These Teenage Baby Boomers DIDN'T Rebel In The '60s. They Were Rich & Privileged
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video I am presenting clips from the classic 1966 documentary "Sixteen At Webster Groves - Webster Groves Missouri. It was produced by filmmaker Arthur Barron who I was honored to work for on several of his films. Webster Groves is clearly not typical as its teenagers were upper-middle-class and richer. Remember that about 40% of the huge baby boomer generation say that they participated in the activities of the 1960s. This video presents the views of a portion of the 60% who didn't participate and who essentially looked forward to living just like their parents did. I would not call them typical teenagers but they are certainly representative of a group who was just fine in the 1950s.
Many commentators talk about the fact that they would rather have lived during this time and then one of these people then to live in today's world which they see as trash relative to how these people lived. Although I did not spend much time working on this production, I did some film work with upper middle-class white 1960s baby boomer era teenagers and their attitudes and behavior we're not dissimilar from what teenagers felt in the 1950s in the suburban white "American dream" middle class. There were many rebels who looked like other teenagers at that time but were not. I remember a conversation that I had with the producer where he said that in this community, there seem to be almost no rebels.
It would certainly be fascinating to talk to these people today but unfortunately, I don't have the names of any of the people who participated in this film. Hopefully some will watch this clip and choose to comment. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Is it just me or do most of these 16 year olds look like they’re in their mid 20s by today’s standards of appearance?
Yes, they do. They dressed better and in general took better interest in their overall appearance. Call it conformity or whatever you want, but they were more well put together than most kids today (and better than I was in the mid-1980's when I was their age, for that matter).
@Awaiting Input. That's funny you say that because I'm 21 but everyone tells me I look 16 lol xD (But on a serious note most teens back then were much smarter, respectful and well dressed and mannered then teens these days.) I was raised and live with my gran and she looked older than me when she was my age :P
Before MOD popularised teen fashion, this is all they had. The weren't "teenagers" they were mini adults and they wore smaller versions of what their parents wore.
It's the sound of a lot of their voices that initially catches my attention.
Huh, yup I would've said 18 - 19 at least.
The Hippies were the minority. They just got the most media attention.
The rest were lame and squares lol
@Natalia Abella lol
The Hippies got media attention. The rest where normal.
Sounds familiar....
Now multiply that media by 2020 24/7 Instant Streaminf and you have today’s disaster
I graduated in 1972. There were the popular kids, attractive, football players, cheerleaders, prom kings and queens. There were the hippies, journalism, school newspaper, year book. There were the greasers, black clothes, greased hair, ratted hair, heavy eye makeup. And then there was the rest of us, most of us I'd say. No strong identity, no labels. We just were who we were. We weren't nonconformists, but we weren't Stepford kids either.
Stepford kids are the most conformist, just FYI.
@@elgrigorio1 Good point. I'm afraid I don't know what I was thinking when I said that 2 years ago. 😕
@@itsme-rt7nz no, that's ok. If you want more clarification, as to what went wrong in the 60s, read Ayn Rand's book The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. She explained and pretty much predicted everything, that is wrong with the world today.
Graduated in the mid 2000's and at least back then those labels weren't so firm or stedfast. There was a lot more of "the rest of us" that just kind mingled with most of the crowds. Except for the drama club, most of everyone just found them annoying so we avoided that group.
Fairly accurate although in my case I bounced around in which ever group I could when the opportunity presented itself and back again when it suited ME. Yours truly. P.S. peace out dude. Hahahaha. ✌️🇺🇲
So interesting that the police officer was the most rebellious adult interviewed.
If cops were like this today we wouldn't have such a policing problem
"I don't think any 16 year old child should be burdened with the problems of the world" oh buddy, do I have *news for you*
the problems of the world infiltrated the systems of control that trained our youth, and then America began to decline.
@@just83542 Marxists found out long ago that it was easier to stir up shit and get revolt with Third World Crap Holes. So the goal turned into importing the problems of the Third World into developed countries, stirring them up there.
@@averat84 do you think this is what Marx intended, or do Marxists use his work with an ulterior motive?
@@just83542 I don't know if Marx wanted communism to come about in the manner in which it's being prescribed to the American people (as described by former KGB operative Yuri Bezmenov th-cam.com/video/zgmg2VFX058/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=WiseWanderer ), however, the end goal remains the same as Marx's end goal which is to say the destruction of objective morality, religion, the nation-state, the family unit, and any other structure that stands in the way of communism and the redistribution of wealth.
What 16 year old child is burdened with the problems of the world?
1960 teens: I want to make money!
2021 teens: I wanna die
i also want to make money but if something were to happen to me, say a speeding car with a careless driver, i wouldn’t fight it
@@bloodycrow1153 We can tell. They grew up to be greedy, soul-sucking CEOs and owners who look at every given opportunity as "I need to get mine, fuck everybody else". They destroyed the environment and then blame it on young people. They destroyed our futures and got bailed out, then they have the gall to act surprised that young people hate them so vehemently. The sooner they die off the better.
@@SuperSaltyFries tbf they had so many chances handed to them to make mad money. Which is what makes it so crazy seeing a boomer that had these views but didn't come out of the 80s flush.
@@SuperSaltyFries With that attitude, you're apart of the problem.
I to wanna die anyone wants to join?
I am a 74 year old lady boomer who finds this interesting. I never saw views like these when i was in school, graduating in 1967. I was from a predominately working class area. Modern young people seem to have the same get ahead values as the kids in this video. I wish yountube would show videos on how the majority of boomer kids lived, not just the upper middle class ones. I am getting tired of the younger generation thinking that my life was as privileged as the life of these kids. My family and others near me just got by, snd our expectations were limited.
I have many videos posted on the subject, interviews with those who did not live in the upper-middle-class back then.
David Hoffman filmmaker
I just was in a comment thread with a kid who thought Helen Keller's story wasn't plausible because she couldn't possibly write a book because she couldn't see, among other nonsense thoughts. Young people don't think people could have lived anyway but in privledge because they aren't thinking! They haven't been made to practice it!
ANOTHER THING........no mention of boomers being raised by "war crazed" , disabled alcoholic fathers with hair trigger tempers. Everyone had an ex-military father and they all were pretty hard azz
I grew up in Maplewood which bordered on Webster Groves. I was a teenager during this time. Recognized many folks I knew in this video. I, not being college material - - - took the military (USMC) route out of town. Made a career of it, and got to see the entire world in the process before I was discharged in 1993 and settled in Honolulu, Hawaii. Pretty much how I remember many kids from Webster Groves.
thank you for your service
Thank you for your service.
Hearing "Normie" in a documentary thats 50 years old really hit me hard
Simp was also a thing back then, which fell out of fashion until very recently
It's amazing how much 60's thought and culture is responsible for the things we think are "new" in the present time.
There is definitely a change in meaning to the word now
@@tosgem did it mean the same thing or was it mostly used as short hand for simpleton
Baba booey
“We asked all the 16 year olds at Webster High to answer a THIRTY-SIX PAGE questionnaire. After this, all of them wanted to rebel.”
Do you think the average student today would fill out a 36 page questionnaire?
@@7Steveski lol...the product of rebellion. Congrats everyone!!!
@@7Steveski Are you asking for a grant to study this question?
John Galt 😂
@@7Steveski they won't even fill a 36 questions questionnaire lol
I am exactly this age, and the documentary is absolutely right. Our parents grew up in the depression, and our fathers' were in WWII, and the focus was then on stability, on money, and education which our parents never had.
