DOD203: Tom Is Gen X but His Neck Is From the Lost Generation

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad. That's my thing. I know now what I can offer you that no one else can. Complete and honor dependent. I'm a man. I'm sensitive. I need to feel loved. I need to be desired.

0:00:22 Clip: Telling is the only part of being a father that I enjoy.

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's got at least one Gen Xer. I'm Tom Curry, and I am that Gen X -er. I'm joined by, as always, my co -hosts Eli Bosnick and Thomas Smith. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:39 Eli: Kawaii hey my fellow gen z -ers what up it's me your 37 year old gen z podcast host there's

0:00:43 Tom: You're not Gen...

0:00:51 Thomas: Had a moment where somebody I think referred to like I you know us geriatric millennials and I was like should I I don't think I'm that but is that I don'T want to be like you YOU'RE OLD AND I'M not uh 86 I DON'T THINK THAT'S GERIATRIC MILLENNIAL IS IT IS IT I DONT THINK SO NO

0:00:59 Tom: Year were you born? Uh...

0:01:04 Eli: Nothing sadder there's Nothing sadder in the world than and nothing no tom's a gen xer

0:01:08 Thomas: TOM'S A GERiatric Millennial Neil.

0:01:10 Tom: I'm not a millennial. I'm yeah Born in 78 Yeah I'm

0:01:12 Thomas: You born in the 70s? Okay. Sorry. You're even older than I thought you were. I thought he was born in like 1981 or something. I didn't realize.

0:01:24 Tom: No 1978 baby

0:01:27 Eli: It's there's nothing more millennial than us being like you guys are the old millennials and we're the gryffindor millennials jesus fucking christ jesus least the silent generation had the fucking decency to die to fucking die can you imagine if your grandpa had been like you know I'm real skippity ohio I'm not one of these old folks oh my god thank god for heart attacks at 38 am I right everybody just

0:01:41 Thomas: And never be heard from again. The pandemic that also killed the silent generation. We couldn't even kill ourselves in a pandemic. We tried.

0:02:00 Eli: Killed so many of them we

0:02:03 Tom: Just say too like Nobody fucking At least when I was growing up Nobody ever talked about generations Like it was not a thing Like when I grew up Nobody was like Oh I'm Gen Z I'm gen X I'm Like fucking this whole thing for me all feels like the last 10 or 12 years of my life where

0:02:11 Thomas: Well, that's how old you are. Like, people did talk about it. Hadn't fully built out the calendar, is the thing, back then.

0:02:22 Eli: They had the big wheel and the world was gonna end so soon because the mayans yeah

0:02:26 Tom: I literally remember in college reading Generation X by Douglas Copeland, who coined the term, I think, coined the terms of the term. The term in a book. And I remember being like, oh, I never really thought in like generational terms like that.

0:02:38 Thomas: So old, they used to read books back then, fuck, man. Yeah, geriatric millennial is 1980 to 1985. 185. Okay, I'm closer than I thought. I'll be honest. I'm close than I thought.

0:02:42 Tom: It's a good book, by the way.

0:02:49 Eli: I say something brave from my heart welcome

0:02:51 Tom: Are you gonna shit on douglas copeland because I kind of liked him and I haven't read him in a long time and now he's gonna be a rapist or something oh

0:02:55 Thomas: Gen X equally sucks.

0:02:54 Eli: I don't don't know who that is so you're nice and safe now if you have too many generations in a row without a world war that's how you get this fucking gen z millennial bullshit because the reason our grandparents don't

0:02:56 Thomas: It's fine. Oh yeah, we're not going through enough, Eli. We're not going through enough shit.

0:03:10 Eli: Think right they're just like the well ours is the generation that fought hitler and I think we won but larry's face exploded in front of me and if I think about it I cry scream so but fucking gen x millennials Millennials, Gen Z, we didn't have a generation -devastating war yet.

0:03:32 Thomas: Yeah. It's possible.

0:03:33 Tom: Yet is the operative word yeah yeah

0:03:35 Eli: Useful in sort of separating generations. But guys, you know the only thing worse than the oncoming extinction of humanity caused by World War III in a post -nuclear world? Why? It's the auto -ads. Yes, those auto -adds interrupting your podcast experience the way so many young men's lives were interrupted by World War II.

0:03:56 Thomas: Like a grenade tossed into your position. Position.

0:03:56 Tom: It's essentially the same yeah Oh

0:04:00 Eli: Can put an end to war, at least the war on your ears, over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. We'll get an extended commercial -free version of every single episode. Plus, you'll be helping pay for Tom's new neck. He's getting a neck transplant!

0:04:12 Thomas: Replacement surgery. Yeah.

0:04:15 Eli: Going to take a baby's head, we're going to put it on his body, and we're gonna be, he's gonna be super strong baby, and we'll see if you're nice to Tom for the first 40 years of his life, how that changes the outcome. So we'll let you know. You can fund that all over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. As mustard gas said to World War I, rip into it.

0:04:14 Tom: God I one Please What

0:04:42 Eli: Do you remember mustard gas?

0:04:39 Tom: The fuck was that In Chicago

0:04:46 Eli: From when you were a kid?

0:04:48 Thomas: Was a condiment back then. It wasn't even harmful.

0:04:50 Eli: Run outside with our hot dogs.

0:04:53 Tom: You can't use ketchup gas

0:04:54 Eli: That's right, yeah. No, they don't allow it. They're real dicks about it. Deep dish gas. Ass.

0:05:02 Tom: All right let's let's have let's hit a listener email good

0:05:06 Eli: Whoa, whoa. Wait a second, Tom. Tom, you're saying that our listeners can ask us for advice, for wisdom, for empathy, and for the very possible end of their relationship by reaching out to us at thedads at drolldads .com?

