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Notes -
'Cause life is a game that no one wins
But you deserve a head start the way your life's goin'
So throw in the towel, 'cause your life ain't shit
No take that towel and hang yourself with it
Life's short and hard like a body-building elf
So save the planet and kill yourself
If you're feeling down-and-out with what your life's all about
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out
(Lift your head up high and blow your brains out)
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out
(Lift your head up high and blow your brains out)
Lift your head up high and blow your brains out
Suicide rates and murder among teens and the power of memes.
For those old enough to remember, these will be familiar times. Let me ask the '90s teenagers in the room, what was the dominant feeling of the age?
I would say that it was mostly a decade in which the youth aesthetic was of depression, sullen expressions, heroin chic, and underpinning it all, suicide. Suicide was in the air from the minute Cobain suck-started a shotgun. The music had song titles like “Hey man, nice shot” and “Lift your head up high and blow your brains out”. Subtle stuff. On the black side of the culture, gangsta rap was big. Drugs, murder, drugs, murder, booty. Still lighter than the white side.
Would it surprise anyone if I told you that the '90s were the only improvement in the teen suicide rate since the Depression? Murder rates peaked in '92 and dropped for twenty years.
Let's consider more recent history. The teen culture from 2010 to 2020. I'm not sure how those in it would classify that era, but to me it seemed like a decade of social media, politicization and gender. The Z discovered a giant pool of suicides (the lowest rate in decades) that they could save with hormones and surgery. They were the first generation to tackle racism and really make black lives matter. The aesthetic of the age is chipper, smug, vague, androgynous. Black culture has moved from the ghetto to the antiracism seminar. The result?
Suicide rates rose swiftly throughout the decade among teens, bringing them back into line with the already high rate before the '90s reversed course for twenty years. Murder rates started rising in 2013 and shot up in 2020. Mostly among young black men.
Death has a way of clarifying things, as it's tough to fake.
One cannot go back to the past, but we would do well to consider what sociopolitical norms and policies might have contributed to that massive achievement, and we absolutely must be extremely clear about which ones lead to the reversal. And no, I'm not talking about Lupus and Jimmy Pop.
The 90s were an interesting transitional period and personally I feel like a lot of what we see there was both reactionary and sort of shallow. Falling crime and the end of the Cold War, the End of History, created a world without struggle or conflict (at least for someone living in a western democracy). At the same times the last vestiges of religion in education were being defeated, and there was a clear, but also very boring future lining up before us. We just use science to improve everything and make everything better for forever and all the major problems have been solved or are solvable and we are on the path to solve them.
A brief aside, my best friend in high school would go out in the middle of the night, sneak around in the employees only sections of buildings, try to get onto roofs and such, smoked, did harder drugs, and stole stuff. While he was lower-class SES, he had a 'stable' home life and didn't steal out of 'necessity'. He did it because he was afflicted with a profound sense of ennui. He could see the future laid out before him, and he could not see any purpose or meaning in any of it. The supreme banality of a modern existence.
We were the kids who got asked in 3rd grade what we would do when we were president. We were the kids told to be astronauts and scientists and change the world, and we had finally gotten old enough to realize what a great lie all that was. Of course grunge was popular, and gansta rap spread like wildfire through suburbia. It was the wild desperate thrashing of an animal slowly suffocating under the crushing weight of distributed nihilism. Office Space, to use the modern parlance, was a mood.
Eventually you get to generation Z, enough time on the experiential treadmill and their solution was to just reinterpret what it means to be in danger, what it means to hurt, so they could struggle again, so they could fight against something 'real'.
Another film from 1999 expressed the sentiment well,
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I wasn't a teenager in the 90s but my memory is that it was sunny. The 80s grimdark/power breakfast power shoulders greed is good era was over, now it was Captain Planet, colour-blindness, and we can fix things. Economic issues were generally good, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the Cold War was over, things can only get better. I have a mental image of Hawaiian shirts and bright colours.
Grunge might have been there, but so was rave and the aftermath of late 80s acid house. Dance music took off. Speed and E (the love drug) are the era's drugs of choice.
I'd say that the 1990s were a confusing era since there was a combination of general belief in optimism and progress and "all the big questions have been solved" coupled with a pop culture characterized by Twin Peaks/X-Files/Matrix style ide that this is all just a fake exterior and below it dark and evil things were happening. Musically you had grunge, NiN, Marilyn Manson, nu metal etc. - and the idea that all these were just fake rebellion for suburban kids whose lives were so good they had to create imaginary angst for themselves. Even the rave/dance stuff seemed to attempt to go for the "partying in the face of the apocalypse" vibes, even if it was, in the end, partying for the standard reasons of partying.
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Murder rates are now below 90s levels since 2023: https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop
Which sociopolitical norms and policies contributed to this massive achievement?
Lead free fuel?
We've had lead free fuel since what, the 80s? That won't explain a drop over the past few years.