My mom's mother (my Great grandparents) lost her parents in the 1918 flu epidemic. Her brothers and sisters were split up and she was only 5. So sad. My mom had a rough life because of the depression and only finished 8th grade. She married my dad while pregnant with me at age 20. I have never had what I consider a stable home..even now at age 69. We tend to imprint our children with our patterns whether good or bad. I always had love for my mom even though her divorce made my childhood hard. She did her best as most parents usually do.
I think the context is important to consider for sure. The parents had seen some pretty serious stuff and I think the dismissal of their kids taking the burden of worldly affairs on themselves is from a place of wishing their kids could enjoy a youth that they couldn’t, and also to focus on security before spending their time demonstrating their political ideals. Of course it doesn’t nullify the impact it had on the individualism and expression of youth in that era, I think many parents were still quite uncertain of the future meaning they wanted to control its direction, by controlling their kids.
@@Sharpened_Spoon lol they weren’t controlling their kids they wanted them to have a peaceful life. As a 1963 baby I am so thankful my parents raised me this way. There’s no need to traipse the world looking to impress people.
Don't you know us Boomers had it so great. I've been writing we all ate rainbow stew and drank nothing but sweet bubble up. We were as a group,swindled,lied to and cheated. And now,we are only finding out that we screwed up the world.
I had 3 older sister who were all teens in 66, two were twins. One (a twin) married a Naval aviator who was in Nam for two years. They were obviously conformers, but both were killed in a 69 plane crash in the Sierra Nevada's. The other twin was a conformer as well and married a law student who became a successful Tax Attorney. They had 4 kids and are still together. My third older sister, youngest of the 3, was a hippy rebel. She left home a month before her 17th birthday and went to SF with 5 friends. She stayed there for a year and a half before calling my father and crying that her boyfriend had beaten her and thrown her from the apartment. There were 6 of us kids, but my hard working middle class father got in the car and drove from our Chicago home to San Francisco to bring home his daughter ...... She hadn't called once since she left. She came back and got a job with a dental office. About 6 months later a rich and handsome young doctor was looking at the office for rent next the one my sister worked in, and they met. The hippy is now a grandmother of 3 and still living in Bel Aire, CA with her retired cosmetic surgeon husband. He is a great guy. The lesson is that the hippy life was okay if you were a beautiful blonde that could afford to spend what should have been your junior and senior years of high school in San Fran smoking dope and dropping acid.
@Tom Spencer ..... LOL.... Nah, not really. Just tellin' our history as it is, better and luckier than some families, not as blessed as others. Trust me, I would love to have been a San Fran teen for 69-71
So what I'm gathering is, You're implying the only reason she found success or comfort as a former hippy runaway...is because she was blonde and beautiful? And if that had not been the case, she would have continued to suffer to her poor decisions? 🤔
Perhaps her to-be husband found her interesting and free-spirited, but recognized she got wrapped up in the hype of the late-60s. It's called being young and dumb.
I know it's your story, but I don't like how you spin the narrative. Your sister is much more than a once pretty teenager who ran away, and she didn't necessarily escape her mistakes based on looks alone.
@The Richest Man In Babylon I suppose you could say that for everyone in life. Good looking people tend to be favored, but it's unfair to attribute all of her success based upon her looks.
@The Richest Man In Babylon How does anything I said relate to feminism in any way whatsoever? It's common fucking sense. You should try using it.
Thanks for Sharing David! Really cool story lol!!
It's interesting how staying in your home town when you grow up has only recently become synonymous with "failure". For millennia our ancestors were born, had families, and died in roughly the same place unless they were forced out by some calamity. And for some reason hearing these kids say, "I'm happy here. Why would I leave? I already picked out my dream house across the street from my parents," just absolutely blows my mind.
Well, for the Globalist it is imperative to alienate you from the land. Then you don't have roots nor principles or anything to anchor you, then you will do as you are told, and go where they want you to go.
lol I’m from the Silicon Valley the kids growing up in, working in, and supporting these cities can not afford to live in the city they grew up it is disgraceful
Anecdote Andy here but this seems representative of the conditions of most kids I hear today
Blows ur mind that they wanna stay in their rich neighborhoods with their rich families and friends?
monkeygoesbananas This is a topic I’ve wrestled with for a while now. How did living and dying in the town a person is from become synonymous with failure? I’m sincerely asking that question again because I just purchased a house in my hometown and although that’s a big accomplishment, I still have this nagging feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything because I haven’t moved out of this town. I’m not sure if this idea that you’re a failure if you die in the town you were born in is from years and years of television watching or what.
@@MrBleworchid congratulations on your new house. I think if you want to stay in your home town it's a splendid idea. I also intend to but after I have satisfied my wanderlust I will come home
"It's important to have a car, so you can go out and park." nice
Wasn't "to park" slang for fucking back then? 😂
@@alexanderdamm1525 Yeah, it was.
Park my maserati in her garage
@@alexanderdamm1525 that’s what I thought. When I heard that, my expression was more like 😳 than 🤨
@@ryanabbott202 lol
Wow!! I went to high school in Los Angeles in late 1960's. What a world of difference between the kids at this Missouri high school and where I went to high school. My friends and I were hanging out at night at coffeehouses and the Sunset Strip and all over Hollywood. Lived in that area so I was close to everything. It was a lot of fun!!! I wasn't a hippy but more of a flower child. We had love-ins on Sunday afternoons in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. People just hanging out in this huge park, singing, dancing, playing guitars, tambourines; dressed in all kinds of unusual garb and burning incense. It was a weekly happening! Mostly teenagers and young people in their 20's or early 30's.
Me too!!! Grew up in Silverlake but went to school in Alhambra as a boarder. We may have seen each other on Sunday afternoons in Griffith Park (tho no one in my family knew I was there!)
That sounds so fun! I wish I could experience something like that. I'm 17 and that kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore at least in my area :(
You were fortunate to experience that time period in Hollywood....had a taste of coffeehouse nightlight living in Europe in the early 80s
Interesting documentary. I graduated in 1966 and grew up in a military family. At 13 years old, I went to work as a carhop while attending middle school. Having a job gave me a feeling of freedom and independence. The values instilled in my siblings and myself were important life skills that have served us throughout our lives.....
I was raised in a military family as well and graduated from high school in 1964. I graduated from college four years later. For me, college gave me the freedom to grow as I wanted and needed to grow. I took it seriously, and I took it with joy. I began in those years what has become my life, and my field of study was so much more than that. It was the world in which I would thrive. Life happens to everyone, and we get knocked this way and that, but my rudder was in the water. Thank God.
@@robertpope2783 Your comment is appreciated, Robert. I believe that military life was an education in itself, in that we were exposed to situations that required us to be fearless...often having to 'adapt and overcome' as we had no choice but to do so...an important life skill. In my case, for example, to smoothy fit in to the new school, and struggling with my siblings and having to adjust to our shell shocked (CPTSD) ww2 suffering father who was a tanker..North Africa and Omaha Beach. Much like you have mentioned, 'your rudder was in the water.' I believe that that strength developed out of the hardships you experienced and the self discipline values and courage instilled throughout life, albeit sometimes seemingly harsh and unfair they served as a guide to create the life you built for yourself...We never gave in or gave up...Hats off to you, Friend.
@@AureliaLambrechthey The harsh thing at the army is not that they teach you what they want, but they insist on teaching it rapidly, russian in three months only for example, it's a brainwash!
The recrutes are nearly going nuts in the last month...
But as 15 out of 20 reach to pass their exams, at the end they say:
Congrats! See that it works? Just trust your superiors and you will become quite important for the HQ!
Welcome to the EloKa!
That was meant as a compliment for succeeding...
BTW:
What is a "shell shock"?
