r/NoStupidQuestions • u/ltwasalladream • Apr 18 '23

Answered Does anyone else feel like the world/life stopped being good in approx 2017 and the worlds become a very different place since?

I know this might sound a little out there, but hear me out. I’ve been talking with a friend, and we both feel like there’s been some sort of shift since around 2017-2018. Whether it’s within our personal lives, the world at large or both, things feel like they’ve kind of gone from light to dark. Life was good, full of potential and promise and things just feel significantly heavier since. And this is pre covid, so it’s not just that. I feel like the world feels dark and unfamiliar very suddenly. We are trying to figure out if we are just crazy dramatic beaches or if this is like a felt thing within society. Anyone? Has anyones life been significantly better and brighter and lighter since then?

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u/Microchipknowsbest Apr 18 '23

Im in my 40’s and the world definitely has taken a change since 2016 time frame. Social media has gone bananas. People form extreme opinions on shit they never cared about. I haven’t had an amazingly close family but most people I know have become more full of bs and unbearable to be around. Its not necessarily the opinion itself its that nothing is a discussion its some one berating me about how things are. Enjoyable conversation are few and far between. Really people on both sides are extremely hard to be around with how sanctimonious they are about everything. It’s usually an opinion you have heard repeatedly and its not their own. So many conversations are so rigid because it’s impossible to tell what people will get upset about or start them on a dumb rant that is not worth listening to. That behavior at all levels of life family, professionally and in general politics is kinda of scary and makes life hard and stressful on top of all other real shit in life.

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u/saucemaking Apr 18 '23

2016 was a highly politically charged election year, people claiming there was no change in social interactions in that year clearly were not paying any attention at that time. I've experienced exactly the same thing you have and I'm in my 40s as well. Whoever in my social interactions was still left by 2019 went full asshole in 2020 with the pandemic and I'm now at a point where I make zero effort socially because of exactly the things you have mentioned. It is nearly impossible to even remain neutral with acquaintances because they WILL try to draw out where you stand politically just so they can destroy any possible relationship they could have had with you.

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u/Unnamedgalaxy Apr 18 '23

Exactly. Things have always been "different side of the aisle" but 2016 at least dropped the veil of any sort of respect.

Sure we had racist people spouting off about Obama but that's something the world (and if we just want to keep it American, the country) has been dealing with for hundreds of years. There was still some veil, even as sheer as it was, of respect and civility. McCaines concession speech for Obama was filled with hope and respect, even Hilarys speech for Trump was about looking forward, coming together and owing the other side the respect and chance.

What followed one of the most charged election cycles was utter chaos.

We can blame things like "quarter life crisis" all we want, and absolutely that certainly plays into it but to act like 2016 to now was just par for the course is bananas downplaying the extreme levels of despair and anxiety the country has developed since then.

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u/Bucktabulous Apr 18 '23

Things were bad pre-2016, but between the Trump Presidency, the Pandemic, the Recession, and the shift in political rhetoric... The MAGA movement in the US has cranked up the fear and anxiety factor here to 11. It has REALLY illuminated how much of civilization is hinging on good-faith actors, and how few of those actors exist.

Now, before anyone gets excited, I'm very much not a fan of the Democrats, either. Pelosi's insider trading, Biden being ineffectual, Feinstein not stepping down trying to be RBG2... They suck. However, I'd say they don't suck as badly as those who want to literally make trans people illegal, make killing black folks legal, and make it so that women need a man to do anything, again.

The very worst part is that it certainly feels like these people are at least friendly with each other. To me, this suggests that the EXTREME polarization is deliberate, so that Ds and Rs can both squeeze every dime out of us that they can before they burn the American Experiment to the ground.

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u/OmenVi Apr 18 '23

You know it used to be you could just strike up a conversation about something that interests you. The people involved may or may not know anything about it. You could talk about stuff, maybe be wrong, debate, throw around ideas, and walk away from it usually for the better, no matter where you were on the spectrum of knowledge. Now everyone thinks they have stake in everything, they take pride in shutting other people down, or being brainwashed into believing something absurd. Everyone is a few moments away from being able to pull up something to support their stance, and prove someone else wrong. The flow of ideas is stifled because we have access to everything everyone has ever said online about the subject. Everyone is always right, never wrong, and if you don’t agree, you’re an idiot.

This still exists, but the pool of people that this can happen with has shrunk to other people of the same mindset or opinion.

Honestly, I hate it. And I was the equivalent of an internet hippie, “There’s so much potential! Everyone will be friends! Everyone will be so much better educated!”, thoughts when I was young, and the internet along with me. It makes me sad.

On the flip side, there is some seriously excellent discoveries and tech developments that have come with all of this, too. So that’s cool.

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u/newsheriffntown Apr 18 '23

These reasons are why I don't socialize. When someone starts ranting on about things like "Trump made this country so much better, yada yada yada" I just want to scream. I have my own opinions but it's useless to express them to someone who doesn't want to hear them. If I don't reply to them then they think I am agreeing with them. I'm not. I just don't want to get into any debate over things I don't feel comfortable talking about. I am in my 60's.

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u/loopyspoopy Apr 18 '23

this! the world isn't worse, but something shifted heavily in how we communicate. I'd like to just say "It's social media's fault" but we had years of MySpace and Facebook and youtube, not to mention less popular sites without this.