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Since 2023? You mean the last two months? I stand corrected.
Or did you mean that the recent rise in homicide rates has only taken us back to '97 so far, and we have room to grow before we hit the full '92 again?
It's all in the graph I posted.
2020-2022 had elevated homicide rates and 2023 was practically a normal year. If we're going to talk about the massive failures that led to the 2020-2022 spike then it's only fair to talk about the massive successes that led to 2023.
That seems reasonable to me. What's your read on the causes of the 2020-2022 spike, and what do you think is bringing the numbers down again?
I think there has been a secular decline in violence since the 90s as OP mentioned. 2020-2022 were crazy years with a lot of unusual factors. I'd primarily blame covid lockdowns for driving people insane. The George Floyd riots played a big role too, but I think the reason they were so much worse than previous protests over similar killings is because of the lockdowns. Now, lockdowns are lifted and I think we are back to the secular decline.
I don't know exactly what factors are driving the secular decline, but I suspect they haven't gone anywhere.
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I'd say improved medical care is a big part of it. A gunshot that would have killed you in the 80s now merely leaves you paraplegic.
Then we should consider that as the explanation for the 90s-era decline too.
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Aging of the population alone should have resulted in a massive decline in murder rates. Then consider that, unlike the 1990s, everyone has a phone in their pocket to call 9/11 immediately after a shooting. Now add ubiquitous video games, porn, and other entertainment which keeps young men off the streets entirety.
With all that, murder rates should have plummeted to all-time lows.
But they haven't.
To me this, is proof that society is becoming more violent, mostly because the justice system no longer enforces the law as strictly as it used to.
"Society" isn't becoming more violent. You aren't pwning noobs /playing DnD and partaking in the ol' ultraviolence with your mates after recess. It's a specific group of people who are doing the murdering and raping disproportionately.
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More violent over what time frame?
This is Britain, not the US, yet we can see a certain effect, crime went up despite all the CCTV, increased wealth and forensics now available to police: https://twitter.com/XiaoVilin99/status/1575943515460468736
https://twitter.com/XiaoVilin99/status/1576248677550940160
Or in the US, it's gone up since 1960 per capita, despite all the wealth, technology, aging and de-leading: https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
According to your source, violent crime per capita peaked in 1991 and has since fallen by 50%.
Yes but it's still gone up from 160 to 379. That it peaked at 759 is small consolation. That's from 2019, before the 2020 crime increase too.
If my portfolio goes from 100K to 220K, I'm still fairly happy, even if I peaked at 500K.
Consolation doesn't enter into it. It's a question of explanation.
And before the 2023 crime decrease.
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The return of policing.
I'm not aware of any return of policing. The guy above you also hasn't heard of it.
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This is why I believe that modern psychiatry is fundamentally broken to a much greater degree than even most critics of it are willing to acknowledge. The United States just absolutely pours money into psychiatric "medicine", with spending now soaring into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. More people are treated, more people are drugged, more people are involved with this system than ever before. When we do this with cancer, we get interminably slow progress, but progress nonetheless. When we do this with psychiatric "medicine" we get more bodies than we've ever had before, because their treatments consistently fail to beat having parents that will say, "go outside and run around till you're tired".
I think the problem is that society in general no longer teaches people how to self regulate. In 1990, there were problems, and there were sad people. But I think the message of the era was much more Stoic, learn to deal with and manage your feelings, fix your own problems, and get on with it. Feelings being front and center strike me as a luxury belief, and one that really only works if you don’t have many problems other than your feelings.
For almost all people outside o& the elite throughout human history, life was hard and was understood to be hard. These were and still are realistic expectations for life for all but the elite. What has trickled down since 1990 are two things. First the idea that you are supposed to be in a state of happy bliss for any sustained amount of time. You are supposed to be fulfilled and happy doing everything. Struggle isn’t a part of the plan. Boredom isn’t a part of the plan. Having things suck wasn’t part of the plan. And second that you should be able to do what you like doing for a living. If you’re born to be an artist, a singer, or a writer, then you should be able to do that instead of a normal job. You should be able to go on vacation when you want or need one. This, unless you’re pretty well off and have a spouse making a substantial amount of money simply isn’t reality. Reality is working even when tired or burned out, perhaps a a difficult job you might not even like, then coming home to kids and chores and cooking. If you’re in the mindset of “I don’t like this, and it’s a great tragedy that I’m not living a thrilling life,” then your expectations are so far above reality that you’re going to be miserable. If you’re then taught by therapy-culture that you should focus on negative feelings, and self-care over those feelings, you’re going to spend you life suffering. This was known all the way back to Epictetus in the West and Buddha in the east. Focusing on things you don’t have and thus suffering for the lack and then focusing on how bad the suffering makes you feel is a good way to make yourself miserable and probably depressed.
