Millennials and Aesthetics Bridging The Past...because Social Media.

2011 Tumblr, 2012 Twitter, and 90s R&B all have something in common...being a novelty of something missed. This novelty comes from a desire of originality mixed with nostalgia, uniqueness and everything under the sun. These various time periods are what made the digital kaboom it is today. Nowadays you see a lot of vintage clothing, designer outfits with low budget backgrounds, or rebellious displays of visuals and actions in words.The thing is time and history come back for more no matter what era. But the difference this millennia is that we embrace it and make it our own because of the beauty we see in the aesthetics that made it great.

Millennials & Aesthetics:

Just like the Baby Boomers, Traditionalists and Generation X; the Millennials are a group that is growing up in the 21st century. The 21st century is considered the digital age and this generation (myself included) have grown with a crazy amount of technology developing like never before. We have come to bring on the ideas of wireless connections with anything or wireless streaming of music, television, radio, etc. The adjustment and identity in reselllience of things we hold dear while preserving said things are what makes us special compared to others before us. This also includes the value of cultural past times like style, television, art, languages and so on. The beauty and what makes us like these things are called an aesthetic.

An aesthetic is defined as "a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement." It is a trait or feature that makes something beautiful and considered art, which is something wed like to remember.

It is more about a philisophical debate and discussion on what is considered nice or not. The morals in what is considered art is what makes an aesthetic an aesthetic and this is what makes the millennial age a boomerang wrap up show for the last 100 years.

Bridging The Gap:

The aesthetics of stuff like Retro Jordans and Movie themes are what makes things "cool". Compared to finding identity in past decades, the idea of nostalgic exclusivity element that make themes like I Love Lucy to Full House rendition seen in Wandavision, or "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" by Paul Anka helping to start trends on TikTok. We embrace the idea of nostalgia in ever fiber of our generational being to where we cannot see the difference. It is the essence of that art and diversity in what we all appreciated in the past to which we go ahead and make this old stuff new again.

We do this by bringing old slang back, wearing old clothes with thrift fashion, watching old movies and having a discussion about them. But thats truly the key force of our generation, the need to be acknowledged and voce we all have. This voice we received from the result of the oppressed parents in generation X has come to bring a reckoning in their seeds into which create this breaking status quo thing cool. The need for respect and tradition was followed with X but now its acknowledged and talked about in its glory and horror if there is any. THIS is the gap here. The gap we have right now is the new emerging generation "Generation Z" who was born in the mid to late 2000s that are achieving adolescents currently. This one is the truly free and most progressive generation compared to all of us.

However, with this understood, this is how we bring Generation Z and the people before us together. We do this by talking about what made things great and what was also bad about them. This talking and meta we create when we see something we lived through and also what our parents lived through gets telephoned to that kid on the internet. I know I should like my mom and granny but "you have impact on these kids" (yes, me and you). Half of these kids and young adults now wouldn't like thrifting if we didnt do it. They would not like Adventure Time, Samurai Jack, and the Office if we weren't still watching it.

Us recreating things that made us laugh through memes, vines (RIP), and now Tik Tok. Kids asking about the "OG" Disney Renaissance we first saw Aladdin, Tarzan, and Hercules in and seeing it be remade in live action now. The Nintendo family NEVER changing anything past 2005, Nickelodeon never changing sponge bob and so on. Although we might not like to admit the downside of all the inspiring nostalgia we bring by just been ourselves.

The Catch:

Sometimes nostalgia does this thing where we do not acknowledge the manner in which people come to remember bad things even if they were mostly good. We may bring up the greatness of Spongebob Squarepants and how great Stephen Hillenburg (Rest His Soul) made a cultural phenomenon. But we dont like to remember an episode past season 5 because of the nostalgia factor that we create with us living in this situation we love. We might like the Star Wars, DC, and Marvel nostalgia we all come to see from the producers down at WB and Disney.

But we aren't seeing anything new and doing the people ahead of us a disservice at the expense of our comfortability. However, this is a check and balance of us coming to accept that "with great past comes great responsibility for the future" or whatever Uncle Ben said in Spiderman.

Wrap It Up:

As previously stated, we are the bridge; between all these generations because we are the ones who really care that much about everyone around us. I know and I'm aware that 30 is creeping in and its inevitable (dear mother of God *cries*). But what I do to react about losing youth is on me and what I do with the time I had is also...on me. Millennials are always looked down upon as the lazy, soft, entitled generation. But we are truly the greatest generation around. We are the bridge that the boomers and traditionalists exploded with Generation X. We built it again and let everyone have a middle ground to speak on. Its us and the art we love now, then, and forever that will come to influence the next generation for years to come. The aesthetic of understanding the themes and motif in what we watch, dress, and listened to. Its all progressive in nature and always wants to change the world that does it to them.

SOURCES:

• Statistcics of Millennials

• What Is Aesthetics?

• What is Aesthetics? (pt.2)

• Aesthetics on Social Media