0:05:14 Tom: They can ask us for noise now happens if they send us a private email that they want only us to read

0:05:26 Eli: I'll tell you, Tom, we actually have a new policy here at Droll Dads. I print that out on my home printer, and then I stuff it up my ass because I can fuck myself with it

0:05:34 Tom: Yeah so here's

0:05:37 Thomas: Think that'll make us get more of those emails, not less, Eli. So, oh,

0:05:40 Eli: You know that's fair start sending long emails this

0:05:42 Tom: You send us a do not read this on air email we gonna read that on air on purpose and with your name and we will also dox you with your social security number yeah yeah we're going to hurt you personally yeah don't do that

0:05:48 Thomas: New policy.

0:05:52 Eli: Interesting approach yeah so that's the dads at dear old dads .com for either on -air advice yes please include your social security number and also unrelated to how big your neck is because we're doing a thing for tom for his birthday he you know when you see a car that's like have an extra extra kidney that's what we need for tom's neck no

0:05:59 Thomas: Subject line, your social security number

0:06:02 Tom: Need yeah and if we're gonna replace one can can I give one that I can actually button a shirt around that That would be awesome. Like if we're going, damn

0:06:19 Eli: Tom we spoke to the doctors it is going to need to be the same tree trunk size or your you'll head will fall forward like a preemie yeah so we um that's that's your doctor's words not mine the dad's a dear old dad's ago it's

0:06:30 Tom: That's God damn that guy. First of All, let me say that I'm a follower of almost every single, almost. Now I want to know which one it's not. Almost every single one of all of your podcasts on Spotify.

0:06:39 Eli: Yours tom

0:06:43 Thomas: Or it's definitely three or four of mine that they don't follow oh

0:06:46 Eli: See who's uh let's do whose name they don't mention in their little list of names here Maybe we'll solve the mystery together.

0:06:52 Tom: Guys, along with Anna, Lydia, Haley, Cecil, Noah, Lucinda, Heath, and Marsh, enabled me to make it through each day sane as well as continue my journey into atheism and skepticism. My name is Jason. I'm from Iowa. Very sorry, Jason. You can also call me the mailman. We're not going to do that because that is my current profession.

0:07:06 Thomas: My wrestling name oh

0:07:04 Eli: The mailman. Was going to say, if you wrestle, yeah.

0:07:09 Tom: Little background. I was born in 1977, graduated high school in 1995, 1995, tried fellow old, an ancient.

0:07:14 Thomas: And fellow a old like you tom how's this guy's neck doing? Is it also, is it also dust? Just bone dust in there?

0:07:17 Eli: How's your neck? Oh, fantastic.

0:07:23 Tom: College for a couple of years and enlisted in the U .S. Navy in 1997. Honorably discharged in December of 2007.

0:07:28 Thomas: A face full of mustard gas and then I was out of there.

0:07:32 Tom: Living Been and working in my hometown in eastern Iowa ever since. I'm twice divorced, no biological children, currently grinding out my days as a a single middle -aged man diagnosed with depression anxiety and undiagnosed pts not how that words are as

0:07:44 Eli: You can't be diagnosed with undiagnosed PTS, okay? Thank you. I'm glad I chose to roast that. That was sensitive and cool of me.

0:07:53 Tom: Was good yeah that was fine yeah that's totally real yeah as we currently are cursed to live in the most interesting of times I've had some thoughts on how at least from my perspective our generation tom in parentheses may view the world today I feel that gen x can in my opinion be broken down into four categories one I got lucky and everything's wonderful Therefore, I hide in my corner of the world and hope no one notices me. Two, I drank the Kool -Aid, either both flavors of orange or Christian. I'm a narcissistic pig who believes everything the group spout. Three, I've tried and failed at most everything, and now I self -medicate with alcohol or drugs to try to keep myself from going despondent over how the country and world are crashing into oblivion. Or four, I'm already dead. Would very much like to hear your thoughts on this tank, as well as perspectives from Eli and Thomas, being millennials, on how they see their generation viewing current things happening in the world and how they make contrasts from older and younger generations. Thank you for your time that you take with my thoughts, and please continue doing the wonderful work the three of you do, skeptically, politically, and socially. Jason, the mailman from Iowa.

0:08:02 Eli: Talking to you, Tom. Mailman.

0:08:52 Tom: The mailman.

0:08:53 Eli: Oh, yeah, yeah yeah. He's got a delivery and that delivery is pain oh

0:08:58 Tom: Will start by say, I cannot stand generational cohort talk for the most part. I think it's useless for themost part.

0:09:05 Thomas: In hot.

0:09:05 Eli: Interesting I'm so sorry you agreed to this episode

0:09:08 Thomas: Wait

0:09:09 Tom: I just, I don't find it to be particularly interesting or valuable for the most part.

0:09:13 Thomas: A minute. It can we go back to a few months ago where had that too but I'm pretty sure last time we had any generational talk I was the one being like you guys are doing kids these days stuff and both of you were like no it's kids these Days though and I was like I'm the one who's anti generational stuff and you're all doing kids These Days stuff that that's my memory of it It's

0:09:17 Eli: Fellas we could do a thing oh no my dick hurts so much

0:09:23 Tom: Let's do it. Yeah, I, yeah, I Don't, feel I like kids these days is exactly the same thing as like trying to, as as trying try to differentiate between like oh I was born in 1982 so I'm this generation and you were born four years younger and you're that generation and this means this things about you I just don't buy it I just I rarely

0:09:42 Thomas: The same thing. That's the exact. Are you kidding me?

0:09:43 Eli: These kids are different generation I'm top generation maybe

0:09:54 Thomas: So you don't like the borderline talk about like fine grain distinctions between.

0:09:58 Eli: If you weren't always howling and pain inside your skull, could be a better listener, Tom.