What does the abbreviation CPTSD stand for?
Was it a shrapnell that hit his helmet (do you call his helmet the "shell"?) or something else?
Would like to know more about it.
Did he end up as PoW?
P.S.: North africa... Did he get in contact with the camelmounted "compagnies sahariennes" of General De Gaulle or with the desert Tommies of General Patton?
Did he fight for or against that german "Feldmarshall" the french called "le fennec" cuz he was always already gone when they cruised up?
Did he take part in "Erwins Bastelstunden"?
Omaha beach... Do you mean the place on the north shore of Normandy where they once have had their longest day on duty ever (in june 1944)?
What a hell!
If so, your dad must have been one of the toughest guys ever if he had survived that!
Chapeau!
Thanks for sharing Aurelia! Feel free to share your stories on here or Tiktok!
Being a boomer that didn't rebel is the most boomer thing
Oh I don't think so at all
The stereotypical ''Boomer'' are the ones that didn't rebel, since they form a majority of the Boomer population.
@@markhenley3097 from what I know, a majority of boomers turned into stereotypical boomers, regardless of if they rebelled. I had plenty of teachers who were rebels, and now they're quite stereotypical boomers.
Being a boomer who did rebel and now hates teens who rebel is the most boomer thing
the boomers that people complain about are the ones that fucked up America with the shitty politics, not the hippies.
TH-cam is the closest thing we got to a time machine.
Ever heard of a book?
@@Chipiliro613 that was good
@@Chipiliro613 yeah but he means by an actual visualization of that era not just paragraphs of it -_-
Really a time capsule
youtube is a marvel. If it wasn't for the censorship... :(
Many of these parents lived through the Great Depression, and either saw or experienced first hand what real poverty is like: a roof over their head and three meals a day wasn't a given: a good job, a house, and security is something to be appreciated, and they wanted that for their kids. These aren't rich kids: they're middle class in middle America in the 1960s. It was the children of the true elites, bored trust fund kids mostly from big East Coast cities, who drove the hipster/hippie movement, and they had utter contempt for middle class, middle Americans.
Exactly!
I know some old hippies. They weren't all from rich families
Nailed it!
Not to mention those who lived through WWII as well, whether on the home front or the battlefields.
that is absolutely not true... hippies came from all backgrounds and levels of income...most weren't trust fund kids, that isn't even a good view point on the era at all. Like there, absolutely, were more middle class to low class hippies, cause rich kids were not that large, of a part, of the society. The contempt came from saying no to an illegitimate war and telling the silent gen politicians to go fuck themselves..Those kids knew not to go to a dumb war, unlike so many generations before...
Thank you David Hoffman for recording all of these videos in the past for us to watch now. That was very smart and considerate of you to think of us future kids who would be curious of these things. You are a miracle and an inspiration.
So in the 60’s they already had the term “Normies”.
But It seems like it was directed to the ones who weren't basic af
I noticed that too
REEEEEEE
bringusofdingus wait for him to release footage from the stock market crash in the 20’s where everyone was screaming g “reeeee!” We didn’t even come up with that.
That is a good point
"What 16 year old child has any real convictions?"
2-3 years later that child is getting married, having kids, and expected to act like an adult.
I was thinking that too. Like dang y’all have marriage and a baby early
And the boys were sent to Vietnam
It's projection. When your "convictions" are fed to you without a question, all one has is blind obedience and dogma. Parrots.
Back in the day children grew up differently than we do now. The way our education has been changed has created long drawn adolescent mentalities..you can see it in the 60s
Right! I was born in the late 50s. At 17 I was being grounded at 18 I was a mom.
In 1966 I was 7 years old and growing up in MA. We didn't have much money, I lived in an unfinished bedroom on the second floor with partial insulation showing and no drywall up. In the winters it was freezing but I learned how to snuggle-wrap myself in what I considered an Indian papoose-style cacoon. It kept me very warm. College was never mentioned in my home neither was much about schooling or grades. My dad had started and owned his own company which took up his days five days a week. I was never encouraged to do either this or that with my life.
I was never told who to like or not like. I felt loved and protected, but my parents never told me they were proud of me nor showed much physical affection toward us kids. Toward each other, their kisses every single time they ever separated or came back together was obvious. In ways too numerous to mention, we absolutely knew we were loved, and wanted. All us kids and there were quite a few, felt that love deep into our being. I never worked hard at school or did much if any homework as I grew up. I could only hope by some miracle I might go to college but didn't expect it.
Fortunately, I was pretty smart, and even without homework or studying, I did better than average in most classes and even way above average in others. As adults, all of us kids have a very independent mind where we each have come to our own conclusions about life. What's common to all of us, is that we respect others, we feel empathy. We have a very strong sense of family and holidays and traditions. I can easily remember hearing my dad laugh at some joke through the years as he watched various shows on TV. I loved that sound and wanted to bring it to my own children. I think I did, for the most part. But I did always bring, without exception, was putting my family first.
This was not putting them first so I could build or mold them into something. It was to put them first so that they might feel and know they were loved just as much as I felt loved by my parents. I told my kids that I didn't care if they were a forklift driver or doctor, as long as they did what they truly enjoyed and that they did it well.
If it matters, and it shouldn't, I'm white. There were no blacks in my town. The first time I saw a black person was after getting my license and exploring the small cities by my small town. On the day I saw my first black-skinned person, who was sort of a disappointment because I couldn't see what the fuss was about, I also saw my first person urinate in public. He was white. And that has set my attitude toward people. It's not what they look like; it's what they do.
You may go to dances but you don’t get to dance, you don’t help plan them..
wow. It’s stunning. Like, stuns me. “Everyone is the same, has the same ideas.. everybody comes out like that..”
I wasn't a rebel. I had a full time job after school starting at 15. I wasn't from a wealthy family. Ended up married at 18 and had two kids. Bought a house and cars. I still live in the house I bought in a lovely suburb of NY. My husband passed young. I worked all my life. I raised great kids I'm very proud of and also proud I was a 60s teen. I would change the fact that we all married too young back then. Old before our time. I danced. I should have danced more.
Sounds nice to me. No, 18 isn't too young, Angela Joys. It is just right. I would have followed the same path as you. Life is a dance with the right partner at your side.
You can still dance even when you are married 😊
It's never too late to start dancing again. It's never too late for anything. The truly blessed are those who learn this young.
She regrets getting married and having kids being "too young" and not being able to "dance more" . Should've danced more, had your fun then settled down got hitched and had kids. Modern woman mindset.
@@luisdurango_man5386 🤦🤔
At 16 yo they already look like actual adults...I think it’s the clothes and hair.
@AudioJeep Subliminals even frail bones from lack of excercise... kids are looking ill these days.
@Ted Cee 😂😂😂
they sounded more mature too
@Ted Cee
Found the 'back in my day' boomers. It's exactly the opposite. Young people today are exposed to *too* many hormones through the heavily processed food we eat. Look at the actual data rather than your quickly fading rose-colored memories to see that the American diet back then was just as shite as it is now, they just weren't eating steroid-addled animals from factory farms. You still lighting up a Winston or five after meals, grandpa?
As for exercise? It was a complete joke back then. We may do less of it now, but at least we know what we're doing. Put me in a time machine & I could throw each & every 'man' in this documentary over their own house. Even after the asthmatic krill at 7:30 killed some of my gains through osmosis.
@@sharonmorine5407
Which wouldn't be so bad if people would burn them off. Fact is, it's actually easier to access healthy food along with nutrition & exercise information now than it was then; people simply won't do it. We also know about practices like intermittent fasting now, & they're becoming more socially acceptable. If you tried to pull something like that in the overly conformist culture of the '60s, you'd likely be ostracized.
