Are you glad that you are living in the 21st century?

@VanDammFan:

agreed, I preferred the late 20th century, I think it's gone downhill since the turn of the century.

I am.

Endless entertainment, all of the information, music, and technology we have access to, indoor heating and cooling, plumbing, efficient cars, lots of food, good healthcare, more freedom for the average person, and a million other things make this century better than any other.

My right knee gives me trouble too,

Volleyball coach used to make us dive on the gym floor without knee pads,

He dead now.

Don't get me wrong...I'm sure that the 21st century sucks for some people in some places. But that'd probably be more along the lines of "some corrupt regime started genocide against my people in the 21st century" and less along the lines of "art sucks today."

For starters, if my rant about how the 21st century sucks is almost entirely revolved around art, then things are pretty fucking good. It wasn't that long ago that sanitation, painkillers, vaccines, running water, and indoor heating/cooling were either nonexistent or only available to the wealthy. Most countries have MOSTLY eliminated things like genocide and slavery. Violent crime is down and civil rights are at an all time high. THAT should be enough to make this the best damn time to be alive without even bringing art into the equation. Don't get me wrong, I love art. But I am MORE in love with people not starving or getting slaughtered for their race/religion/etc. Great music is awesome, but what's even MORE awesome is not dying horribly from easily preventable diseases.

And secondly, art today is fucking awesome. Do you know why? Because more people have the capability to make art. The internet is one of the absolute greatest things to happen to art, if for no other reason than that now it gives artists a voice. Before, you could make your art and chances are that no one within a mile of you is ever gonna see or hear it. By contrast, someone in the USA today can post their art on the internet and within 24 hours have people from Germany and Brazil and Japan looking at that shit. That is amazing as all ****. And yet some people gripe about that. And it boggles my fucking mind, man. I mean, HOW is that a bad thing? The only thing that seems to make sense is that it comes from a place of elitism. As in, "I like what I like, and the entire art community should cater to MY likes. It is beneath me to see someone making BAD art, so art should remain accessible to the few and privileged so that we don't have the dirty common man having his say." And I say "**** that" to that kind of snooty hoity toity nonsense. **** that sense of entitlement that art is only for the talented and not for the common man. That attitude actually PREVENTS great art from being made. The same accessibilty to art that allows bad art to be popular is the same accessability to art that lets good artists have a chance when in any other time period they wouldn't have had the opportunity to set their foot within the door. A shitload of talented artists today never would have had a fucking chance if not having had the luck of living right now, and their talents would have gone wasted. If the increased opportunity to have access to the creation of art results in some shitty art, that's a VERY small price to pay for all of the talented artists who otherwise never would have gotten a chance. Art today is fucking awesome if for no other reason than that nearly EVERYONE now has the means to be an artist if they want to be one.

tl;dr

And for the posts of yours that I do read, I find thegerg's posts more enjoyable to read than them.

Honestly? We fail at culture now. More people care about their fucking Facebook and Twitter than they do about their real life acquaintances and issues. Music is largely lackluster with no iconic artists that aren't youtube sensations (i.e Justin Bieber), or people who became famous in the 20th century. Katy Perry, Lady Gaga my ass. All albums sound the same, as if the same settings in pro tools were used to produce every one of those cookie cutter Disney star pop acts 'albums'. In fact, albums are meaningless now. They are just a collection of random songs destined to be picked apart on iTunes one song at a time, or perhaps one song only. There was a great deal of culture in the 20th century that has now been replaced by cold and calculated convenience that is computer technology. It's a massive shame too.

If I had the chance, i'd live in the 60's or 70's over this sorry decade. 2000's and 2010's are largely the same thing. The 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's all felt different and were iconically themed in fact. We are now in what is known as a cultural dark age. Everything cool has been done in art. Games are the only medium still producing classics. This is largely due to the youth of this medium in general however. And even then, capitialism and technology are taking it's toll on it by producing risk free cookie cutter annual releases. It stops being art at that point.

Jaded you ask? Hell yeah! The world needs a revolution, seriously. The community is too fragmented though, so good luck with that.

I'm sure Geezer is just crying his eyes out after reading that.

On topic, considering that I live in the US, yeah, the 21st century is a pretty sweet deal. Really no other better time to live in.

art today is fucking awesome.

No it's not, it's not even close

The reason is that everyone thinks they can do it and then spread it around. Art today is like some kind of airborne disease.

I like living today because of all the advantages but for art we're at the bottom.

Your problem is that too many people have access to it? I guess you must also be nostalgic for the days when only the wealthy got a formal education.

Yeah turn it that way, I'm glad you could take time away from hugging a tree to offer up a response.

Art is garbage today because actual quality is being covered up by everyone who thinks they can do it. Everyone who can put a brush to a canvas is not an artist but in your world that's all you need right? As long as you go through the motions it's art, that's disgusting.

Don't you have a softball game to umpire where no one keeps score and everyone wins?