0:10:05 Tom: Find it to be particularly illuminating unless you look at it like when the problem I have with it is people look at at this individual level rather than what it's for which is a sociological level right these big sociological cohorts are interesting to talk about in big sociological ways but people instead look at them as like well I am a millennial and that means this stings about me and it's like no it doesn't that's not how that works it's not even what those terms were used and useful and created for I just don't I there's so much of it there's like an endless fucking amount of it and I just find it like I don't know personally tedious I'm what I hear I hear our mailman here is saying and I'm like yeah I mean that's your your experience of the four types of people that you run across from your fucking high school and like I don't know that that broadens out in meaningful ways that are limited to your generation so I'm not sure what that even does for me so and I resist that kind of like generational cohort talk well I

0:10:59 Thomas: You talk about the kids these days. Until it's about

0:11:02 Tom: Think there's differences between between that kids face in one generation versus another's technologically

0:11:02 Thomas: The kid. Yeah. There's definitely broad differences for sure. And it's significant. Like, obviously, we can't help but be somewhat shaped by the events that happened at key times in our lives. And I do think it's interesting. I Like, I would love to hear maybe more. I can't believe I'm saying this. I would like to hear more about the that shaped like an elderly like Tom's life, because I feel like I know all about the boomers.

0:11:28 Eli: You can't use Tom as an example. That's a fucking terrible idea.

0:11:31 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair. No, I mean, I means that the cultural things, not in his personal life, because I feel like I know all about the boomers and

0:11:32 Tom: Things that shape

0:11:37 Eli: A little hard to notice 9 -11 when you're being chased by a snapping turtle, man.

0:11:42 Thomas: I know all about the boomer's and the 60s is just objectively speaking the most interesting amazing time of all humans ever in any time it's so fascinating what I know about my you know I was here for what happened for Millennials but I don't really I know a whole lot about like the incidents that are like the Gen X touchstones because for us it is interesting talking about like 9 -11 was a major thing Like for me, it was exactly the time it was high school. It I was a sophomore and that shaped my whole, uh, I became a terrorist because of it. Um, no, it really did shape my whole like the way I looked at the world for a while, because you don't know, again, you don'T know the water you're swimming in. So like when you come come of political age, when you become of a certain consciousness at a time when that's what's happening, it's sort of think that's That's what it always is, you know, in a certain extent. It took me a long time to be like, oh, that was very abnormal, like for many reasons, not just, you obvious ones, but like also the the climate, political climate. But also you see the patterns and then the fact that we both had 9 -11 and we had the the economic collapse right for me, right the year I graduated college. Pretty significant. And then, you Know, there's still stuff, obviously, every day since then has been a disaster pretty pretty much. But But like, I think it's interesting to talk about how those events shape us. Tom, what are your what are the Gen X touchstones? I really don't even know much about it.

0:12:58 Tom: Well so think you can't rule out I'm I'm born in 1978 I think think you can't I I

0:13:01 Thomas: Moon landing. No,

0:13:03 Eli: That was a big one. Fire.

0:13:06 Tom: Was 23 I was 20 through the great chicago fire yeah it was a big one yeah yeah the fire itself for sure yeah the molasses flood and yeah boston no that 9 -11 I was 23 when that happened so I was in high school when the federal building blew up in Oklahoma City. Big fucking deal. There Unabomber, the federal building. There was Waco. There was this undercurrent of anti -government pushback, sort white supremacy.

0:13:13 Eli: Molasses, the molasses flood.

0:13:32 Thomas: Supremacy. Yeah, yeah.

0:13:34 Tom: There was Columbine in 1999 when I was still in college. So I was junior

0:13:33 Eli: Stop

0:13:38 Thomas: Well, those Those are all mine, too. I remember those, too, and that's interesting. What do you think the difference is between experiencing these things, yeah, late and early? Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

0:13:39 Tom: In college, yeah. Kind of what I'm saying, though, is that like I I think these things are so big that they influence everybody they overlap into it.

0:13:51 Thomas: Did nothing happen in the 80s, Tom? Something has to have happened in the 90s, something has to happen in 80s. Something has happened in 80's while you were conscious and I wasn't.

0:13:55 Eli: Aids right

0:13:57 Tom: A major difference. Wasn't until the 90s that young people had the same kind of access to the world that everybody now has at a younger age. So inthe 80s, like by the end of the 80S, I'm like 12, right? Right. So if I'm going to get information about the world around me, what am I? I'm 12 years old. Am I going to watch the fucking evening news? There's no Internet. It's 1989, you 11 years old, so no internet.

0:14:21 Thomas: And cable news wasn't even the same, right? Like, you didn't have that, like... Yeah, there wasn't that 24 -hour news cycle bullshit yet.

0:14:24 Tom: Don't even have cable. Yeah, right. Think that I grew up at a time when being a kid meant that you were much more divorced from the externalities of political social space that you grew up in. So I'm sure there was all kinds of shit going on in the 80s, but none of it would have risen to the awareness of a 9, 10, 11, 12 -year -old kid because we didn't have access to the world unless we sought it out specifically. Things didn't come to you. You had to go to them at that age. So it really wasn't until, for me, until there was a sort of convergence of technology and coming of age that had to happen at the same time. And that really happened for me in the mid to late 90s, you know, where the Internet became something that you had in your house, where it was reasonably priced,

0:14:40 Thomas: That's interesting, yeah. The internet was

0:15:14 Tom: Where

0:15:14 Thomas: A CD -ROM that you got in the mail.

0:15:16 Tom: Was it was, man.

0:15:16 Eli: The had a certain amount of hours yeah car

0:15:18 Tom: Yeah, it was. And I was the like all the technophobe stuff aside, like I was a huge early adopter of technology. I had a Packard Bell 486 computer that I bought with my own money when I was like 14. It had a 14 .4 dial -up modem in it.