When I tell people my age that I don't eat until 1 PM now, they kind of just shrug & say ok even if you can tell it's still considered kind of weird nowadays. Cases in point, my mom, despite efforts to educate herself regarding the growing body of empirical data suggesting that IF is indeed a very healthy practice, still can't decalcify her neural pathways enough to escape thinking that it still must be harmful in some way My grandmother literally thinks I'm going to starve to death doing it. These things evolve.
I can't imagine getting married right after graduating from high school but things were a lot different back then. People seemed so much more mature and well prepared for real life.
Well, that depends rather more likely on if you meet Mr. Right sooner or later, than of if you are 20, 25 or 30, doesn't it?
The post-high school future was pretty obvious for most students at that time. Jobs and careers were more than plentiful, and only one person per family needed to have one to live a good life.
They were neither more mature nor more prepared. The societal expectations were simply different. The majority of marriages back then ended in abuse, divorce, or other calamities in which both people were unhappy
@@ianmcgregor7323 Go back to your splif rolling.
@@ianmcgregor7323
Absolutely
This was really interesting to watch. And your commentary added a lot to the experience, helping to put things into perspective. You helped to shape the perspective we should take on to be able to appreciate this some 60yrs later. Thank you for this.
I am a Boomer who grew up poor with 8 siblings. A little background: Despite a miserable marriage, my parents stayed together and both suffered for it. We almost never had anything new. Our clothes were given to us by well-off cousins and family friends. Almost everything I owned belonged to an older brother before, yet we were relatively happy, because my parents somehow managed to buy a shack of a home, so we didn't have to stay in the projects.
I grew up during the Vietnam War and the draft. Every adult told me that when I was 17 I would be drafted and go to Vietnam. It was just the way it was for those who could not afford better or didn't have political connections. As such, I made no plans for my future, nor was I encouraged to do so.
The war was winding down as I graduated high school at 17, so I managed to avoid that, and never got drafted. I was a tech nerd when transistors were cutting edge technology, and educated myself by going to the library and taking out books every 2 weeks. I managed to make a career of technology, which I work in to this day.
I am near retirement today and have very little saved because I was never told by anyone how important it was, so I'll most likely have to work until I die or become permanently disabled, but still, I have been very lucky my whole life , considering my situation.
My point? This video only shows one aspect of a 3-dimensional society. Don't think it was all like this. No one ever interviewed anyone in my neighborhood.
So, with out a doubt this documentary is not inclusively complete. I totally get that! Towards the end of the 1960s I was able to understand that by becoming a hippie. It was only then that My Consciousness woke up and I understood what was really going on around me.
Today I marvel at the stupidity of humanity.
@@Iwas11 , Hhmmm, could be. Que the music.
I've never felt so guilty about the "okay boomer" trend in my life.
@@Iwas11 , Thank you for pointing out the proper spelling and usage of the word “cue”, the music.
I just don’t feel that marveling at the stupidity of 90% of humanity is bad form.
I am more embarrassed for my country after seeing the first presidential debate. I really didn’t see all of it I just couldn’t stand to see the President and former Vice President acting like juveniles. Can you imagine foreign countries seeing us behave this way with each other. I am proud we peacefully change leadership, while many others use violence. Now all of a sudden where is all the peaceful people and the peaceful demonstrations, what’s going on here?
@@HairyPixels Not sure exactly what you mean by that, but I blame my own ignorance for not saving. I guess I always thought I would have plenty of time. I just didn't take it seriously until recent years. I got laid off many times in my life, and honestly, I never kept track of my 401K savings after getting laid off each time, and I'm wondering what happened to all of them.
I’m always amazed at the vocal inflections and verbal mannerisms they used in speaking back then.
Its cute
@Daardoor Waarvoor You just don't understand that it's a different language, basically a sub language. Your ignorance means nothing as long as the communication between people is understood. You alienate your fellow human being because they aren't like you and you brew hatred with that train of thought. Maybe understand a little more, you don't have to like it, but maybe you'll have patience to speak a different way.
@Daardoor Waarvoor Everyone is a child in the eyes of a parent and whatever God you might or might not believe in; as every dog is a puppy and cat is a kitty in the eyes of the "owner". You clearly have been treated awful to shame you from being the child you once were/are. You're a human being and being an adult is a concept that keeps you in line to be a cog in the machine like these boomers. Your ignorance only kills you in the end.
@@SunGodCadena that’s cool bro, there’s still no excuse to speak like a fool
@@DoctorTauri the fool is the one who thinks they aren't
Learning that the term “normie” came from the 60’s was a mental flashbang I didn’t expect
Thank You for sharing all these documentaries with us. I was not born till 1970, but my parents wee baby boomers. What I get so tired of is this these younger generations think that everybody did drugs in the 60s, and they argue with me that my parents did drugs because they were young adults in the 60s. I know my parents never did drugs and were most certainly not part of the hippy culture. They were no saints I know that, but my parents totally believed in reefer madness and thought hippies were dangerous people. These documentaries are so insightful and interesting
The girl that's already picked her house out!! Too funny. She's 70 now... hope she's happy
@atomic3939 Knowledge? Experience? You don't have to pursue a life of academics and money in order to go to school
@atomic3939 Back then on-the-job training etc. was far more common, and a high school diploma was given more weight. You didn't need a Bachelor's in Journalism to write for a local paper or click-bait articles on an online portal, merely to demonstrate ability and a willingness to work.
@atomic3939 Well yeah, there are always going to be shallow women/men, always going to be those who want to work hard/better society or help their fellow man, and those who will try to slither through the easy path in life. This likely won't change anytime soon.
She might be but her daughter who probably wanted different was probably shamed for her choices.....baby boomers seem to think everyone wants to get married and have kids LOL
@@sirenthomas4595 Her daughter would have been born during/after first-wave Feminism hit, so it's highly unlikely she would have been shamed for her choices, at least not by her peers.
I was that age then. I took shop all through high school. Wood shop, then metal shop then 3 years of electronics shop. I never felt that I was any lower than the other students. I had my small (very small) circle of friends. But it was those shop kids that now keep our cars running, the lights working and the toilets of the world flushing.
I always enjoy your work.
I would love to see the same people interviewed later in 1969/1970; so many people changed their viewpoints about everything.
Yeah, the "academics" don't appreciate the intelligence it takes to be a competent carpenter, plumber, or electrician.
Dave Schmarder You know, I think they do - privately - appreciate the intelligence required, but they also appreciate the salary, working conditions, and social status you get working in a metal shop, industrial sites, factories, and that ruined back you get in your forties from carrying power tools up ladders etc. They also, I guess, realize that humility is for mugs and university education gets you places that carry you to a safe place. Th only problem might be, you reach your fifties, and wonder whether you actually did anything useful in your life.
@@elzoog They do when something needs to be fixed!
@@elzoog exactly
This is SO FASCINATING! Thank you for posting this video. I love this channel! ❤❤❤
Amazing. I never knew people were motivated like this. It’s like seeing an animated museum exhibit. Thanks so much for this ❤️🔥👍🏻
Funny how the shop kid sounded like the most intelligent person in the entire documentary.
And fiftysomething percent admitted cheating in order to pass exams but no cheating's possible in the toolroom, you end up wondering who's more real here.
So sad that i saw them get rid of shop after my freshman year in high school in 1995. The millennials didn’t have a chance.
@@umiluv There's a world plan that aims at the destruction of the West which includes the raise of a mass of useless dorks. Small hats, big problems.
yeah, he was learning something real, and he noticed :)
Definitely seemed the most adult of them.