Here we have Plato, writing around 375 BC, expounding a rather familiar theory. Irreverent youth, doting parents, equality with slaves and foreigners--he presents such entitlement as the failure mode of democracy. When the people grow too accustomed to liberty, he says, they will become soft and rebel at the lightest of impositions.
Do you think 90s America was the first time and place that we plebs got that much liberty?
Not the first time, obviously, but the pattern is quite similar to the decadent pattern that goes along with the decline of other civilizations in the past. The combination of lísiense and luxury create a chaotic weak people who can no longer maintain the high civilization that produced them.
If that were true, the Boomers should have been absolutely demolished. Same for the Victorian English, the Renaissance Italians, the actual Stoics. They all presided over temporary surges of wealth unimaginable to Plato’s generation, and they all held on to power anyway.
I’m saying that pattern is hindsight bias. Elders always have and always will insist that their successors are entitled, irreverent, and possibly effeminate. That doesn’t mean they’re right.
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Absurd optimism. Eurodance ruled the airwaves, computers were bringing the future, every economy was growing, the financial crisis of 1997 was but a bump, racism was on the way out, anal sex became mandatory act in porn, blowjobs became mandatory acts in private, pubic hair was gone, gaming was entering its golden age. The worst thing that happened in the 90s was literally Limp Bizkit.
Honestly for the rest of the post - I think that the newly released Bad Therapy - Abigail Shrier answers what is going on. Too much feelings too little real world. Also - from my observations there is an absurd disheartening and nihilism ( and not the fun kind) that moves trough western society youth. Learned helplessness is the norm. And it is combined with so easy going attitude towards deviance that in a way we are living in an anarchy - like people that glue themselves to the roads or defacing art face no consequence.
Alright, I get it, you won't be following my Limp/Creed/Nickelback playlist on Spotify. Whatever, that's just like, your opinion, man.
(nervous Catholic laughter)
Hard agree - and this is where alarm bells go off for me. Every generation gets to a point in their 30s where they start uttering their first "kids these days!" I saw it when the Gen Z slang began to pop up in mainstream adds. There were literally sentences I could not follow. No cap. Okay, I guess I'm no longer "with it" (cure Grandpa Simpson meme).
Then I started listening to some SuicideBoys and BONES. The messages there are beyond dark. This isn't hardcore gangster rap that glorified ultra violence. As terrible as the values implicit to that are, at least there's some message of group solidarity, competition but possible victory with rivals, and a celebration of demonstrated capability ("me and my homies will murder all of the people who don't like us and then drink alcoholic beverages and consume schedule 1 substances while discussing those incidents of homicide in jovial terms. Also, copulation with curvaceous women is probable") Gen Z dark/emo rap is screaming into the void while simultaneously accepting the inevitability of it all. It isn't learned helplessness, it is unshakable faith in a tangible helplessness [^1]. The description of drug use is worth highlighting; across many genres of music since Rock 'n Roll in the 1960s, drug / alcohol use and abuse has been shorthand for "look at my amazing crazy life." You do have songs here and there about the dangers of that kind of life etc. Grunge takes it to talking about the horrible feedback loop of addiction but also, sometimes, recovery. Gen Z talks about substance abuse a desperate sprint to oblivion. Far from "I love to party!" or "Damn, I wish I could shed this ball and chain" it's pretty much "Get fucked up in a big way as often as possible. Just fucking do it." Suicide by another name.
All of this is set against the backdrop of a society where material conditions have never been better, yet there is constant cultural strife.
It reminds me of some of the documentaries on Norwegian Black Metal in the 90s. There's a couple of former artists and journalists from that scene who said some version of, "Living in Norway in the 90s was so fucking easy that it became meaningless." You can point to secularism, you can point to the removal of the Russian threat, you can point to the start of pan-Europeanism and the homogenization of already incredibly homogeneous societies. The cause is irrelevant, the outcomes are more stark; brief and constrained as it was, Norwegian black metal resulted in real damage, death, and murder (look up the Church Burnings and Varg vs Euronymous).
Panning back to American Gen Z, the elevated suicide rate is component 1 of their brand of nihilism. I wonder if we aren't already seeing component 2: nihilistic murder. The Parkland High School shooter was Gen Z and had a grocery list of nihilistic / degenerate / isolated life circumstances. More culture-war-y, the Covenant School shooter was a Trans Gen Z'er. I think it's undeniable that some portion of the hardcore Trans Cult is essentially nihilist in that they relish denying basic biology as well as using conversation as a panacea for any and all mental health issues.
So, while I am confident that a lot of the Millenial / Gen X anguish over Gen Z is simply "Kids-These-Days"-ism, there is some level of nihilism that will not be assuaged by Hot Topic stickers and baggy jeans. It will express itself through an ultraviolence directed both internally and externally. I'm not sure how to solve that, and I'm not sure there's been a post-WW2 generation anywhere that is this predisposed to lack of respect for human life.
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