0:15:30 Thomas: That's awesome. Where'd you get that money? Weren't those pretty expensive?

0:15:35 Tom: Very expensive. Yeah, I worked from the time I was 14. So I always worked. So yeah,

0:15:39 Eli: Wash fights he was doing well car

0:15:40 Tom: I delivered flyers.

0:15:40 Thomas: That's right. He made the big purse.

0:15:42 Tom: I did car washes, you know, big purse.

0:15:44 Eli: Wash plates no

0:15:46 Thomas: Also, occasionally the owner of the car wash would be like, hey, it's time. It's not your night. And he'd have to throw a fight, you know, and he'd make he'd made it.

0:15:50 Eli: Kind of bitter I could have been a contender. Yeah, it's the whole thing.

0:15:57 Thomas: It's That scene takes place in a car. It'S perfect. ItS in the back of the the car that's waiting to go in the car wash the marlon brando just needed the fucking the spinning thing going on that oh that would have made that scene oh

0:16:01 Eli: As it's being watched, yeah, yeah exactly. Yeah, so it is. It's interesting, Tom, because I, I, not only do I agree with you, it's also how I define Gen X, way because that I define Gen X, and it's interesting because it's missing from the Postman's report here, is that I think Gen X gets screwed because they are the generation does not get to identify with history the generation after them, millennials, identify so solidly with history, right? Millennials are so defined by what happened to us as kids, right, in a way that no generation before them really had to deal with, right. Are like, oh my gosh, 9 -11 happened when I was this, Harry Potter, you remember this television show, You remember that because we were all connected in a way that Gen X wasn't. But because Gen X, for the most part, were not our parents, because they were our older brothers and sisters, it wasn't that sort of passing of the torch, right? In the same way, it didn't feel right because our parents the boomers, they have their own generational resentment, kids these days, all that kind of stuff. But they understand that our generational identification is different because they are our parents and we are their children.

0:17:16 Eli: I feel like Gen X is really caught in the middle which is that were they looking for something to define themselves by, they were working for something to define themself as but it feels like history just kind of skipped over them right, they where like, hey Gen X we think you guys like to skateboard, and you guys were like well, maybe, we might, and then they were like shut up, the 9 -11 generation is talking how you guys doing, huh, you guys want to go to Iraq and you were like, oh, I don't know I think I, we we might need to dwell on me a little bit more. Like when you think about the things that are symbolimonic of Gen X, it's like music videos about music videos.

0:17:49 Thomas: Mtv yeah music video is about music videos

0:17:51 Tom: Yeah well think actually I'm just coming to a realization like I think maybe one of the reasons that I always I did that that I that I always kind of resent and resist conversations around generationalism is because like connect with me in any way. I don't feel a connection to a cohort of other people with shared experiences based my age.

0:17:57 Eli: Love to skateboard.

0:18:14 Thomas: For you it's maybe different but when people are never gonna earn a house and for gen x you're never gonna have a president that's your generation And, you know, Gen X really is the middle child of generations.

0:18:22 Tom: I actually think I'm the one that's wrong. I'm realizing, I think my grouchiness about generationalism is misplaced, is what I'm realizing. I think that I'm wrong about that. I thing that it is useful for other people because because they do have a sense of shared history and, and that, cohort that builds connection for them. Right. In a way that for me, it just doesn't, I somebody else. That's also 46 or 47. I'm like, Yeah, I don'T know that I have anything in common with you because of my age. And my experience is that I won't because like, maybe they grew up listening to a different radio station. Right? Like, I mean, is that like, Like, I don't know, man, like just because we're fucking the same age doesn't mean that we necessarily connect. I think you guys as millennials, you had so many more touchstones in common.

0:19:09 Tom: I literally can't think of any commonality touchstones that are just based on my generational space.

0:19:09 Eli: And have perfect points of connection within those points of connection. Like it's really interesting to talk to millennials about Harry Potter, right? It's, like, where on the Harry Potter scale are you, right ? Have you slid all the way to I never liked the books, they were always bad? Or are you still back here at, no, the books are fine, right? Because there's a whole, yeah,

0:19:33 Thomas: I'm an honest person and I love them just like all of us did at that time.

0:19:37 Eli: But then there's even further up the ledge, which is like, oh, did something happen with the Harry Potter books?

0:19:44 Thomas: They're literally wearing a Harry Potter like robes and the wand.

0:19:47 Eli: I have a fucking Horcrux tattooed on my wrist. So I guess it doesn't matter what a lady said, because I'd have to fucking burn this off with a laser, like Tom waking up every morning. So but there are these cultural touchstones. We were in touch with each other. Right. We were also interconnected in as a a generation in a Way that's really and and constantly constantly reinforcing it too. Right like I think the thing you said just now Tom is so interesting because like you and Noah right of approximately the same generation.

0:20:17 Eli: You're both very old but you have no points of connection generationally right none.

0:20:19 Tom: Fuck you no none yeah

0:20:24 Eli: I I could could lock you and noah in a fucking sartre -esque hell with fire out of either door and infinity years later I'd be like hey guys you'd be like still on small talk because but the other thing is our generation is constantly self -referencing and self -reenforcing right our invention of meme was largely just do you also remember right

0:20:16 Thomas: Fucking old extremely old

0:20:36 Tom: Not wrong yeah right

0:20:41 Thomas: Yeah oh man

0:20:47 Tom: I and I like I was trying to think like I'm desperately trying to thinking of some kind of event and I'm like maybe kirk cobain's death like that was a big deal among my peers like I think that was something that we all shared together was kirk coban's death but I don't even know what that is but

0:20:55 Thomas: What

0:21:01 Eli: Movie slc punk matthew

0:21:04 Thomas: Yeah I don't either I like that's probably a good joke that I just don't get and no idea