"You should spend an absolute minimum of 2 hours...."
Me: well thats not so bad
"For every ONE hour that you're in class"
Tf is he smoking
For those of us that do 7 hours a day of school, we won’t be sleeping, no we literally study 24 hours a day I guess
I agree, a bit much. I attended school 0830 to 1600 daily & did 3 hours of homework and study every night. I was in bed by 10 & up by 0630 to catch 3 buses to school. Seven hours a day is unrealistic, one has to sleep.
Its because of all the lead poisoning making the boomers big dumb. Have to study 3x more
That’s 3/4 of your day
It makes sense when you're in college, because classes there are just 2-3 hours of lecture per day plus maybe 1 hour of discussion. Then a full day of study would be 4-8 hours per day minimum. Not too bad.
I've been binging these videos. It makes me feel so happy to watch glimpses from the past.
To think this was NOT that long ago as it may seems for someone as young as me, it makes me feel nostalgic.
I invite you to keep on bilging.
Thank you for this excellent documentary. I was 16 in 1966 in Maine, graduating in 1967. There were so many life changes from 1966 - 1971 when I graduated from university. This documentary brought back many memories.
I was a "shop kid". I took four years of high school technical shop classes: machine shop, electronics, sheet metal, welding, drafting, metallurgy, technically applied math and became a master machinist cross-trained in a half-dozen other crafts. After fiteen years of doing this, I commanded hourly rate that rivalled a lawyer's fees as a self-employed craftsman. I retired in my forty's to write history books and work on inventions. I have two books published, have patents and, now at 60, I am comfortable, happy, and volunteer at a museum using my "shop kid" skills. I have a trade that is vastly in demand and I could work at any job i want to do (as opposed to have to do) until I die at nearly any pay level I demand and work the hours I want. Do not knock the "shop kids". As I did, they are following their bliss and knew at an early age that this is the life for them. The streess is far less, work is readily obtainable if you are willing to relocate and cross-train and it's honorable. I never knew a machinist who was accused of financial shenanigans or had an ulcer. I have known many though, who had families, retired in their fifties and enjoyed their leisure years comfortably and happy. They may not have been able to do the new car thing every year, but who needs that? Its all about life contentment.
I took shop as a freshman and mechanical drawing as a sophomore. I remember the ridicule of the "shop kids" from some of my collegiate "friends." I became a software grease monkey and I credit those classes for showing my how to fit ideas together so they didn't fall apart.
Shop Kid Culture is whats missing today
My husbands identical twin has a PhD and is on antidepressants. He remained in the big city they grew up in. He has no desire to peruse interests or travel in retirement is humorless and cynical. My husband (not on antidepressants), is a retired chef with a community college degree who moved out of the same big city when he was 18. He is easygoing and is active and surfs. Up until Covid, traveled. They are the same age as this group of kids would be today. They are vastly different due to choices made and the environment they lived in.
I love this response!!!! PERFECT!
Ever work on a car, perform (or explain) wood repair, sweat your own pipes, fix house wiring or simple consumer electronic repair (soldering), then stop and think how few have the ability to do all these things these days? I thank my Dad, whatever his faults, for instilling through example and projects the curiosity that makes those of us that understand and are multi-disciplinary able to do this. Are we a vanishing breed? I wonder.
I graduated from Webster Groves High School in 1965. I was in Miss Rep's choir. (too bad they recorded them on a day when they all were flat) Wish they would have spent more time with non-Soccies. (gee--first time I ever thought to write that word down--don't really know how to spell it) . Maybe the Normies could have given a better view of life at WGHS
Ah, yes, Replogle! She was at Webster forever. I even found her in my dad's 1936 yearbook. I don't think she ever retired.
Sandra,
They weren't flat. The film was so old that it stretched, which caused the sound to wobble. 🎶
@S. Williams Must be! Ever try talking back to her? She was invincible and immortal!
@@desultorydilletante4120 i think maybe she must know this because even when people sing flat, it doesn't sound like that.
@@ChristoherWGray You should give yourself this advice.
Thank you David for capturing this moment in history
God bless you David. will share this to my parents. these kids are my parent's age. be safe and well
That shop class kid had it right.
It's funny I just started in construction in my father says some people think that they will hate it until they get into it and find out that they really liked it.
From personal experience shop class beats out any calculus class and physics you’ll take in college not because it’s easy but because you can see what you have done. Meanwhile in calc we are just Integrating over and over which gets real boring and we never get to see the application other than it being on a graph.
@@jeffreymuu5451 Truth is, it's not easy is it? Many of the "calc students" would probably have a difficult time building a cabinet with drawers or rewiring a house.
@@elzoog Am a maths student, can confirm that I cannot work with my hands for shit
I was about to say that. he probably owns some awesome businesses now.
I wish you would interview the "kids" now and see how they turned out and how their opinions changed or didn't. No right or wrong, just interesting.
They are old, broke and afraid. The systems of belief and security of their era crumbled.
@@littlerussianmax5831 yes
But to allow a POC to attend “their” school or move into “their” neighborhood and all hell would break loose.
@@jessewilson8676 Why would you want POCs into your neighborhood? POCs don't even want them in their neighborhood.
@@carlbowles1808 Nope, I was one of those. Not broke
I don't know how I got here, but I really appreciate this analysis and look back.
It would be amazing for these same people were interviewed today !!!!!!!!
Thanks you so much for your AMAZING videos David !!!!!!!! (I was ten years old in Dec 1966 born in Calif & parents migrated to Australia in 1969 with us 5 kids 4 to 12 years old to be able to raise us in a better & safer environment).
Three years later ¾ of the guys in this class was in Vietnam.
When they got out it was a different world.
Not exactly, maybe I am wrong but there were ways the elite could dodge the draft
@@bharatkrishna7082 these small town Missouri kids weren’t the sort of financial elites that could buy their way out of the draft.
@@christiancastillomusic2319 Have you ever heard of a college deferment ?
@@christiancastillomusic2319 Webster Groves is not a small town it is a very well established suburb of St Louis very close to the city.
Only a third of the troops that went to Vietnam were drafted.
Hilarious that my teachers & family threatened me with low status "ditch digger" future.
I've made a fortune excavating for water, power, structure & roadways...lol
Yeah, the whole 1950s mindset for the middle class was all... you're all gonna be rich bankers and Wall Street types. Whole lotta other jobs needing done.
@@gfox9295 College was thee only road to success they would say...I was dyslexic with a thyroid condition that made me hyperactive, classrooms were unbearable, thank the creator of demolition & excavation everyday..
Within the last 10 years its becoming widely covered in the media college is NO guarantee of success. Actually looking into who is rich makes it obvious. Tech company founders for Microsoft and Apple didn't complete college. My memory is failing but I remember Henry Ford completed 6th grade and even he realized I can hire all the highly educated people I need cheaply to make me rich. SpaceX, Tesla car founder Elon Musk speaks often of not requiring a degree to work for him. College, a great way to blow 10 years and wind up in massive debt.
People will always need someone to do the dirty jobs ,but not a college degree
@@tikigodsrule2317 ...excellent point👍
Thank you David. You are brilliant!
David, I know this video was posted 2 years ago, I am a longtime subscriber, and just wanted to let you know, that you are doing a very important job.
I will show this video to my cousin. He is 15.
By the way, I made it a habit to play the videos you post and watch them with my fiancee after dinner.
You are mentioned often at our home. Thanks for doing what you do.
Julia from Poland
It's funny how a lot of people think EVERYONE was a hippy in the 60s
I wasn't a hippy, but I did wear hippy styles. Headbands, granny dresses, love beads, etc.
