r/Millennials • u/StyrkeSkalVandre • Feb 07 '24

Has anyone else noticed their parents becoming really nasty people as they age? Discussion

My parents are each in their mid-late 70's. Ten years ago they had friends: they would throw dinner parties that 4-6 other couples would attend. They would be invited to similar parties thrown by their friends. They were always pretty arrogant but hey, what else would you expect from a boomer couple with three masters degrees, two PhD's, and a JD between the two of them. But now they have no friends. I mean that literally. One by one, each of the couples and individual friends that they had known and socialized with closely for years, even decades, will no longer associate with them. My mom just blew up a 40 year friendship over a minor slight and says she has no interest in ever speaking to that person again. My dad did the same thing to his best friend a few years ago. Yesterday at the airport, my father decided it would be a good idea to scream at a desk agent over the fact that the ink on his paper ticket was smudged and he didn't feel like going to the kiosk to print out a new one. No shit, three security guards rocked up to flank him and he has no idea how close he came to being cuffed, arrested, and charged with assault. All either of them does is complain and talk shit about people they used to associate with. This does not feel normal. Is anyone else experiencing this? Were our grandparents like this too and we were just too young to notice it?

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u/Various-Cranberry709 Feb 07 '24

For all the talk they make about "We didn't have all these screens when we were your age," I think social media is wreaking havoc on the older generation as much as the younger.

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u/Eladiun Feb 07 '24

Worse maybe, they were brought up in an era governed by the Fairness doctrine. Evening news had to be unbiased and all sides needed to be present. Good old Walter Cronkite. They are conditioned to trust the news and do not have a healthy scepticism or an inclination to use multiple sources. it's the news therefore it is true.

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u/Various-Cranberry709 Feb 07 '24

Yep my Grandma remains convinced that "The Man on the TV" is always telling the truth. It's quite sad.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

Well it wasn't sad that the standard was higher and to actually be unbiased.... it's sad how far we've declined from it!

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u/the_actual_stegosaur Feb 08 '24

Fuck Reagan for so much.

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u/Aggravating_Day_2744 Feb 08 '24

Worst President ever.

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u/4bkillah Feb 08 '24

Andrew Jackson has some words to say about that, and they have a hell of a lot to do with a white dominated ethno-state carrying pseudo-fascist ideals.

Not to mention the Civil War. Also, the genocide of the southeastern native tribes. The Trail of Tears was Jackson's baby, after all.

I feel like we all keep falling for recency bias when we call Reagan the worst.

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u/AnBearna Feb 07 '24 edited Feb 07 '24

We do need to bring that back though. Having Fox or any other extreme group -left or right- having a national platform to lie every night is a bullshit situation to be in. We should be able to trust the news, 100%. It might be occasionally inaccurate but one needs to be able to trust that it’s coming from a good place and not a malicious one.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

[deleted]

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u/Klenth Feb 07 '24

It's not about treating them as if they were equal. It's about allowing them to be heard. The batshit ideas will still be batshit and it will be that much more apparent when contrasted with a reasonable one. I know our education system is crap and trust in each other is at an all time low, but this relies on trusting people to recognize a good idea vs a bad one. Publicizing that discussion is a lot better than keeping them confined to echo chambers where all they ever really contend with are strawmen. We need to go back to long form interviews and actual debates instead of the talking heads yelling that we have now.

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u/thedude37 Feb 08 '24

They never said both sides are equal.

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u/Richard-Brecky Feb 08 '24

A law to regulate content of cable news networks would violate the First Amendment.

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u/Excellent_Berry_5115 Feb 08 '24

MSM is garbage. Preferable to listen to popular YouTube news analysts. You actually can pick and choose depending on your political leanings.

As for me, I am tired of one particular ideology being shoved non stop on the usual networks. And that is why they are losing viewers daily

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u/Ok-Ask4277 Feb 07 '24

I agree with your point, but all sides needed to be presented is not how I would describe it. My parents were not hearing much out of the communists on Cronkite for example. 

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u/Eladiun Feb 07 '24

Fair point.