0:21:08 Eli: Lillard come on guys that's

0:21:11 Tom: Like OJ Simpson, the OJ Simpson thing. That was like a big deal. But like you had to choose whether or not you cared about these things. Do you know what I mean? Like

0:21:16 Eli: Fine yeah

0:21:20 Thomas: Millennials got to have the early internet too like we have all that that in common like I guess you did too but like we're it's that's one thing where I think we have more in common than the newer generations because we remember both the pre -internet times a little bit and not like the literal existence of internet but the pre widely used internet times and the like early internet times which is really interesting and distinct that'll never exist again at all like even close to that um and us Millennials and Gen X have more of that experience in common than I think anyway, than like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, I guess, is the next one. Like, I feel so alien to like GenZ and GenAlpha in a way that I don't to GenX. Like ,I feel like even though I have have kind of some silly feelings about them that are based on like generational stereotypes, but I actually have way more of points with them.

0:22:09 Tom: And Haley is born in 1981, so she's on the fucking like bleeding edge of that millennial space. I'm not I am not calling my wife geriatric anything.

0:22:17 Eli: Millennium yeah

0:22:15 Thomas: Geriatric. She's geriatric. I'm whispering it so she doesn't hear yeah hi this is Eli Bosnick is geriatric millennial

0:22:24 Eli: Cool chill

0:22:24 Tom: Good. That's yeah that's the end of eli bosnick but like

0:22:27 Eli: I just got pole kicked right in the head so when she swung around so many times I should have known what was gonna happen

0:22:33 Thomas: Well last time I said hi I'm Tom's vertebrae and you know you saw what happened

0:22:38 Tom: Oh god there's there's also that that kind of movement I don't know if you've seen it to like segregate out a sort of third space between gen x and millennials which is like like 1976 through like 1981 82 space the oregon trail generation have you seen that before have Have you heard of that?

0:22:55 Thomas: That's you guys that's us I feel like we're the Oregon oh no you guys were actually literally on the Oregon Trail okay

0:23:00 Tom: And to sort of like carve out this like weird set of middle years where certainly I and Haley both grew up in, where like in the entirety of our childhood and really most of your life, you know, you're like, I don't know, I'm not sure. Most of our teen years were lived with without an internet or with an internet that functioned in these really sort of basic ways, like instant messenger or something, right? Not the internet of your pocket, not the internet of convenience not the like constant connectivity so I grew up in a space as a gen xer where like internet didn't intersect with my life in a meaningful way until I was in my mid -20s like the internet was something you used at home on a computer it was not something that like anybody just had in their pocket yeah it was like it's a useful tool yeah

0:23:42 Eli: It's the washing machine right oh

0:23:46 Thomas: Main messenger made a typewriter noise when I typed to people.

0:23:51 Eli: My god dude you play the fucking uh door door -opening noise for our generation. Someone's micro -expressions, those aren't real, I'm joking, when the AOL door - opening noise comes out, because you will see how bad their high school experience was. They They get real Tim Roth frowny face if they had a bad high school, when that, and they're just like,

0:23:52 Tom: Yeah. I love that. Thank you. And technology has done a weird thing, too. And Haley and I, I think, are a good example of it. Like technology has not a weird think of really sort of accelerate your

0:24:22 Eli: That's your grandmother, right, Haley? I don't think, I think I met her briefly. She's the old lady you hang out with sometimes, right? I'm a senior citizen.

0:24:29 Tom: You're you're going to survive the week. Week. Yeah.

0:24:31 Eli: At least my neck feels fine.

0:24:34 Tom: Accelerating time in a way that that's kind of never been done before there's because like Haley's experience is only four years younger than I am, but her experience of the internet is very different than my experience of internet. That four years is actually a really big deal because the internet became a part of her life during those really really intense formative educational years, right?

0:24:53 Thomas: Makes a huge difference.

0:24:56 Tom: Does. And internet didn't become a part of my life in a meaningful way until I was already out of college. So to give you an example, when college, it was 2000. It was the year 2000.

0:25:06 Eli: Thought you meant college cost you $2 ,000. I was like, yeah, no, I remember that.

0:25:09 Tom: It sure did not.

0:25:10 Thomas: Yeah it was 2500.

0:25:12 Tom: We didn't to begin using... I didn't even have an email for my school. You did not not, you did not have a school email yet. We did not cite internet sources as reliable sources for our papers.

0:25:22 Thomas: Kind of remember that. Yeah. That used to be like the joke. Like you can't cite the internet.

0:25:28 Tom: I college having never used an internet source as a legitimate site. I could use the internet to find the book or find the periodical and then go get the periodical and cite that

0:25:39 Thomas: Christ.

0:25:40 Eli: Do you remember the first cool teacher who was like... Hey, guys, Wikipedia's actually not so bad. Just make sure you check its facts. Oh, yes. I had a cool English teacher who said... Guys, it's pretty crazy out there on the World Wide Web. As long as you find the dusty old racist encyclopedia to back up what Wikipedia is telling you, that can be pretty fat with a P -H. I'm dating one of my students, your middle schoolers.

0:25:47 Thomas: I actually don't either. Yeah,

0:26:10 Tom: So hayley grew up with instant messenger as

0:26:13 Eli: Dating one or two eighth grade teachers.

0:26:16 Tom: No and like instant messenger by the time people were using it I kind of aged out of it so

0:26:21 Eli: Fuck, instant messenger was the best.

0:26:23 Tom: I never used instant messenger

0:26:24 Eli: Leaving a passive aggressive. Take vague booking and your fucking all -black Instagram post with the white text on it. It has nothing on leaving a fucking bitchy, like, nice -to -know -who -my -real -friends -are -as -your -away message. Oh, Oh, man.