I graduated in 1967 in a class of 176 (huge by my standards). I knew 3 "hippies". 2 were guys in my class, 1 was a girl from California who moved there for her senior year.
I totally agree..Let me tell you why..Because,the 1960’s ,were taught to later generations ,by the hippies ,and other radical elements of this era…Most people didn’t go out protesting or were attempting to tear down traditional American values..The same thing is happening now..The left doesn’t have the numbers,but they do have big media, big tech, big entertainment, big academia,etc..These institutions ,along with one political party,are trying their best to bring the 60’s utopia to the 21st century ..I’m not saying the right has the correct solutions or answers..I’m just telling you why and who is controlling the messaging..The kids who were protesting ,they all mostly came from privilege backgrounds(especially the white kids)..Therefore,they had the power to get the hear and eyes of the media..(They were children of the elites)
@@lookfor125 , and many of them raised their kids with the same attitude. And it is their children and grandchildren who are driving the radical ideology.
@@lookfor125
Most hippies weren't even particularly politically involved. The people who were actually doing serious activism weren't hippies. And what they did wasn't to "tear down American values". Not unless you think things like Jim Crow laws and unnecessary war are traditional American values. Then again, i suppose they are. Fortunately, so are protest and change
The one kid who spoke with internal conviction was the young man in the shop class, who actually made things!
Absolutely
His defensiveness was heartbreaking. In a world of perfection, he saw only himself as a failure.
Theres still kids like that today, there always will be. Honestly this is still true today overall, the surface level stuff like fashion and music sound and clubs have changed in appearance but the principles are still pretty dang valid. The "sociys" are now just the "woke kids" and the normies are on tick tok and the outcasts are invisible since they're not on social media and too busy doimg rebiouls things like working, starting families and joining the military lol
There was also the blond kid who described the community as bland, culturally uniform and complacent. Showed a good degree of awareness.
That occurred to me too. And he had an excellent point. That looked like a complex shop with complex machining equipment. I have a background as a machinist and I can PROMISE you that many of the "soc's" who went to college to not have the IQ to do shop math or think creatively like an engineer. You can train people in college to know certain things, but that does not equate to aptitude for those things, and many of the kids that gravitated for shop; would have been a much better pool of aptitude for engineering degrees. Databyter
Extraordinarily insightful presentation and commentary.
Hey David I just subscribed to your channel after realizing I've watched multiple videos of yours without realizing the videos I watched were yours. I like your style and interest in which you direct your attention to . I like hearing/ reading about the 60's .. thanks for the interesting videos
When I started my career as a high school counselor in the early 1990's I inherited the office of a gentleman who retired after 40 years as a guidance counselor. On the office wall was a framed motivational poster that proclaimed: "Conformity Helps Eliminate Complications". The copyright on the poster was 1964. I'm going to guess a copy hung in Webster Groves High's guidance office in 1966 as well.
But for people who were different, and could not conform, or who could only conform under great strain, life could get very complicated. In fact nonconformists were eliminated, lobotomies for homosexuals is one example. Another might be young people with a broader perspective who were stifled in their free thinking or aspirations to be creative or work for social justice.
"When non-conforming identities were considered a medical disease, psychiatrists used medical treatments, such as electroconvulsive shock, lobotomy, drugs, and psychoanalysis to cure or prevent "deviancy." Psychologists in the 1960s and 1970s described being LGBTQ+ as an attachment disorder-that people were attached to inappropriate erotic or sexual desires. They believed that using aversions (such as electrical shock stimuli) could modify behavior and lead to heterosexuality and "cure." It did not work."
americanhistory.si.edu/blog/getting-gay-out
@Andrew Cummings I kept it, hung upside-down, in my office for many years.
Can you imagine seriously suggesting children spend 74 hours a week on their studies?
I was told that same bullshit and I didn’t bother with the homework for more than an hour after school. I failed only one class in high school even though I got nothing but As just because I refused to do the 130 questions per day of homework. I am very proud of that F.
Yeah I was thinking that maybe he was acting for the camera when he was saying that.
@@matthew8153 Same here, but at least we man up to it. We use the pronoun "I". Some kids today want to blame the World for their poor decisions.
That's probably less than the average in Japan.
On that note, I wonder why they consistently outperform U.S. students...
@@grantjohnson5785
They outperform the US on standardized test for those who get tested. One thing people don’t realize about Japan is that their society is so repressive that many people (especially teenage boys) are withdrawing from reality and living as hermits. They don’t even go to school.
Another fascinating glimpse into times past. I love your channel. 🙏🏼🌹 (14:20 - that cop actually seemed a voice of reason after listening to the parent interviews.)
Holy cow! What a time capsule. Thanks again Mr Hoffman.
Two cars and a two-story house seems to be the standard back then
it was the standard dream sold by the mid century architectural digest
@@PHlophe Ya most people didn't have that.
That’s my dream and I’m 34
It's literally my dream
Back in those days you'd drop out of high school, knock up your girlfriend at 16, and walk in to general motors to ask for a job. "You're hired, start Monday!" the boss would tell you as he hands you an offer letter amounting to 80 grand a year in today's money. Then on your way home you'd stop by the bank for a pre-approved 30 year mortgage for a $20,000 house that you're new wife would clean all day rather than working.
Today you go to college for what you're told will be 4 years but turns into 6, walk out with $50,000 in debt, and spend your days filling out hundreds of applications for entry level jobs requiring five years of experience. If you're lucky in six months time you'll have finally landed a job an hour from home that pays fifteen dollars per. By about the time you've turned 35, you saved enough money for a 10% down payment on the most rundown shack in town for five hundred thousand dollars. At last you're ready to start a family, but your girlfriend tells you she's too worried to have kids at her age because of autism fears. You're silently relieved since you're still 30 grand deep in student loan debt on top of the 450 for the house, and you don't know how much of the world will be left for your child to grow up in anyhow.
54 percent cheated on tests. That is much higher than I anticipated yet shows the "pressure" to do well to get into college. Great documentary.
54% admitted to cheating, so it could be higher than that
And cheating is still fairly rampant. Which highlights a failure of the collegiate system (at least in this country), it's not so much about a love for learning as a desire for the piece of paper that will let you access higher-paying positions and consequently higher social status.
Yellowblanka And the collegiate system goes to show you that getting a degree doesn’t guarantee that social status like it did before. Now, millennials/zoomers are working in menial jobs just to make ends meet.
@@unknownunknowns Probably has to do with insane competition for white collar jobs (which isn't helped by off-shoring). If you have a Master's in certain lucrative fields you have a better chance, but that's obviously because there's less competition with increasing credentials.
Yellowblanka And automation isn’t also helping as well.
You are a treasure! Thank you for everything you do!!
Wonderful video. Eye opening on so many levels.
It's so interesting to hear the vocal inflections and accents of boomers and their parents during the 60s, in comparison to the way they speak now. I'm fascinated by the aging of the human voice, and videos like this provide neat insight into how my millennial speech patterns will sound when I'm my parents' age and older.
Imagine grandmothers with vocal fry and upspeak!
Same exact thought here.
@@Llixgrijb I am so excited to eventually witness grandmothers, and eventually great-grandmothers, with bejeweled starbucks cups, contouring, 2020 lashes, and 2020 sorority-girl-who-smokes voices. It's going to be so annoying to some people, but very endearing to others.
I hear it too. I try to explain it to people, but they think I'm just hearing a regional accent. It's definitely a different way of speaking.
Hey, Shoelace ..Keep studying/collecting voices.. it’s really more than a cool thing. You’re recording the nuanced change. So much, maybe too much to fast, change in something ch a short time. You’re a true historian/sociologist. Latter decades will thank you. They may b so, so, so confused.
