GRcade

Moggy wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Moggy wrote:I just watched the last episode of Derry Girls and it made me wonder if the late 90s/very early 00s was the last time we had hope for the future (even if misplaced). I don't mean personally, but as a country.

In the late 90s we had the optimism that Labour were going to use their huge majority for good. Northern Ireland looked like it was heading for a bright future (maybe it still will!) and we had a future ahead at the heart of an increasingly united Europe. The Cold War was over and it looked like Russia was going to be a friendly nation. Racism seemed to be lessening, gay people were starting to be accepted and the internet had arrived promising a future where we could connect and befriend everyone in the world.

Obviously things didn't turn out the way we all hoped, but that feeling of hope and optimism was amazing. And I don't think we've felt it since.

Some of it will be rose tinted, people tend to look back fondly of the time of their youth. But I don't think modern day young people have that sense of hope for the future. Over the next few years/decades they have what looks like a huge recession/depression. House prices/rent way beyond their reach. A Britain increasingly lurching towards totalitarianism and in constant dispute with Europe. A possible nuclear war with Russia. And to top it all off, climate change.

strawberry float the world is depressing. I'd give anything to feel that late 90/early 00s optimism again, even if it was all too brief and misplaced.

I see it in my students all the time. It's really weird.

There is a real, palpable sense of 'everything is truly strawberry floated and we just have to wait for it to collapse'.

Ultimately the late 90s/early 00s feeling of hope was misplaced.

Let's hope we are also wrong about the late 10s/early 20s feeling of despair.

RetroCora wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Moggy wrote:I just watched the last episode of Derry Girls and it made me wonder if the late 90s/very early 00s was the last time we had hope for the future (even if misplaced). I don't mean personally, but as a country.

In the late 90s we had the optimism that Labour were going to use their huge majority for good. Northern Ireland looked like it was heading for a bright future (maybe it still will!) and we had a future ahead at the heart of an increasingly united Europe. The Cold War was over and it looked like Russia was going to be a friendly nation. Racism seemed to be lessening, gay people were starting to be accepted and the internet had arrived promising a future where we could connect and befriend everyone in the world.

Obviously things didn't turn out the way we all hoped, but that feeling of hope and optimism was amazing. And I don't think we've felt it since.

Some of it will be rose tinted, people tend to look back fondly of the time of their youth. But I don't think modern day young people have that sense of hope for the future. Over the next few years/decades they have what looks like a huge recession/depression. House prices/rent way beyond their reach. A Britain increasingly lurching towards totalitarianism and in constant dispute with Europe. A possible nuclear war with Russia. And to top it all off, climate change.

strawberry float the world is depressing. I'd give anything to feel that late 90/early 00s optimism again, even if it was all too brief and misplaced.

I see it in my students all the time. It's really weird.

There is a real, palpable sense of 'everything is truly strawberry floated and we just have to wait for it to collapse'.

Ultimately the late 90s/early 00s feeling of hope was misplaced.

Let's hope we are also wrong about the late 10s/early 20s feeling of despair.

I'm not sure how old everyone posting in this thread is, but anyone born after about 1986 hasn't really known "good times" as an adult. I have very vague memories of Blair getting in for the first time in 1997, but my earliest political memory is 9/11(I was 11). The 21 years since then have been a procession of awful really - the War on Terror that started after 2001 was overtaken by the GFC and austerity politics from 2008 to 2015/2016. Then we got the open rise of far-right politics in the west 2016-present, alongside the worst Pandemic event in 100 years. Millennials are really strawberry floated.

Moggy wrote:

RetroCora wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Moggy wrote:I just watched the last episode of Derry Girls and it made me wonder if the late 90s/very early 00s was the last time we had hope for the future (even if misplaced). I don't mean personally, but as a country.

In the late 90s we had the optimism that Labour were going to use their huge majority for good. Northern Ireland looked like it was heading for a bright future (maybe it still will!) and we had a future ahead at the heart of an increasingly united Europe. The Cold War was over and it looked like Russia was going to be a friendly nation. Racism seemed to be lessening, gay people were starting to be accepted and the internet had arrived promising a future where we could connect and befriend everyone in the world.