0:26:42 Thomas: Jesus

0:26:43 Tom: And was started in 2001 a year after I was already out of college yeah

0:26:48 Thomas: Christ how did they do college before that what did you do what people just like say stuff and be like here's what I think's true I Wow.

0:26:52 Eli: You just lied. You just lied, yep, The

0:26:51 Tom: So it it was just technologically it was such a different experience for me so growing up as like a gen x person like I had a cell phone and that was a big deal nobody else had a cellphone because I worked at circuit city I got them for free so

0:27:10 Eli: Oldest sentence anyone's ever said. And all

0:27:12 Tom: Know, I know we're

0:27:13 Thomas: Circuit City.

0:27:14 Eli: Of our listeners just turned into rose petals like you fucking painted the number 32 on a long lost obelisk across the water.

0:27:21 Thomas: Circuit City, I still remember that theme song or whatever, that jingle, and then that little plug that was their logo thing, their animated logo thing. So good.

0:27:30 Eli: People, people. You could Only get certain kinds of batteries at Circuit City. Like if you needed, God forbid, you needed a fucking watch battery because you were in for a trip.

0:27:41 Tom: I think you're thinking of Radio Shack.

0:27:43 Eli: Oh, yeah. Raider Shack.

0:27:43 Thomas: Radio Shack as well,

0:27:44 Tom: Thinking a radio shack radio shacks different.

0:27:45 Thomas: And Radio ShACK was so overpriced, too, or at least maybe that it was by the time I used it.

0:27:48 Eli: They'd be like, oh, you need a watch battery? That'll be $850 ,000.

0:27:51 Thomas: $100 million.

0:27:53 Tom: You're not wrong at all. Yeah.

0:27:55 Eli: Now, go hang out in the Blockbuster next door.

0:27:59 Thomas: God, these kids are so lucky. Now I will do it, kids, these days, but they're so lucky, my kids. We're said it before, but if we were missing a battery when I was a kid, that the toy no longer existed.

0:28:09 Tom: There's garbage.

0:28:09 Thomas: No longer existed, maybe I could find, if it happened to be double A's, then I could steal some from a TV remote and then get in trouble for it, yeah, and it would be barely just enough juice to do like one little thing. Nowadays the minute the kids toy is out of a battery I go to Amazon and I order 7,000 of that battery so that we now have a battery factory with every battery and I love it I actually enjoy doing that because I don't want to there to ever be a missing battery it's like a thing that like I'd rather just let my kids have a nice things and so that's good that they have it it's just so funny they

0:28:10 Tom: It was a garbage toy. Yeah.

0:28:12 Eli: Gone? And pray. Yeah, exactly. Well, I love you, Tom, yes? Oh, hey,

0:28:49 Thomas: Don't care

0:28:49 Eli: Have you guys ordered from a real business that isn't Amazon lately? My fucking wife for her birthday, because you fucking hippies, you hippie ass hippies have convinced my wife that Amazon is bad. And maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I I don't know, okay? And I am unwilling to learn. So she, she has a birthday note because I'm a poopy pants boy. We've talked about this.

0:28:54 Thomas: I try to it is

0:29:19 Eli: And so it's all small businesses. I go to order shit for her birthday. Thank God we did the poopy pants episode that I checked the day we did it, like a month before her birthday, because fucking Carol over at Carol's Makeup was like, I'll get that to you in four and a half months. I'll walk it over there, hon. I was like Carol, the fact that it's not going to be here today between 2 and 6 p .m. is a fucking war crime. I hope you and your whole family die, Carol. I hope your dog chokes on your cat chokes on your sister, Carol. If it's not here within the next three hours, I hope you're store burns down with everyone you love inside. It was fucking banana. They also, this is the thing small businesses do because I ordered them. Send you gifts with the thing you bought.

0:29:18 Thomas: Yeah oh man yeah

0:30:10 Tom: Yeah they sent you like a little thank you note and like a yeah I

0:30:12 Thomas: Well poor worker

0:30:12 Eli: They're There's a little sticker.

0:30:13 Thomas: That's in a cave that's never seen the light of day is like well someone ordered something I didn't know it was possible and so they send you a gift and an SOS note

0:30:19 Tom: Fucking

0:30:19 Eli: So he sent like these little stickers and a little note that was like hey thanks for ordering from carol I threw it in the garbage she didn't ask for that shit garbage years

0:30:27 Tom: Love you man that's so

0:30:22 Thomas: Please rescue me yeah yeah also shipping costs $40 and takes seven to 10 weeks for anything. Yeah. I still do it when I can, but yeah, it's, it's hard. They don't make it easy.

0:30:34 Eli: Fucking years I my choices have been taken away from me because my wife doesn't buy from amazon so I do what she tells me if

0:30:43 Thomas: Know, what's funny is my dad was so fucking old that he was actually not a boomer. And like, that was his point of like, he, he didn't like when there was any boomer talk. Cause he's actually the last year of the silent generation. I was just realizing this. It's so funny. How weird to be that old.

0:31:00 Tom: I will say too that like one like thing that that also is different about like different about being gen x is you I also grew up at a time where like every that you did was photographed nothing that você fez foi fotografado nada

0:31:09 Thomas: Wow. It. We wouldn't have known that you dressed up as the raisin. Now, that

0:31:13 Tom: You would never know. Yeah, it's it. It's all there's there's no record of your childhood really anywhere. There's no record of any of that. Like, if you went out with people, those were the people you were out with the end. If somebody wanted to find you, they'd a call them on a pay phone, probably.

0:31:15 Eli: Only oh

0:31:28 Thomas: Is wild. That is a thing I still sort of know a little bit about. But people these days, like, to be able to know where someone was was impossible back then. It's just impossible. Isn't it weird?