So many of us are sooooo confused now.! Good to see your comment here. Isn’t this a great channel? 🌻moi
I would totally watch a Netflix period drama based on the characters in this documentary.
We already have that, it's called Mad Men
Same
@@hobog12777 thats about middle age people these are teens.
Madmen
Definitely.
You are a great man! We chatted on line about this “ lazy generation” my words, we chatted and I listened. Well watching every one of your videos, and learning, and still listening. Keep teaching david
Thank you so much Wade for your comments.
I love your “show don’t tell” approach to journalism. You’ll occasionally explain things in an unbiased way, but mostly you let the recordings talk.
Thank you for noticing.
David Hoffman Filmmaker
"I cant express myself."
"What do I want out of life, i couldn't tell you."
That says it all.
These are teenagers. Do you think teenagers today can answer the same questions differently? Did you know what you wanted or could express yourself very well as a teenager? Chances are they could express themselves if they wanted to and figure out what they want out of life much better than today's youth.
@@n.d.m.515 Being able to answer these kinds of questions at that age has everything to do with how you are raised. In my family, we start asking these questions when our kids are old enough to talk, we are interested in what they want, not trying making them conform to a set standard. I knew I wanted to be an engineer by 12. My nephew is 15 years old and he has found that he is most interested in machining and cooking.
If you're quoting someone in this video or any video why don't you do the courtesy of putting the time stamp so we know what you are referencing?
It really does, lol. The funny thing is she so confidently states that because she can't express herself, surely no one else can either. Boomers in a nutshell right there.
@@b.elzebub9252 So, you live your life in a vacuum of assumptions I see. The lady that said that would not have been a boomer. This was 1966, the woman that said that looked to be 35 or so. 1946 was the first "boomer" year. The oldest boomer would have been 20 when this was made. Not that it matters, there are as many binary thinkers like you among all the generations. Not just the boomers.
Fascinatinglook back..tahnk you..and interesting ending.
Friggin' awesome work David Hoffman, awesome!
At 16 your a child at 18 your old enough to fight in a foreign land.
... and not allowed to vote nor buy alcohol legally.
@@gthomy You can get married (with parental consent) in all 50 states at that age though.
But at 17 you're allowed to donate your organs.
You can still do all of these things at 18 but but you can't simply buy a bottle of beer! Pretty fucked up!
@¿Eres Cristiano? Myth.
I'm among the oldest Gen Zers here, 1998, some may even think we're Millennials but as a teen during the 2010s decade, I grew up watching these 1960s documentaries about teenagers and it really was amazing to see how teenagers no matter which era it is, they're all the same. Some are moody, some are rebellious, some are depressed, some want to be perfect, some don't give a damn.
And some think only of sex and drugs.
98? You're the youngest of them all.
@@justinwking ??????? youngest Gen Zers are like 10 years old
@@haludae You're right, I was mistaken. I guess I had my terms mixed up.
Buddy, what you just said is the most mature thing I've read on the subject of generational comparison.
You are a treasure! Great film with excellent narration.
Very fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing, Bernie Sanders! :)
I loved the ditch digger comment. Anyone who was young in the 60s/70s heard that from their parent.
Ironic, since now ditch-digging is the way to make money, more specifically, real estate investing (which includes a little bit of ditch-digging). I have a hypothesis that the loss of manual labor is why testosterone levels are so low now. Work smart, work hard and you'll always have good wealth and health.
Heh! Yep!
I did. I ironic thing was that my father dug ditches for a living at that time and made more money than all of us kids.
Nikola Tesla was a ditch digger, at least for a while!
I grew up in the 90s with my parents telling me this, lol boy were they wrong. Seems that this only worked for one generation lol
It's hard to not notice how there aren't any fat people.
Good observation. I took a train through my small home town several years back. Several people boarded at the town's station. About half of them were overweight. My instant reaction was, wow, when I was growing up here, there weren't any fat people.
Fat people are new breed, we evolved in early 80s
Lifestyle
@@SuperChodot Around the emergence of the Smoke Nazis. Coincidence?
Hydration with SODA. 2 liters and Big Gulps. Soda should be a treat like Ice Cream. Not a hydration tool...That plus fast food. Main reasons.
Just found yout youtube channel and LOVING IT!
"Their cars were more important to them than their looks." Cut to kid in car with the most epic unibrow
Actually, the 1960's of hippies, and rebels didn't really get into full swing until the summer of 1967 at it's earliest. Up until then, most teenagers looked and acted like those portrayed in this film. The generalization of all the 1960's being long haired rebels is a gross exaggeration. I'd love to see what these kids looked like and what they had to say two years later in 1969.
I agree totally. It would probably be around half the teenagers who were in "rebellion" by the early 70s.
Where I grew up, there were maybe 2 or 3 "freaks" per high school class of 100. The rest might have grown their hair a little longer, but were just as conformist as mom and dad. Job with daddy, mortgage, kids. And it was like that all through the 70s.
@Amuro Ray A nuanced sense of history.
Yes it's amazing how quickly it happened
@Amuro Ray incredible comment
Ah, a different era. They thought a bunch of teenagers were going to answer a questionnaire entirely truthfully. What intoxicating innocence.
My parents are boomers, real salt-of-the-earth people raised on a farm and a ranch and lived a really wholesome lives (still do). They both told me when they were made to fill out those anonymous questionnaires in highschool, they lied and checked every unvirtuous box to make the adults think the worst of their kids because they resented having to take such a stupid test. They (and her likewise wholesome friends who did the same thing) thought it was a good laugh.
Just like my siblings in the 80s and 90s lied on those dumb tests. I think I'm the only one who wrote how honestly boring I was on the test because I was SO SICK of the lectures and assemblies we'd get on how not to be depraved drugged-up sex-crazed flunkies. They always reported the numbers of students who anonymously admitted to bad behavior, and all of us students knew it wasn't accurate.
Hm, makes me wonder why if so many boomers lied on that test, why they, when they became teachers, were so gullible to believe the test results of their students...
@Luffen What generation do you think I am from?
David, your work is the best.
You are a treasure of your time, I hope God keeps you alive long enough to share your knowledge 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
This was in the middle of my high school years. These kids were much more affluent than most of the kids I knew. Most of the kids in my town were from blue collar families whose dads worked in the steel mill, nickel plant or grain elevators. Our parents were laborers. The doctor's and lawyer's kids were more or less like the kids in the film, but the rest were a lot more earthy. These were the children of Ozzie and Harriet. We were the children of Archie Bunker. If you hadn't told me, I'd have thought this was a documentary of the 50s not the 60s.
An interesting documentary would be about what happened to these kids 50 years later.
I would love to see that documentary! Thank you for sharing your perspective about this era.
the outsiders and the socs
@John Great post.
it was early to mid-60s sir
They bogged down the Senate and suggested Obama was born in Kenya to keep every penny.
"What am I working for? What am I living for? What do I want out of life? I couldn't tell you."
- The Greatest Generation
I loved that line it was so honest.
Its so strange to me how much the Greatest Generation is romanticized by young kids today.
Oh she knew Exactly what she wanted, and got it. A wealthy husband, obedient kids, a monochromatic town, etc. Interesting how so many of the parents say their kids are too young to have their own thoughts and ideas when the parents goal was just that, that their kids would Never have their own mind but just conform.
The Greatest generation survived the Depression, WWII, were the ones who passed Civil Rights Legislation, lifted the country up to be far more successful than anyone imagined, and still put men on the moon.