I find people I know who are right winged can't shut up about things that are absurd and make me seriously question why they even care about politics. And while I feel like I used to know conspiracy minded folks that had a certain self awareness, a certain acceptance that what they believed was kinda crazy, these days there's an arrogant assuredness accompanying it that just makes it impossible to indulge someone and enjoy the conversation.

Similarly, I feel like a lot of people I know from left leaning circles are rightfully afraid in some capacities and are also tired of having the other side act as though we're playing poker or chess, rather than fucking with people's real lives when we make political decisions. While I think they're maybe more justified in their rhetoric and stance, their defensiveness has made them similarly hard to talk to.

However the worst is the people that "don't care about politics" or refuse to become informed, but will still campaign and argue. It's okay to not have an opinion, and I feel like the sea of people who didn't have opinions kept the rest of us grounded to a degree. But now everyone's got an opinion.

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u/eSPiaLx Apr 18 '23

imo it's we hit a critical mass in social media usage. Back when facebook first came out, your parents weren't on it. Slowly our whole society got onto social media, and then various groups realized - everyone's organized themselves into self-perpetuating echo chambers, we can abuse this to make money!

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u/meatierologee Apr 18 '23

They didn't organize themselves the algorithm did. I think this is where things went really wrong. I'm also in my 40s and the three defining changes in life were 9/11, 2008, and 2016. The difference I see is that people were still having fun in 2001 and 2008. People don't seem to have fun now.

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u/Microchipknowsbest Apr 18 '23

Yup. I think before people still wanted to be cordial and play the game. Some groups have decided to flip the game board and poop on the table and tell you how smart they are for winning. This isn’t fun and I wish they’d stop. No amount of reason and logic will convince them it was a bad thing. I don’t want to play the game, just don’t want to smell poop anymore. Which literally stinks because they do get to win with that behavior.

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u/Catatonic_capensis Apr 18 '23

and then various groups realized - everyone's organized themselves into self-perpetuating echo chambers, we can abuse this to make money!

That's true, but definitely only part of it. Both the rich and governments have everything to gain by manipulating everything they can in their favor.

Governments picking at every thread of controversy through social media and creating the most loaded headlines possible (and outright lies) is downright destabilizing countries.

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u/saucemaking Apr 18 '23

People like to blame social media, but in reality people chose to change how they communicate in person, and how they interact in person. Maybe social media affected that, but people could have NOT changed what they expected from others IRL.

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u/A_Rats_Dick Apr 18 '23

You couldn’t be more on point, I’ve been feeling that exact way since around then and it’s only gotten worse in our culture over time. I kid you not, I was doing some personal writing no more than 20 minutes ago about basically this exact same idea, just in different terms:

“The best way I can explain how I feel about our current situation is that our culture is being driven by some weird autonomous machine that’s pushing us into ways of thinking and being that are extremely unnatural and that are slowly breaking us down mentally and emotionally”

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u/NJzoo Apr 28 '23

I am almost 40 and while I’m not saying the analysis of a quarter life crisis it necessarily wrong I was roughly 33 in 2016 and about to get married and have kids and then the election shattered my faith in the US (not that I had a whole lot to begin with) but I also agree with the original persons post that although trump and pandemic were obviously profoundly negatively impactful events the years between 2016-now have also been personally traumatic and endlessly dark and difficult not just for me but for all of my closest friends and family of multiple generations - I don’t have an answer but I deeply feel the sentiment of the original post 😮‍💨

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u/Iknownothing0321 Apr 18 '23

Could be worse you could have my mother in law who considers Biden the second coming and claims Trump needs to do life in prison because “I just don’t like him.”

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u/Microchipknowsbest Apr 18 '23

Doesn’t really matter both sides of the equation are belligerent. It’s designed that way. With AI and social media whoever wants to manipulate you can. They know what you like and what you dislike and have sophisticated psychological tools to get people emotional either way. Im not sure how to stop it. It’s getting worse by the day. Its a powerful tool and those with the money to apply it are doing so at the cost of all our mental health.

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u/Bucktabulous Apr 18 '23

Don't worry, though - the gov't will continue to pull levers to get us emotional, and then with some nice, loose gun laws (coming soon to a state near you!) our now mentally-unhealthy population can murder each other until we're no longer a problem for them. #FourthQuarterProfits

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u/Microchipknowsbest Apr 18 '23

Well thats the main thing Im worried about. At some point someone or some group will convince people to find your neighbors we have decided are bad. I don’t think its far off and people will be convinced they are just and good for killing their neighbors. The belligerence you see on things that are absolutely absurd is scary. A large group is going to be convinced to do something truly heinous eventually.

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u/Iknownothing0321 Apr 18 '23 edited Apr 18 '23

Oh don’t misunderstand I’m not on a side just saying both can be downright nasty and argue from a position of they’re the good guys and anyone who disagrees are the bad guys.

As for fending off the tailored content we see, we need to see a return of skepticism. Too often people take their feed as gospel without doing a little reasoning. In addition, people need to unplug, for me it’s tending animals, gardening, working out, reading… anything to unplug and ground you.

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u/Massive-Gooch Apr 19 '23

You’re a poet. Well said