0:31:40 Tom: Great though. Like I'll tell you, like it was you, felt way more And I feel it now. I feel the difference now. Are constantly tethered to a secret silent network of all of these people that you are invisibly partially responsible for and to. So they need to know where you are and you need to knows sort of where they are. And you have to have this sort of background hum of tetherness and responsibility and connection to these people. People but like in the 90s I when and I sort of came of age in the in the yeah in the 90s in the early 2000s if you were out you were just out and

0:32:13 Thomas: Called your friend's house and you got the answering machine and it's like, well, they could be dead. They could be on Mars. They they could have moved. It no way.

0:32:21 Tom: There was no text messaging or

0:32:23 Thomas: The I hated the answering machine. I'm glad that doesn't exist anymore. Cause that was so traumatic. It was like, I don't know if they're, or they're screening your call. You have no idea. They could be dead. They can be just no information.

0:32:34 Tom: Like you call somebody up and like you get their mom on the phone or their dad on the phone you're like oh god it's fucking mr peterson he's gonna want to chit chat for a minute yeah no I'm doing great looking for you at finals I'm ready for final exams. He's fucking Dave there or what? Jesus Christ.

0:32:38 Thomas: That sucked.

0:32:48 Tom: We got to do shit.

0:32:48 Eli: Scary scary dad would pick up and you'd be like oh shit it's chris's dad and he'd be like you'd be like hey man um upon reflection will you be an abuser who it was better for them to murder yeah okay is dave there you don't know all right is this who you dreamed you'd be like as a little kid yeah all right well yeah

0:32:56 Thomas: Man. The worst.

0:33:13 Tom: I do Think it really informs who we are as, as the, the, the very elder millennial and the Gen gens X people that like your childhood and your adolescence, your early sort of coming of age all existed in this technologically untethered space. Space and then it's sort of immediately after that technology begins to be part of your life but it begins to Be part of Your Life kind of almost as soon as that sort of uh highest peaks of crazy hormonal nuttiness of of and and post -adolescents have kind of started to come downhill do you know what I mean it's is a unique space like I don't think there's anything else like it and I think sometimes when I watch I'll watch a show and they'll have have somebody going on a tech -free wellness retreat. And I'm like, that was my whole fucking childhood and adolescence, was a tech free retreat.

0:34:01 Thomas: You're not well

0:34:01 Eli: And it didn't matter it didn't change anything. Yeah. It's I think there's something to be said for the ubiquity of the tech as well. Right. Because, like, I know when Tom saw the first car, it was exciting. Right? But

0:34:17 Tom: I away from it. A motor horse.

0:34:19 Eli: Exactly. You weren'T forced into the motor horse in the same way and with the same magnitude and at the same pace. Right, it wasn'T like cars were invented. And then two years later every single person had a fucking car right got a couple decades to be like oh now the smithersons have a car and they got rid of their slaves at times they are a change and a song that came out during tom's lifetime so

0:34:45 Tom: Jesus christ jesus

0:34:47 Thomas: It did not

0:34:48 Tom: Christ fuck you

0:34:49 Eli: I think it's also the speed with which technology has moved forward as well it's like it's we are constantly and I mean I I I feel this now because it's also like con people have gotten involved to an extent that they probably didn't early in my technological life. Right. Which is like when there was a cool computer thing, younger people, just so you know, for millennials, when there Was a cool computer thing in the first like 1520 years of my life, it was true. And the grownups told you about it. They were like, Hey, you know know that thing in your fucking living room you gotta hook up to the wall we made a portable one it's called a laptop so you can put it on top of your lap and I was like fucking cool and then around 25 26 someone would be like I invented the eyeball computer and we the first time you did because we all had it we were all like fuck do you see this eyeball computer and that guy was just lying he was just a lying psychopath but because kickstarter's terms of service said he's allowed to keep your money he fucking

0:35:54 Eli: Did so it's also this weird thing of like it was like hey hurry and catch up to this technology everybody's doing it it's super important that's still deeply programmed into our bones and brains but it's still like every third youtube video is a guy being like a doctor is jack jp now and you're like no I don't think I think you're a white supremacist I don't think that's real how

0:35:53 Thomas: Mine

0:36:16 Tom: I will also say like I was just thinking out loud but like one one of the other things that was super kind of surreal about being in the age group that that I'm at generationally, I think is that, um, yes, yes. That is fucking surreal, but like,

0:36:25 Eli: Much your neck hurts

0:36:29 Thomas: Also hurts. It's not as much as Tom's. But hey, thank you for asking.

0:36:32 Eli: You how is your neck buddy because I feel like tom really hogged

0:36:36 Thomas: It's really not great all the time.

0:36:37 Tom: I've hogged all the space here. Yeah.

0:36:38 Thomas: And it's more of my shoulders.

0:36:38 Eli: Did taking a ball in the oxygen yeah you maybe

0:36:41 Thomas: You asking. Yeah

0:36:42 Tom: It was very surreal to begin to see the sort of internet, social media, and this sort of homogenization and an emulsification of culture that that created and how wildly out of step that was with what was cool and valued as a Gen X person. As a GenX person, we grew up the in sort of broad social values, which were bullshit, but which were still sort of mouthed out loud, were these values around seeming like you didn't care about stuff, like being too cool for stuff, a real focus on authenticity a real focus on like not blending in on then the internet pops up and the internet has this immediate homogenization and emulsification effect that sort of blends and blurs kind of everybody together and it felt like this weirdly counter a counter reaction to this sort of like pushback culture that gen x if it if it stood stood for anything it kind of this like middle finger kind and then all of a sudden it was like hey look at all the ways we're all sharing the same fucking moment and liking the same shit and connecting on the same line you're like whoa this all feels really inauthentic yeah

0:37:50 Thomas: That's fair. I think that was always there. That's just more gave us the window into it. I'm not sure if that if you'd agree or not Cause I think so many Gen X were, were so similar as well, but they thought they were different.