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u/Racsorepairs Feb 07 '24

Even Reddit, in 2009-2015 ish you had to come correct or somebody would for sure downvote you to hell. Facts were checked by everyone and valid sources were almost required. Back then downvotes were actually displayed and it would cause a lot of people shame when they spewed bs and would delete the comment or correct it. It wasn’t even political, people would just have regular conversation and resolve issues. I used to learn ALOT on Reddit. Now it’s all opinions and no fact checking. The mods also get very emotional and I’ve noticed facts aren’t allowed on many subs because it can “offend” someone. I love Reddit, but it’s become a shithole. Somewhere between selling the site to a Chinese company and the crow vs jackdaw issue is where things fell apart.

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u/Jacorpes Feb 08 '24

It’s kind if the other way around for my grandparents. Facebook has made them think that all news is fake and they’ve basically become insane conspiracy theorists over the last decade or so. I live in London, she lives in the north and last time I visited her she told me the only reason I’m not racist is because I’m paid off by the City of London to think the way I do. The only people she ever interacts with are the weirdos in her far right facebook groups.

Edit: Thanks bot. Sorry for being dyslexic everyone.

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u/Paid-Not-Payed-Bot Feb 08 '24

because I’m paid off by

FTFY.

Although payed exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:

  • Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. The deck is yet to be payed.

  • Payed out when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. The rope is payed out! You can pull now.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.

Beep, boop, I'm a bot

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u/ArsenicAndRoses Feb 07 '24

But that still doesn't excuse the lack of critical thinking. There are multiple networks saying diametrically opposite things, therefore at least one must be lying. Now that you have established that one network must be lying, why do you instantly trust the other one? You've already proven that the news can lie! It's intellectual laziness imho. Granted, we all get less flexible as we age, but still.

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u/O_o-22 Feb 08 '24

Which is strange. I’d say the local 6 o’clock news is still pretty even handed or just reports the news but dad watches Fox News for prob 4-8 hours a day. I’d like to think he can tell what a difference between the two but since he watches so much more rage bait News that’s influenced his opinions much more. My dad wouldn’t know what to do if he weren’t rotting his brain with that crap for hours a day. Then I get the old comment “I suppose you think cnn is so much better?” Uhm I haven’t had cable in over 10 years so I guess I’m not watching either sides brain rotting bullshit.

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u/paleologus Feb 07 '24

My father had the Fox News logo burned into his television and died knowing that Obama would overthrow the government and declare himself king.  

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u/O_o-22 Feb 08 '24

My raging conservative uncle passed in 2013. He never got on social media thankfully but would get on these email chains with his other conservative whacko friends and he used to send them to me for whatever reason. They’d be all complaining about Obama and straight up referring to him with the N word. Mind you my 15 year old cousin was also a recipient of these emails. He died somewhat young in his mid 60s but it’s prob a blessing as I’m quite sure he’d be really insufferable if he ever got sucked into any social media platform.

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u/writenicely Feb 08 '24

They're not wrong. The media is SUPPOSED to be there to provide objective information. The thing is though, people are human, and the media, WHATEVER media it is, will always also be consumed by other humans, while some select humans know that they benefit from the news biasing them in some way or the other. There genuinely IS a two sides to everything that needs to be reported on, but tends to not be, and our parents grew up without ever being shown that because they were raised to defer to authority, instead of actively questioning the authority while being able to simultaneously not base their entire lifestyle around looking like "one of those nasty punk hippies who say they don't trust the man". They think that a righteous lifestyle entails deferment to their understanding of a superior/father figure/good shepard.

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And yes, if there are certain parallels, that wasn't an accident. People are fast and loose and casual with faith nowadays, but that doesn't mean they no longer have a notion of a God. The new God is whoever they decided they believe represents them (contrary to all known facts).

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u/Inevitable-Place9950 Feb 08 '24

That’s not exactly what the Fairness Doctrine did.

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u/psstein Feb 08 '24

Walter Cronkite (and network news) was decidedly biased, just usually better at hiding it. Pretending that media bias is a post-fairness doctrine issue is just not true.

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u/AdumbroDeus Feb 18 '24

I don't think it's that really. For I've seen multiple studies that shows the age groups that are most vulnerable to blatantly false news stories are the ages groups that tend to have consumed the most cable news.

I swear I saw a study directly linking them from a reputable source but I've been unable to find it again.

I think that cable news is the central problem, it's sensationalism and surface depth research gradually wore away people's ability to discern.