Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration 

Futurism was an Italian art movement focused on speed, technology, and violence that began in 1909 after Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the Manifesto of Futurism. Italian Futurists thought that their nascently-industrialized country was developing at a slow pace due to the weight of Italy’s past and they wanted to break free; artists like Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Luigi Russolo, and Tullio Crali depicted “futuristic” subjects like cars, trains, and airplanes in dynamic ways that challenged existing cultural conventions. On this week’s episode of Silent Generation Nathan and Joseph analyze Futurism using an urbanist lens. Amongst other things they discuss the problematic link between Futurism and Fascism in post-WW1 Italy, the Cubo-Futurist style of the short lived Russian Futurist movement, the absurdity of Futurist food, and the beauty of Tullio Crali’s Aeropittura paintings of airplanes and aerial landscapes.

Links: 

Futurism Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/silentgeneration/futurism/ 

Manifesto of Futurism by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Scene of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's accident, 15 October 1908

Screenshot from Italian Futurism: Speed, dynamism, and the fight at La Fenice

Manifesto of Futurist Woman by Valentine de Saint-Point

Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe

Boccioni Recreated

Recreating Boccioni's striding sculptures from 1913

How Italian Futurism Influenced the Rise of Fascism by Jad Dahsan

When Futurism Led to Fascism—and Why It Could Happen Again

What Is Russian Futurism? by Anastasiia S. Kirpalov

Kseniya Boguslavskaya

https://www.tulliocrali.com/en/ 

Crali and Aeropainting (Tullio Crali: A Futurist Life)

Lingotto factory in Turin

Modernist Architecture in Eritrea

Before the Parachute Opens (Prima che si apra il paracadute), 1939 by Tullio Crali

Recorded on 12/9/2024

How is modern masculinity different from classical masculinity? This week the boys are joined by local menswear influencer Gent Z to discuss how men in the modern era intentionally refine their masculinity through self improvement. Amongst other things they discuss what the end goal of self-improvement should be, what male role models they personally look up to, and what they think about the idea that there is a “crisis of masculinity.” 

Links: 

How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones by James Clear 

Artwork:

Paul Newman photographed by Stewart Stern, 1973

McBling is a mid-2000s aesthetic characterized by tacky displays of wealth, celebrity culture, fake tans, and bleach blonde hair. According to Vogue magazine it emerged in “2003, following the American invasion of Iraq, and ended with the onset of the Great Recession in 2008.” McBling arose organically in popular culture and was only later identified as an aesthetic by the Consumer Aesthetic Research Institute, and this is the first Silent Generation episode to cover an aesthetic identified by their organization. Amongst other things on this week’s episode, the boys discuss how the term McBling first came out of a poll in a “post-Y2K” Facebook group, how Gen Z’s interpretation of McBling favors Von Dutch too heavily, how the mid-2000s reality TV show Bad Girls Club captured the McBling zeitgeist, and how TikTok accounts like Bronzedupbrat are making McBling reach record popularity in 2024.

Links:

McBling Pinterest board

The Consumer Aesthetic Research Institute

McBling CARI description

The original McBling Facebook Group

Evan Collins’ McBling “joke” post

Brittney Spears’ half Y2k/ half McBling outfit

The second poll in the McBling Facebook group

What Is McBling and How Is it Different From Y2K? by Abrigail Williams

McBling on Google Trends

The Antisemitic History of Early 2000s Fashion Brand Von Dutch by Sam Miller

Paris Hilton changing her voice to sound more feminine

Paris Hilton’s “stop being poor” meme

Bad Girls Club Tanisha slamming pots and pans in season 2

Bad Girls Club Judi Jai breakfast cereal fight in season 7

The Y2K Attitude Era - A Cultural Middle Finger

How do you stay so authentically 2000s? by Bronzedupbrat

4Chan mannerisms displayed by Boxxy

The McBling Subreddit

Trashy McBling Spotify playlist

NGSUNC by Ayesha Erotica

Do I Look Like a Slut by Avenue D

OlderBrotherCore Tiktok

McMansion Hell

Artwork:

Paris Hilton

Recorded on 11/17/2024

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration 

This week Joseph and Nathan are joined by Breanna, a Silent Generation listener who works as a software engineer for a major online dating company, to discuss online dating. They detail the early history of online dating (such as how the first person to develop a computer based dating service was a working class British woman named Joan Ball) before sharing their experiences with online dating websites and apps such as Match.com, Hinge, Tinder, Okcupid, and The League. Amongst other things they discuss how dating apps replaced ELO algorithms with Gale-Shapley algorithms, how a recent study found that NYC was the worst major US city for dating, and how Chicago attracts “coastal dating app refugees” who seek an easier dating market. 

Links:

Artwork:

Recorded on 11/10/2024

Pokémon is the highest grossest media franchise of all time, but has it declined in quality? On this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan use Pokemon as a case study to talk about gamer culture, nostalgia, and fandoms more broadly. After breaking down the history of Pokémon into three booms and one bust, the boys detail what they like about the franchise (Ken Sugimori’s artwork, HM moves, and their favorite Pokémon) and the things they dislike about it (competitive Pokémon play, shiny hunting, and legendary Pokémon). Amongst other things they discuss how Poliwhirl almost became the main mascot for the Pokémon franchise, how Pokémon became uncool in the mid-2000s, how the designs of Pokémon became rounder and cuter over time, and how a terabyte of information stolen from Game Freak’s servers (dubbed “the teraleak”) recently leaked to the public.

Links: 

Artwork:

Recorded on 11/3/2024

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration 

Why did Joseph go to Copenhagen last week? Did he bike around a lot? How many hot dogs did he eat? How was Malmo, Sweden? These are some of the important questions Nathan asked Joseph on this week’s episode. 

Artwork:

Recorded on 10/27/2024

Hyperpop is a music genre that is noted for its hyperfeminine, artificial, and childlike sound. The term “hyperpop” came into popular use after Spotify staff created a hyperpop playlist in 2019. The music the term described emerged much earlier however, with the earliest examples coming out of the renowned UK record label PC Music starting in 2013. This week Nathan is joined by his friend E to delineate the three main subgenres of hyperpop: future pop, internet pop and digicore. They discuss music by Danny L Harle, A. G. Cook, Hannah Diamond, QT, SOPHIE, Charli XCX, 100 Gecs, Alice Gas, Food House, and others. Amongst other things they discuss how how they first came to find PC Music, how digicore is NEET music, and how both Hannah Diamond and Dis Magazine used “superreal” aesthetics. 

Links:

Artwork:

Recorded on 10/27/2024

Kevin Heckart is a Kansas City based artist who created the artwork behind seapunk’s original aesthetic. This special episode coincides with both the one year anniversary of Silent Generation and the relaunch of the seapunk clothing line Mainframe, which features many of Heckart’s designs. The first half of episode is an interview with Heckart that serves as a spiritual threequel to Silent Generation’s prior two seapunk episodes while the later half is a broader conversation about net art and net artists such as Brad Troemel, Hito Steyerl, Laturbo Avendon, and Lorna Mills. Amongst other things they discuss how Heckart has gone viral on Tiktok for hacking animatronic fish and furby toys, how Nathan and Brad Troemel did the same undergrad program, how Hito Steyerl incorporated real life biographies into Factory of the Sun, and how Skibbidy Toilet shows how thoroughly post-internet aesthetics have permeated popular culture. 

