{"id":7317,"date":"2013-06-17T20:56:57","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T04:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=7317"},"modified":"2013-06-17T20:56:57","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T04:56:57","slug":"thennow-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2013\/06\/17\/thennow-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Then\/Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

THEN<\/p>\n

You asked for directions.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You ask for the address.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You talked on the phone.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You text on the phone.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

If you were lucky, your parents bought you your own extension when you were sixteen, possibly a Princess phone!<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You get your own phone with its own line when you’re ten. Maybe even younger!<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You went home to check your e-mail.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

E-mail is too slow, you’re in constant touch with your friends via text and instant messaging programs wherever you go.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You got a busy signal.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

If someone is not easily reachable you think something bad happened to them.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Movies played for months, if you missed them, they were gone forever.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You’re angry when every movie ever made is not available for Netflix streaming.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You watched old movies on HBO.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You watch original programming on HBO, which is better than the movies in the theatre.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You discussed the merits of movies, they drove the culture.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You discuss the merits of television shows, they drive the culture.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Successful musicians thought they were rich, despite frequently blowing all their income on drugs.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Musicians are not satisfied with their incomes, they’re always comparing themselves to others up the food chain, trying to imitate them by investing in tech startups.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

People sang about their pain.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

People sing about how they’re winners and are better than you.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You begged your parents for a transistor.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You beg your parents for a phone.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You bought it because it said Sony.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You buy it because it says Samsung.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

People sat around in circles singing the songs of the day.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You can’t even sing the hits.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Artists were on top of the food chain, they recorded their albums in private and delivered them to the label, finished.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Executives are on top of the food chain, they constantly meddle in the artistic process, execs believe that without them, there’d be no good music.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Your parents were on a need to know basis, and they didn’t.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You tell your parents everything, even discussing the intricacies of your love life.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You turned sixteen and started working to save money for a car.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You turn sixteen and if your parents don’t buy you a car you sulk and tell your friends they’re mean.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

If someone told you they were going to be on television, you stayed home and watched.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Everybody’s been on television, it’s no big deal, and if you truly need to be famous, you make a YouTube clip and spam everybody you know, telling them to watch it.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

The record labels screwed the artists.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

The record labels screw the artists.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You complained wireless was too slow.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

LTE is faster than many people’s home broadband.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Old people were fat and young people were skinny.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Young people are fat and old people are skinny, most especially the educated class.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You graduated from college and took a year or two off, to travel, to find out who you were.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

There’s no time to waste, you oftentimes begin your career while you’re still in college.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

People believed the American Dream was true, that they could make it from the bottom to the top via smarts and hard work.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

People still believe the American Dream is true, even though the game is rigged against them and social mobility is more possible in Europe.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You admired politicians.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Who’d want to be President?<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

The Democrats fought for the people.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

The Democrats fight for the corporations.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

The Republicans were the party of smart people.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

The Republicans are the party of dumb people.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Musicians said no to corporations.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Musicians say yes to corporations.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Rock drove the culture.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

No type of music drives the culture.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

We practiced our instruments to become rock stars.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

We practice our social networking skills to become rock stars.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Your dream was to buy a powerful desktop computer.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

Your dream is to buy a tablet.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Your computer was obsolete when you drove home from the store.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

You can easily use a six or seven year old computer.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

You never wanted the initial iteration.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

If it’s not perfect from the get-go, you’re stunned.<\/p>\n

THEN<\/p>\n

Cars had roll-up windows and no a\/c.<\/p>\n

NOW<\/p>\n

All cars have electric windows and a\/c.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THEN You asked for directions. NOW You ask for the address. THEN You talked on the phone. NOW You text on the phone. THEN If you were lucky, your parents bought you your own extension when you were sixteen, possibly a Princess phone! NOW You get your own phone with its own line when you’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-1U1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7318,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions\/7318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}