I work at an oldies station. Every six months we sit down look around the table and someone goes "Y'know, we could start adding '90s to the mix. It's within our format." We all nod and no one plays anything produced after 1989 because time stopped here sometime around 2003, and no one wants to be the one responsible for whatever consequences come from breaking that fragile illusion.

not to be boring, but I’m boring

There’s a reason for that, and it’s Napster and iTunes. People could suddenly buy and listen to whatever music they wanted to, whenever they wanted to. Starting around 2003, we were no longer all forced by media conglomerates to listen to the same few songs anymore, endlessly repeated on the radio till we were sick of them.

So our taste scattered, in a way that I find really beautiful. The long tail was born. The rise of the indie musician began. The 1,000 true fans theory (briefly) become a possibility, and record labels lost their chokehold grip on both artists and listeners.

But! Also!

Collective nostalgia also froze at that point. After 2003, we only culturally shared the experience of a song or two a year, and often we did that for a reason external to the song itself -- like a dance or a controversy or the rise of a new platform (“Gangnam Style,” “WAP,” “Old Town Road”). The songs that we have in common now, we no longer have in common because we are forced to listen to them four hundred times a month by record labels, radio stations, and MTV, but for other reasons. The advent of truly open personal choice in music was also the end of collective music culture.

And that’s why time stopped in 2003.

WHO PUT THIS IN THE TAGS

#i would like to take this up a notch and say when the singular right hand person or romantic interest is referred to as “[your] dog” #incredible shit

[ID: gif of a lot of people, most of them holding signs reading “yes!” in all caps /end ID]

x

King

Worth noting that he protested loudly against the WWE doing a show in Saudi Arabia after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, and the company retaliated by making sure he hasn’t been on TV or PPV since. Not fired, of course, so they can keep selling merchandise with his face on it (and keep him from joining the competition), just out of the public eye so he and his protests gets forgotten by the fans.

Picture that: an ubiquitous celeb and household name like John Cena basically got black bagged and vanished for speaking up for human rights. That’s the power of capitalism, kids

just let me stay with you. let me sleep at the foot of your bed. i would kill for you. i would die for you. if you won't share a life with me, at least let me dedicate mine to you.

@ those of you saying this is cute… that’s a feral rat. a feral rat hovered over my head watching me sleep for three hours while trying to figure out how to assassinate me with a longsword. thanks.

hi it’s been six years and i want you to know that as much as this post has tormented me, nothing any of you say will compare to the relentless ridicule from my family

six years