I say, what followed that act was wanting. Does anyone actually think today is better? At least these people tried to hold it together. Today, folks lie to themselves with astonishing ease and success.
Maxfield Stanton This isn’t the Greatest Generation. These are Baby Boomers. The greatest generation were folks born in the late teens & 20’s. These are their children, the ‘hippies’ then, later, the ‘yuppies.’
Really liked seeing this. It reminds me of what a nightmare our society was and IS.
Thank you!
Although... they had the choice at least by learning hard at school. In former generations there were no cars, only horses, mules and donkeys (like the old Minis for the poor ones nowadays)...
That was another quality of a nightmare! LOL !
What made it seem nightmarish to you?
This is the Boomer life I'm familiar with. Everybody lived the way you were "supposed to live" & that "one-two, one-two idea" was very present. When we moved to LA from our "Webster Grove" community, I cried for months. But then, I started watching the news, reading magazines & newspapers, going to the beach, the mountains. No more one-two, one-two.
Never did fit in with any one group but the difference was I was accepted by all groups. The hippies were just one of many. What makes me sad is how much a lot of people are wanting to take us back to those Webster Grove days. Good for some, maybe but definitely not accepting of many. Thanks for this 👍
Go interview 16 year olds and their families in the same town today. I’d like to see the contrast.
Ask the same questions. If they’re even relevant.
That would be interesting
@@janethebluemouse I too, would love to see it
Webster Groves has a ton of arts kids now. Or at least it did when I was there 4-5 years ago.
you couldn't get them to look up from their cell phones long enough to answer 5 questions LOL
Looking back , I used to think home Economics was the least useful course but now as a much older man I think it was one of the most important. Cooking and financial planning are critical.
Me too. I wish I had paid more attention...
Economics was the best class I've ever taken, at least as far as interest and usefulness.
I’m so glad I found your channel. The content is so interesting 👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you
Thanx David that was great.
Going to college back then just made sense.
I can see why the boomers echoed the saying "you have to get a degree to be successful" Now adays it feels like a huge financial gamble.
Yeah
And somehow a lot of people didn't see how it would turn out
Things are often like that, not just with education
Well, what changed is the COST of going to college. If u went to an in-state University back then it was practically free, so most could get a decent education without owing their life to it, thereby practically guaranteeing a financially secure life. This was what society then was prepared to give thru taxes to elevate everyone and this is what's been lost.
Unfortunately its Party specific in that Reagan began this process and then it just took off. Today we do not support elevating society, just ourselves and so we have lowered our standard of living by depressing those least able to, forgoing going to school and are dangerously close to losing our Democratic system as a result. These are intimately linked events. Greed will end the American era because we have come to feel that GREED is good!! We have lost our value system and that is more than a shame, its a disaster.
Not in Europe
@@jgunther3398 LMFAO GREEDY LEFTISTS do you even understand what a leftist is? also no. Berkeley couldn't educate everyone for free. that would take lots of resources. resources are finite. that's the corner stone of economics. if berkeley could educate everyone for free we would be living a communist utopian society.
@@jgunther3398 The current "republican" president literally got caught making a fake, for profit college and had to pay millions to the students he tricked into paying for fake degrees.... Granted he was a registered democrat most of his life, a fact that he really doesn't want his cult followers to know, but he had to run as a republican because he was told that democrats would never fall for his con and support him.
More teenagers were 'squares' than hippies in the 60s
Right! We have this picture of everyone being a free wheeling hippie but that was DEFINITELY not the case.
Yeh it was the same as today. A loud vocal minority. They're using the same playbook
@@anonymous3174
>Same playbook
Please elaborate
What a shitty reality :/
@@kynanverwimp847 pretending there is a consensus by having a small number of foolish people shout and cry about things so that from then on it can be pretended that everyone always wanted the 'changes' that are set to and are happening when in reality the majority were against and the rest were entirely indifferent. Almost all social 'progress' has been like this.
This was fascinating. A time capsule everyone should see.
I enjoy your videos. They are always interesting time capsules.
17:02 that’s honestly sad, a grown woman with a child still doesn’t know what she wants in life but they expect their children to know exactly what career path they want to pursue by the time they’re 18. This old idea that college is the only way to be successful probably messed a lot of people up.
Most people don't know what the "want to do" in life and are just along for the ride and that's fine. Most people on earth are like that. The notion that our kids all have to go to college hasn't worked out so well. Higher education full of kids without a mission has turned out to be disastrous as we can easily see. That is what too much money does to a country.
@@Fireboat52 The "opening up of educational opportunity" as it was so attractively and optimistically called, also went hand in hand with an immense relaxation in standards. How else could you possibly increase the proportion of people attending college from 5% to 50%? Students from the middle of a high school class simply cannot graduate from college programs designed, as they formerly were, to fail students from below the top tenth.
Neither can you inflate the ranks of professors ten times and think quality hasn't plummeted. Anyone who does think so should be asked what we'd have if we fired the worst 90% of them now.
Low standards have ruined the universities. Ruined universities, in turn, have no way of producing the people needed to design and run society and everything in it. It has been long assumed now that material abundance and the basic unalterable decency of people are all that's required for a good society, but that's false. You need highly qualified elites firmly in charge, and they're gone.
When I want to make fun of what happened to the universities and the elites that come out of them, which is all the time, I call it The Great Dumbening.
I totally respect her honesty. Today people will and do lie directly to your face. That is much more sad!!!
@@user-ru6mq5sc5n that’s true, at least she’s humble enough to admire she doesn’t know what she wants.
… and up to that point they shouldn't be bothered with any real world problems. They wanted to raise complacent sheep. :D
I love the way that shop class boy describes his work. It’s honestly very inspiring, he has great conviction. I hope he lived a great life.
Man I wish my parents would understand that's how I felt about my video games 😔
@@vegeta4882 lmao
Did you see the lathes and machine shop in the background. 16 years old today wouldn't have the mental capacity to begin to get a grasp on that equipment.
I appreciate you, David H!
I was in a Marketing 101 final at Hofstra in 1985. I was shocked that the girl sitting next to me in the back row was cheating with her textbook open. Before my freshman semester my father's schoolmate from his NYU days told me "people are going to think you're there by accident." That cheating girl was definitely an elite.
I totally understand these "young people" back then. They were raised by parents that had to endure the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many of their fathers fought in World War Two. So being "content" with a middle class lifestyle makes sense. Look at our so-called enlightened society today? So many people depend on "Government Assistance". Back in the 1960s,. a college education was affordable. Today young people have debts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to get a "degree"...and then there is no guarantee of a decent paying job. Certainly no job with a true pension that will take care of them in old age. Medical expenses? These kids had it good and they KNEW IT...and that's why they didn't want to rock the proverbial boat.
But these were the same kids that went on to vote for minimum wages to be lower and lower.
they wanted their conformity or they say they wanted that because they were taking a survey at school where taught to behave? or because they saw no other option? I mean traveling the world was not so common back then
Keep in mind that these were the people who brought about the current situation. They chose the wrong policies to continue the economical prosperity they were born into. And I'm not talking about the progressive changes in the late 60's early 70's (most of the figureheads of those changes were from the silent generation or the earliest baby boomers), but about the Reaganomics and Yuppie culture. Short term gains at the expense of sustainable growth.
@@larsswig912 guys you seem to think that their votes had any effect(gore or bush? and anyway lobbist dollar is worth more than a ten grand voters voices to the top men) or that they were voting in a vacum with no influence(ITS THE AMERICAN WAY!)
WoW. Good conclusion, but left politicians spoiled your country and demolished all the values, like they did here in Eastern Europe. Socialism cancer, best regards from Polanad