Curious. I was born in the mid-90s, so, theoretically, I shouldn’t remember enough to know this, but I do.
I also had a genuinely horrible childhood, in a reasonably isolated part of the Western world, so this ISN’T necessarily just “nostalgia”. Certainly I’m not nostalgic for my childhood. Not in that sense. Though… Adulthood is even lonelier, so who knows, subconsciously…
Anyway, Australia either side of the 2000 Olympics, was a place of significant optimism. Genuinely, I was just a kid, and I could feel it. Pop culture was at its peak. The music scene, in particular live, was excellent. Our “high brow” arts and culture scene had never been better. We still dominated in (mens, mostly) sports, and our film scene was flourishing (MI:2, Matrix Trilogy and Man of Steel were all made in Sydney, amongst a number of others). Children’s entertainment and TV was unbelievably good, as was animation. And guess what, almost none of this was in any way “woke” or PC. Fuck, even the FOOD, drink, restaurant and bar scene was better, which… Should not be the case. But it was…
Politics was less divisive. Far, far less. We had an openly conservative government, and yes, sure, there were issues. I do not agree with many things they did (refugees - Tampa and Children Overboard; indigenous rights; the environment; increasing the US military presence on Aus soil), but we had no idea how good we had it, back then.
Indigenous and non-Indigenous lived, largely, in some sort of relative “harmony”. No reparations, and yes, there were riots (Redfern, later Cronulla), but I went to school with a couple of Aboriginal girls, and, at least in my experience, and what I saw, people were just BETTER to each other, and that was before the woke “Apology to the Stolen Generations”, and before my country started to fall over itself to rename every place, and destroy every element of “white” culture, in the name of appeasement…
Like, in the Y2K, Indigenous AND non-Indigenous came together to celebrate Cathy Freeman winning the 400m. Not because she was an Abo, but because SHE WAS AUSTRALIAN. That would never happen now. Not in the same way. If there even ARE Indigenous sprinters of that caliber anymore. And I honestly don’t see that ever happening again. Not at Brisbane 2032. Perhaps never again.
Things just sort of… Worked. Happiness and life satisfaction levels were higher. People could actually afford to buy houses. Cities hadn’t yet ripped themselves apart to support rampant mass immigration, and our women hadn’t yet declared open slather on our men. And people still attended church, and the synagogue. There were less mosques, but less hate preachers, too. It just felt like… A better time.
No smart phones. Shitty computers. Slower internet. But we still had games like KOTOR, Battlefront 1942 and COD.
People still talked to one another, face to face. I literally lived and went to school with people from all different ethnic origins, from all over the world. And WE GOT ALONG.
Then, things went very wrong. Sometime around 2010-2012, as I was finishing school. Maybe after Occupy. Maybe not. Here, things had already been on the slide since at least the 2007 “Apology”, and the 2005 Cronulla race riots, though…
So, how was it in your country? Do you think it was objectively better, 15+ years ago..? If so, why? What has changed? And what do you think caused it all to go to shit, in such a short period of time?
I know “political correctness” had a wave in the 90s, but I seemingly missed all of that, at the time. Nonetheless, I do genuinely think that things, and society, were better at that time, and, like I said, there are objective measures that would seem to back that up. Which is just… Honestly scary.
Yes.
While I do believe that gays were unfairly treated all the way up to the early 10s, society as a whole was much calmer and much more dignified. Debates actually happened, political discourse was not so cut throat.
Social media changed everything for the worse.
Read all of this (from a gay man who was in the culture)... https://archive.is/m4GVM
And then watch this... all of it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkwkE-i08F8
Now explain to me, after having absorbed that information, what was "unfair" about their treatment?
That had a lot more details then I wanted to read, fuck is that all so messed up. And what is worst, that live stile is what progressives want to everyone. No inhibition, no responsibility, no standards or morals.
Exactly.
When people talk about "Representation matters, it helps make people realize being gay is normal!" I always link them that article. I tell them to read all of it.
It's impossible to come away from that and go "Yeah, that's completely normal and fine."
That guy is the average gay man. The average gay man will have up to 1,000 partners in his lifetime. So it's not like his story is the fringe or outside the norm, his story IS the norm.
And yeah, it really puts into perspective how scary it is that Progressives/Leftists want that normalized for everyone.
Unfair treatment was mostly the fact that they could not get married in a legally recognized way, and it was legal to refuse service to them in many places. Mind you, organizations providing custom services like wedding cakes must always have the right to refuse any request should they morally object to what's being requested. You cannot force an artist to draw porn, or force a sculptor to make a statue in honor of Marx, or force a baker to bake a gay wedding cake. That said, refusing service to someone not on the basis of what they are asking for, but on the basis of who's asking, is wrong.
There were plenty of spaces where gays could be gays, the Castro in San Francisco comes to mind, but there were also many places where their existence alone got them into trouble. I don't condone sexual promiscuity, I think its a great way to ruin one's life, but I won't stop anyone from engaging. The ability to make terrible choices is part of freedom.
That's not unfair in any way. Marriage is defined as the union between a man and a woman.
Gays want to be in a civil union? Fine, but desecrating marriage for the sake of getting back at heteros doesn't deserve and SHOULD NOT have been acknowledged as something they had rights to.