Vietnam War, I'm gonna fight civil rights, I'm going to Stonewall, I'm gonna, but by the time you got to the eighties, it's kind of this like, lull.
So then it's like, where does that energy go? And then as we start to go through the next couple of decades and, you know, we're, we're gonna wrap soon, you know, you look at like, there was so much going on on the outside. And then like so much of this, this starts to, to turn on the inside in a way. Where we're so focused on like who we are, our image, how are we being seen, like, and all of this stuff that's being shaped.
Uh, by that it's, yeah, it's very interesting to see like, again, like the cyclical of each decade where it's just like kind of a repeat of like the 20 years before that or the 20 years before that or, or what have you. Um, but yeah, where like [00:53:00] where does that go, that energy go when there's nothing for it to be focused on?
Chris: And
Desiree: It's really interesting.
Chris: you can, it is because I think part of the thing, to your point that we want to talk about is that we're kind of focused on this generational, um, label of there's something wrong with the Youth Electric boogaloo, um, and a lot of that being hand ringing and overwrought from the adults. But there is something going on.
You're a young person or a generation that is trying to find its way and you just hit on it. Right. If it, if it's the fifties, the fifties was very similar to the eighties. There's a lot of comparisons culturally, the fifties of the eighties. So there was, you know, it was a, it was a time of, um. What's the word I'm looking of?
Plenty. I don't know how else to put it financially. Like fifties is like the Peak America era in terms of economics. The eighties was the same way. You had a lot of growth. You had, it was just a generally positive time.
Desiree: [00:54:00] Abundance.
Chris: young, yes, it was, it was, there was just a lot, um, of positivity. So if you're a young person, they have the, the advent of rock and roll to pour a lot of energy into that, right?
Maybe that's not enough, but that's, that was a lot of it. The sixties had real shit going on, and the seventies was kind of a dearth. So they, I, you know, it was still a little bit of the hangover of the, of the sixties and a little bit of the materialism of the, the eighties. But the eighties, we didn't have shit. I mean, you talked about the AIDS crisis. That was not on our radar. Not at all. Um, and the stuff that was going on in the world, like Iran Contra, like we knew about that in the news, but like. Nobody, nobody, nobody was gonna like walk the streets for that. the nineties shit got real again, and then, and then you start losing me.
'cause we're getting into an age where I don't remember the decades clearly. Like, I couldn't tell you the difference between two thousands and two thousands and tens culturally. So we're gonna rely on you more for that. [00:55:00] But I do think the, the, where's the energy go?
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: But the point is that there's this energy and it's gonna go
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: every single time.
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: of this getting over this, like kids aren't all right, is, well, the kids aren't supposed to be all right. They're supposed to be rebelling, they're supposed to be finding their own way. They've got that energy. Um. And yeah, we don't wanna put it into the, the Nazi youth. want it to go
Desiree: Right.
Chris: completely off the, the radar.
But even, even things like that today where you hear about the manosphere, which I know we'll get to are overdone. It's like every boy that's age 17 is in the manosphere. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, That's
Desiree: You're not,
Chris: people are focused on. They are not. So, uh, we'll get into all of that. I know, but there's an interesting kind of thread that we'll pull the cutting of the hair, the music, and the energy.
Desiree: mm-hmm.
Chris: find some others.
Desiree: Style of dress and what stage of technology we're in. [00:56:00] Like you had mentioned, like cable giving, giving more access to seeing more of these stories depicted and then like doing that. But then we'll get into the, the, that next version of the nineties and then the two thousands, uh, on our next episode.
Chris: The end of the technology, like the fifties, was music. Music for the first time to find a generation. The sixties was tv. You saw kids getting shot to death at, at Kent State. You saw, like they showed you people dying in the Vietnam War back then. You
Desiree: Mm-hmm.
Chris: you saw the riots that happened. Um, you saw RFK get shot like all this was on tv. Um, the seventies. You talked a little bit about film starting to influence. Um, and then you get cable news and MTV. So each, each time you see technology advance, you see that play a role.
Desiree: You do. And then whatever the hardship we got,
Chris: coming. I'm
Desiree: got [00:57:00] AI now that's gonna end well for us.
Chris: Alright. normally we, we wrap these with like, what do you do with all this? And we're gonna save that.
Desiree: Yeah, we'll, we'll save that. But like so much of being a teenager, no matter what decade you're in, is about finding belonging. And so essentially like looking at all of this from those decades, we'll look at a sense of like, what does it mean to belong? And maybe it was like bullying others to show that you were different and didn't belong, or it was, you know, how you did your hair dressing the same as as someone else, but essentially, yeah.
But there isn't really a what do we do about it? 'cause like the, the bygone era is done. But it's more just kind of reflecting on like, how has all of these different histories shaped what youth looks like even today? And that essentially we're all experiencing the same thing. It just happens to be during a different time period.
Chris: And, and I know we talked about this before the show started, and this isn't part of this [00:58:00] series, we may get to it. The whole idea of like a generational label is bullshit to start with. Like trying to say like, all Gen Xers are the same, or whatever. So a lot of the stuff we're talking about is generalizing, but that's part of the problem. Uh, so if we're like, oh my God, know, boys in Crisis with the Manosphere, we've just generalized the shit out of the manosphere and all boys aged 15 to 25. Like, wow, have we have, we just tried to apply this massive thing. Um, it's what we do. It's what we do. So, uh, that's where we'll kind of explore more like, well, how do you make sure you don't fall into that trap? And how do you, how do you make sure you look at things with the critical eye? So wrap this episode. That was a good start to our, um, we'll come up with a different name for, um, part two Electric Boogaloo. Uh, that just made us laugh out loud, so we had to go with that. Uh, but part two coming up, we're gonna [00:59:00] get into Deses era. We'll get into the, the nineties and the aughts,
Desiree: The oughts.
Chris: my kids were born and came of age a little bit. So I'll have a little bit to do with that, but we need to hear more from you Des.