Image courtesy of Aaron Escobar
As we human beings have raced through the modern era there seems to be, in every generation, some form of popular entertainment that the previous generation looks down upon as being a symbol of the impending doom of society as a whole. I say modern era because I have a hard time picturing such a thing happening in ancient times, but I suppose it IS possible (“I worry about the boy, Banafrit. He spends all day messing around with those damned hieroglyphics! When I was his age I was dragging stones to Giza. Uphill!”). From Rock and Roll to Mini-skirts and everything in-between there has always been some crazy thing “the kids” were in to that was simply an affront to the sensibilities of those who came before them.
The big villain on the block these days is video games, but I grew up in the 80’s during the height of the Saturday Morning Cartoon era. Back then our parents were convinced that television was going to rot our brains, give us cancer, and turn us into pasty blobs who lived on nothing but junk food.
Turns out that, in some ways, our parents were right.