Wow. I could not be more opposite.
I go out of my way to try new things, especially when it comes to art. If my first reaction is "this sucks," I try to ask myself whether it is just bad or rather just not what I am used to. If the latter, I try to figure it out.
I think it is super important, especially as we age, to challenge our comfort zones. Otherwise I'll just be another grumpy old guy complaining about how things should be more like they used to be. You know, one of those people that we used to roll our eyes at because they were complaining about us.
Well I am a very contrarian Gen Xer
@Clint_L and thus content with my grumpy old man status
Actually the truth is, at a certain point I just started to realize I wasn't connecting as much to newer things that came out. All these issues we are discussing aside, it is like a gene went off in my body and I realized I wasn't into what the young people are into.
As a proud Gen Xer, I find it hilarious when folks in my cohort start complaining about the youth, as if films like Slacker and Clerks weren't made by and about us. Our signature music album is literally called Nevermind.
I don't have any issue with young people. I just think we grew up very differently and cultivated very different sensibilities around media that is starting to show up in newer movies as those are naturally made more for a young audience.
When it comes to the 90s, I was a little bit out of step with things. I was not listening to never mind, and I have still never seen slackers lol. My signature music albums were literal Black Sabbath records from my uncle's stash, the Doors, Queen, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and stuff on the heavier end like Cathedral, Solitude Aeturnus and Morbid Angel. Most of the stuff I liked in the 90s was pretty uncool at the time, and grunge made zero sense to me (my dad probably had hipper taste than me because he was at least listening to Tori Amos and Susanne Vega). For me the rise of grunge meant Ozzy wasn't on the charts anymore. I did see clerks That was a good movie. But I also realize it wasn't Citizen Cane. My favorite film from the 90s was Goodfellas. But I probably spent most of my time watching things like Nightbreed.
With movies I see things once in a while that are new, which I like. But it is rare. I quite liked Legend of the Demon Cat (that came out in 2017, which I know isn't super recent but for me, that is yesterday). I liked the Witch and Late Night with the Devil. I also enjoyed RRR a lot. And Dredd was good. The John Wick movies hold my attention.
There is so much awesome new fantasy that we are spoiled for choice. It's not just Tolkien knock-offs and bare-chested barbarians these days.
And if you are enjoying it, more power to you. Again, like I said before, I am wary of constraint from either direction. So my criticism isn't saying we should subtract things. I agree we are spoiled for choice. That can't be denied. And I am somewhat overstating things, as you've probably noticed I will still be curious enough to read the very things I am complaining about. It is almost overwhelming sometimes.
I'm not even typically reading classic fantasy these days. If I read something classic it is more likely to be gothic horror, Shakespeare, something like the Divine Comedy. But typically the genre I prefer now is wuxia, and most of that is in translation. It is a somewhat more old fashioned genre these days, so many of the novels I read in it would be from the 50s and 60s, but a lot of of this stuff wasn't widely available in English until you had fan translations on the internet (there were things in previous decades but they were kind of rare and some of them not the best translations). A big one I always push, and I think you might like it as the translation of it is very good, is the Condor Heroes series (which St. Martin's Press put out). It is actually a trilogy, but each book in the series if broken into four volumes. And they have only officially translated the first book, Legend of Condor Heroes, and the first volume of the second, Return of Condor Heroes. However of all are available online as fan translations. If you like being challenged, it is an interesting genre to try delving into. The first book in that series is called A Hero Born in the English translation (and I believe the translator was Anna Holmwood). I like the translation. Some people objected to how she translated some of the names, but I didn't mind)