Links:

mainframehq.net

Mainframe’s Instagram

Kevin Heckart’s Instagram

Kevin Heckart’s Tiktok 

I hacked a singing fish. - Kevin Heckart

“and yet a trace of the true self exists in the false self” meme

HIS BRAIN? NO. HIS HEART Brad Troemel meme

The Post-internet Culture Report by Brad Troemel

Untitled, 2016 by Laura Owens

Trojan Horses: Activist Art and Power by Lucy R. Lippard

Color(ed) Theory Series by Amanda Williams 

Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War by Olia Lialina 

Madison Beer #NoFilter by Dis Magazine

I was Raised on the Internet exhibition at the MCA

Transdimensional Serpent by Jon Rafman

The Jogging Tumblr blog

Army of Ants by Brad Troemel

Giant Arthropods Eating Doritos early meme

Liquidity Inc. by Hito Steyerl screenshot

Factory of the Sun by Hito Steyerl

takeSomeCrime Youtube channel 

In Defense of the Poor Image by Hito Steyerl

In Defense of the Poor Image-esque Instagram post

GIFS by Lorna Mills

Repetition Mindset: Artists as Snowflakes by Brad Troemel

Provided by Kevin Heckart

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration 

For this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan watched Francis Coppola’s latest (and likely final) film, Megalopolis. The film draws parallels between Ancient Rome and modern day New York City and has been met with widespread confusion. The boys discuss the film in the first half of the episode, detailing the performance of several actors (notably Aubrey Plaza’s role as the brilliantly named Wow Platinum) and the film's various references to Ancient Rome. In the second half of the episode the boys discuss megalopolises more broadly, including ones in real life (the Northeast Megalopolis, the European Megalopolis, Japan's Taiheiyo Belt, and China’s various megalopolises) and fictional examples (the megalopolis depicted in the 1927 film Metropolis, Mega-City One in Judge Dredd, and Coruscant in Star Wars). 

Links:

Martin Scorsese Had a Cinema Epiphany ‘Too Late’ 

Megalopolis Plot meme

Megalopolis Movie Clip - Cesar is Mine (Wow Platinum elevator scene)

Nymphet Alumni’s Ep. 90: The Baby Name Game with Sophie Kim

Francis Ford Coppola Didn’t Want ‘Megalopolis’ To Be “Some Woke Hollywood Production,” Casting “Canceled” Actors from Deadline

Tell Your Children by Alex Berensen 

Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States by Jean Gottman

What if the cities of Jersey City, Elizabeth, Union, Newark, Hoboken, and others became one larger city like NYC? Reddit post 

Why is there no major city here? (Boroughitis) by Urban Jersey Guy

The location of Gotham city

Cars.destroyed.our.cities Hartford, Connecticut post

Blue Java Banana Review by Weird Explorer

Artwork:

From Megalopolis' Interactive Scene Explained: What Happens In It

Recorded on 10/6/2024

What is Chautauqua? Chautauqua began in 1874 in Chautauqua, New York as a Summer camp that trained laymen to be Sunday school teachers. President Ulyses S Grant visited the assembly shortly after its founding in 1875, which gave Chautauqua widespread attention and engendered a national movement; the original Chautauqua (now known in the modern day as the Chautauqua Institution) gave rise to hundreds of “daughter” Chautauquas. They offered week long or month long retreats to religiously minded vacationers who wanted to enjoy nature but also wanted to stay productive by watching edifying sermons, lectures, historical impersonations, and concerts. 

On this week’s episode the boys discuss how the popular Chautauqua speech Acres of Diamonds resembles the 21st century self help book The Secret, how Chautauqua acts differed from vaudeville acts, and how a specific type of historical impersonation popular in circuit Chautauquas became synonymous with Chautauqua in the modern day. This is the third and final installment of a three part series that explores interconnected topics that deal with American culture and the outdoors. 

Links:

The Chautauqua Institution

Chautauqua: An American Narrative (2011)

The History of the Chautauqua Movement

Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell

Bohumir Kryl

The height of assassins versus that of their targets Reddit post

Artwork:

Participants of a Circuit Chautauqua at Gurdon (Clark County); circa 1919.