One often hears the outspoken “mature” person spouting off about how modern pop culture is so much worse than more vintage style and music. This observation infers that modern times are somehow worse than the past. However, there’s simply no truth to this.

The reasoning behind this is often that modern culture is just spilling over with sex and drugs and violence, and there’s no way that can be good for kids. After all, comparing twerking to the charleston or a waltz seems to send our entire generation to hell. But this ignores that we forget what we want to forget. Your memories are primarily the happy times you want to remember, and this works on a societal scale too. We don’t remember the things we aren’t proud of. As a society we forget the bad music, and the dirty dances. We remember the music that’s worthy of remembering, and we remember the deserving dances.

Not to mention the fact that humans will always have a scandalous side. Even looking at ancient European folk music, you see themes of sex and alcohol. Humans naturally participate in these things, and pretending like we’re the only generation irresponsible enough to focus on “sins” like this, is really more socially irresponsible than participating in this “negative culture.”

Of course society has shifted and changed, but not enough for us to say that certain cultures and eras of society are worse than others. Humans have stayed essentially the same for hundreds of years, and our cultures reflect the same things, so next time you catch yourself thinking of our generation as irresponsible sex-obsessed binge-drinkers, remember that we’re no different than anyone else.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions shared in this article are those of the writer, and not Zephyrus as a whole.