23-03-2025
22 Things Past Their Golden Age
Throughout history, humankind has been treated to many different "Golden Ages" across the arts, sciences, and cultures.
But not all good things can last, and with every dawning of a new Golden Age comes its bittersweet end (RIP the Golden Age of television. We hardly knew thee).
With that in mind, Meteorstar101 recently asked the r/AskReddit community, "What are we no longer in the 'golden age' of?" and the responses are as nostalgic as they are devastating, so buckle up!!
"Social media. It went from being a way to connect with strangers for fun and keep up with your IRL friends to mostly just being a slew of ads and rage bait."
"Architecture. Everything is a gray box now."
"Appliances. Nothing stays working"
"Disney."
"Fast food. Everything is shitty now, and online ordering has ruined the in-restaurant experience. Not to mention, most workers hate their jobs and wind up quitting because employers treat them like crap."
"The golden age of the 'American Dream.' It's a bloody nightmare and has been for a decade or three, but no one wants to listen."
"Higher education has become a shell of its former self and its value has decreased everywhere."
"Unless you're over 30, you never really experienced how amazing the internet used to be. Social media was better, search engines were better, people ran their own personal websites just because they had passion and wanted to, and there was almost no monetization."
"Democracy and workers rights."
"RuPaul's Drag Race."
"Streaming services are a shitshow."
"Journalism."
"Movies. There are so many out there, but so many of them are bad."
"The job market is so bad that the unemployment rate is in its Golden Age."
"Video games. Greedy corporatism has severely damaged the industry as a whole due to so many different reasons."
"Rock 'n' roll."
"The Simpsons."
"Technology in general. New tech used to be exciting and fun."
"Music videos. MTV rotted away to produce reality shows."
"This is a small thing, but autocorrect. I remember in the early 2010s when autocorrect was kinda buggy, and you'd get some really funny corrections, and 'autocorrect fail' was a big meme."
"Cartoons. I feel like the 1980s were the golden age of cartoons."
"Superheroes in general. The Arrowverse is over. The Super-verse never materialized. The MCU is meh now. Same for the DCEU (or whatever it's called now)."
We can scream about all the things that used to be better until our heads explode, but in the interest of not making everyone feel completely hopeless, I leave you with this.
"The better question is, what are we in the golden age of?"
Well, do you agree that these Golden Ages are over? Or have any ideas about what Golden Ages are happening as we speak? Tell me in the comments!