Obviously things didn't turn out the way we all hoped, but that feeling of hope and optimism was amazing. And I don't think we've felt it since.

Some of it will be rose tinted, people tend to look back fondly of the time of their youth. But I don't think modern day young people have that sense of hope for the future. Over the next few years/decades they have what looks like a huge recession/depression. House prices/rent way beyond their reach. A Britain increasingly lurching towards totalitarianism and in constant dispute with Europe. A possible nuclear war with Russia. And to top it all off, climate change.

strawberry float the world is depressing. I'd give anything to feel that late 90/early 00s optimism again, even if it was all too brief and misplaced.

I see it in my students all the time. It's really weird.

There is a real, palpable sense of 'everything is truly strawberry floated and we just have to wait for it to collapse'.

Ultimately the late 90s/early 00s feeling of hope was misplaced.

Let's hope we are also wrong about the late 10s/early 20s feeling of despair.

I'm not sure how old everyone posting in this thread is, but anyone born after about 1986 hasn't really known "good times" as an adult. I have very vague memories of Blair getting in for the first time in 1997, but my earliest political memory is 9/11(I was 11). The 21 years since then have been a procession of awful really - the War on Terror that started after 2001 was overtaken by the GFC and austerity politics from 2008 to 2015/2016. Then we got the open rise of far-right politics in the west 2016-present, alongside the worst Pandemic event in 100 years. Millennials are really strawberry floated.

I was born in 1980.

It was easy as somebody in their early 20s to ignore the war on terror, even though I vehemently opposed the Iraq war, it was so far away. Terrorism was rising, but as a kid of the 80s, it didn't seem so unusual as we grew up with the risk of the IRA.

2008 was when things started to bite. I was 28 by then and starting to realise that the good times were coming to an end.

2010 was where it all really collapsed. Tories and their austerity led to half a decade of the rise of the far right. Farage was suddenly everywhere, "Tommy Robinson" and Katie Hopkins were treated seriously.

Which all led to 2016 when Britain decided to strawberry float itself over for at least a generation. There was the odd glimmer of hope, Theresa May failing in 2017 for instance, but 2019 utterly killed any remaining optimism I might feel.

RetroCora wrote:We're almost ten years apart, so our timelines kind of match up in a sense - 2007 onwards was really the start of my adult life(I turned 18 that September), and it's been fairly relentless gooseberry fool ever since. Every new news story that comes out edges me closer to packing the cat into a suitcase and strawberry floating off somewhere else at this point.

Photek wrote:
So at least in this sense, right here, right now, I'm very optimistic.

RetroCora wrote:Yeah Ireland's come on in leaps and bounds tbf. But speaking as a Scottish UK citizen, I have absolutely no hope for positive change in the next ten years.

RetroCora wrote:Yeah Ireland's come on in leaps and bounds tbf. But speaking as a Scottish UK citizen, I have absolutely no hope for positive change in the next ten years.

twitter.com/eleri_morgan/status/1206286035610742784

Moggy wrote:It was easy as somebody in their early 20s to ignore the war on terror, even though I vehemently opposed the Iraq war, it was so far away. Terrorism was rising, but as a kid of the 80s, it didn't seem so unusual as we grew up with the risk of the IRA.

twitter.com/mhairiblack/status/1526999103615401984

Moggy wrote:

twitter.com/eleri_morgan/status/1206286035610742784

That's the ideal solution.

Moggy wrote:

twitter.com/mhairiblack/status/1526999103615401984

Carlos wrote:I even came up with my own political party: Yorkshire Independence Party for Everything and Everyone or YIPEE

RetroCora wrote:

Moggy wrote:

twitter.com/mhairiblack/status/1526999103615401984

That's all very well and good but she once said on Twitter that she really strawberry floating hates Celtic so I'm not on board with any of that.

Moggy wrote:

twitter.com/mhairiblack/status/1526999103615401984

twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1527728025139306496

twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1527945535092674560

twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1527965832642437120