0:37:56 Tom: I would yeah that's why I said it's all bullshit that we mouthed yeah yeah we made noises in that direction as if those were our values when in reality we all dress like our cohort we all dressed like our friends our we all listen to the same music it's all it was always bullshit right

0:38:13 Thomas: So weird how the popular kid names always like people always think they're doing unique kid names and then they're not. It's how these broader forces kind of shape us and we don't even realize it, you know, like, but, here's um, one that I wonder about that. I thought I love, I get a kick out of how the difference, and maybe this is just me. So is this a valid generational observation or just me? Please feel free to tell me. The amount of excitement that boomers, and I don't know if this translates up to Gen X as well or down to GenX, the amount of excitement boomers have about Costco is so funny to me. It is so fucking funny to be.

0:38:43 Eli: I'm a fucking boomer then baby maybe I love

0:38:46 Thomas: It is funny to me because everything that's interesting. So everything from my perception that our generation the millennials, I feel like okay, so the Costco thing for boomers it feels like it was born of of more, uh, of stuff and coming from being raised from people from the fucking great depression or whatever, you Know, like coming from that and feeling like this is amazing that this place has things in giant quantities. Isn't it so cool how cheap it is. And as a millennial, I felt like everything that. For millennials had to be bespoke. It had to be geared toward like, Oh no, this is a one of one. There is only one of this yogurt. There there's no other or something, you know, everything has to be like that. Yeah, exactly.

0:38:47 Eli: Costco yeah yeah

0:39:24 Thomas: And if someone's like, I have an impulse in me where if someone says, oh, I got this at Costco, I'm like, oh, so it's shit. Just like absolute garbage crap.

0:39:25 Tom: Artisanal yeah right because everybody else

0:39:32 Thomas: That's my first impulse.

0:39:32 Tom: Can have it right right

0:39:33 Thomas: Yeah. It's like it's mass produced. And we grew up with thinking like mass produced stuff kind of suck. Like it's everywhere and it sucks.

0:39:30 Eli: You know the the best example of this is how boomers feel about k -cups versus how millennials feel about chemex right you show a boomer like hey look we got you a big chemex is a fancy way of making coffee right so you take They can pour over coffee, and you put in the little thing.

0:39:49 Tom: The fuck is chemex oh okay

0:39:53 Thomas: It's pour over coffee. It'S great. Objectively good. Is that a millennial thing? Cause it's objectively good.

0:39:58 Eli: But it's a millennial thing, and Tom didn't have access to it. Any of the things that you would have to describe in order to introduce Tom to Chemex, he'd be like, oh, we weren't allowed to have those. Like, glass.

0:40:08 Thomas: I didn't didn't get Chemex as a kid. You?

0:40:11 Eli: But you know what I'm saying?

0:40:12 Thomas: Okay.

0:40:12 Eli: Our generation came into money, and we were like, hey, guys, let's have a nice, well -made cup of coffee. But what Tom wants is, I put the little pod in the thing, and I click.

0:40:21 Tom: Am not a k cut no no

0:40:23 Eli: You're a K -cup. You're fucking love a K cup. You fucking.

0:40:25 Tom: We're french press guys gen x is french press we

0:40:29 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:40:29 Eli: That exact middle between nice and not

0:40:31 Tom: Are french press I

0:40:32 Thomas: Still a pain in the ass and hard to have. Have

0:40:35 Eli: A thing and then I pushed it. I squished it down like my emotions and my vertebra.

0:40:39 Tom: It down I squashed it down like my feelings

0:40:44 Eli: You have it. The perfect metaphor.

0:40:44 Tom: It comes out bitter and hot just like my feelings

0:40:48 Eli: No, what about my

0:40:48 Thomas: And a bunch of like coffee dust in it still that I could never get out

0:40:51 Eli: Neck? It's okay, you just ignore it until it kills you. All right gentlemen before we go what do you call a viking who's lost his boat a hiking no

0:41:13 Thomas: Nice I like that one yeah

0:41:18 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads .com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILf, tom smith who also wrote and recorded the intro music which is used with his permission this podcast is a production of daddy issues llc copyright 2022 all rights reserved

0:42:01 Tom: You can't use ketchup gas

0:42:04 Thomas: A minute. It can we sorry was that tom dying eli that was you you need to retake it

0:42:07 Eli: A little hard to notice 9 -11 when you're being chased by a snapping turtle, man. Think it is Gen X for me, probably.

0:42:16 Tom: Hat knocking something off my desk

0:42:17 Eli: It was, it Was Tom. He was just dying. Just, just, just gently squeezing his desk.

0:42:17 Thomas: Stop okay sorry it sounded it sounded like a corpse falling on the floor I was just you never know tom one of these days that that is gonna be your your corpse yeah oh

0:42:25 Tom: It's fine I'm still recording I'm still recording

0:42:29 Eli: I say this with all the love in my heart and as someone who would genuinely miss you, but do you know when someone is really old and really sick and someone, and they die, and someone calls you to tell you and they're like, Meemaw passed last night. And you're like... You do that like, hmm, okay. That's how I would talk about you if you died.

0:42:38 Tom: Fuck you fuck you

0:42:50 Eli: I just wanted you to know. I would deliver the news of your death the way I deliver the news of a 26 -year -old cat. That's how would tell people you had shuffled off this mortal coil.

0:42:49 Tom: You just be like yeah that tracks had a cell phone and that was a big deal nobody else had a cellphone because I worked at circuit city I got them for free so

0:43:15 Eli: Oh now the smithersons have a car and they got rid of their slaves at times they are a change and a on small talk because they're just like, dating one of my students, your middle schoolers. I don't know, okay? And I am unwilling to learn.

0:43:40 Tom: Motor horse.