And I got cheated, I only recall two hours of decent Saturday morning cartoons.

Have to watch soap operas. Rather be at school.

different styles of AI art and narration by different AI voices. Lots of channels like this all over YouTube, set up in the last several months.

and it's the last time those values were part of life's lessons. The 80s and 90s were too soft, progress without obstacles was the goal. And now people can't think because their minds are streamed by the digital age.

is that no one is overweight.

active and outside playing every chance we got.

Born in 1957, growing up on the SW outskirts of Chicago near Midway Airport, my parents seldom knew where I was or what I was up to.

These days, perhaps more so in the middle class suburbs where I now live, most parents feel they HAVE TO know at all times where their kids are and what they're doing.

On summer days I was usually at the park playing softball (Chicago 16" with no gloves) but I roamed around quite a bit as well.

But loved the game. We'd play till sunset and whoever was ahead, won. Probably played in a few hundred of these games.

Misogyny is another lesson. You learned the hard way.

Dinner and back out. Always a boatload ok kids to get a game up.

This shit is so insidious.

Give me a fucking break. All Americans born in the 50s lived through this. We realized skin color would not save us in a nuke blast. Kinda changed my thinking.

about anyone, no matter their generation. What’s illegitimate is the implication of exceptionalism among generations and uniformity of experience/results.

I-m stuck in 4 dimensions....

...said every generation ever.

It's the essence of "okay, Boomer" thinking.

It felt like I was being manipulated into thinking my life time was special. And I wondered what comes next.

However he's trying to appeal to American viewers, so they've thrown in photos and stories from the US also.
They're not going to photoshop in the black folks if they weren't in the actual, original snapshots and videos.

be no black people in a video made then.

And just in case the entire video is AI nonsense, simply find other old videos of real people then. Or look at a high school yearbook from 1965. That's the year I graduated high school, and I could name the two or three fat people in my class, and that version of fat wasn't remotely obese.

graphics, and Black people have been erased. As I say, it's insidious.

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And there were only three or four black kids in my class. And they were plenty of racist around. And watch the old TV shows anything from late 50s early 60s you won’t see a black person.

In our many family visits to NYC (from PA to relatives in Bayonne). However, my entire Lehigh Valley small town was White, no exceptions. 🤫

I was 18 when I first spoke to a Black person. He was running for Penn State Student Body President---and he won. Do you know how many of us White kids must have voted for him?! 👍 Ted Q. Thompson.

And how many of us White girls would "make an exception for" Sidney Poitier? "To Sir, With Love," 1967. 😁 😉 🥰

But even though de facto segregated in my younger days, I don't recall meeting a racist, either. I concede that I might have been oblivious (I wasn't naive; never naive. I watched AG Katzenbach at the schoolhouse door. And you and I were in college in 1968.)!

when I was growing up. They were ugly people, and they still are. I love the fact that my background includes Black people and Puerto Rican people. I would hate if everybody was just like me. I imagine you would too. my sixth grade class was held with in a two room schoolhouse that used to be one of the “colored schools“. We were always very cool because of it.

Exception to what?

Where Sammy Davis Jr and Mai Britt made international headlines. And where Frank Sinatra had to basically force hotels to allow Sammy to stay there.

And so on. It's called "US Civil Rights history."

So the OBVIOUS "exception" was that we would go against society and marry Sydney Poitier.

Context is everything.

And please do not dare criticize a then-17-year-old from a lily-white town. I was a Flaming Liberal Democrat then, and I'm a Flaming Liberal Democrat now.

rule against interracial marriage is actually racist, right?

We always had to physically get up off the chair to turn the channel on the 3 networks that our tv’s carried. Now??? We hit a button.

those three or four feet, enough to eliminate obesity, right?

The real problem is more likely no PE in school.

Lotsa steps. And is there a little machine that you can “ride” while you’re sitting??? Oh my yes there is. And PE in school would be a huge help too.

Never played organized baseball, but played many games, pick up. Does this still happen?

At least it did when I grew up in the 60's. I hated it.

Showers and no time to dry hair.

And a food supply riddled with chemicals and additives to make junk food addictive and cheap.

we got exercise, but popping up and down to stop the horizontal scrolling!

But it is the fact that nowadays most of us do not have to do the vast majority of what our ancestors had to do just to survive.

Most of us do not worry about survival. That is the biggest thing that created the issues with our bodies as well as society.

Diet pill abuse was rampant back then, especially by women. The "diet" industry was HUGE then with products like Metrical and Ayds selling briskly.

Girls were pressured to be skinny and as small as possible so as to attract men and get married young, preferably right out of high school. They were fat-shamed by disgusting, judgmental, and shallow mothers to be thin and "marriageable." Both girls and boys were relentlessly bullied by their peers because their peers were raised with disgusting, shallow values to hate on people different from themselves.

I work in the schools and have for around three decades. There really isn't an "increase" of "overweight" kids in those schools than when I was a kid. What ISN'T tolerated is teasing, bullying, and shaming those kids.

Well, the only fast food was a PB&J sandwich!

As a child the only time we went to a restaurant was a very special occasion. We took our lunches to school, and we even took picnics when we went on trips.

We didn't have soda....I remember that if my parents went out on a Saturday night, the babysitter was told that we could split two cokes between the four of us and that she could have a whole one.

We had to clean our plates but it wasn't the over processed stuff that we all have now.

Don't think for one minute people were "naturally skinny." That didn't happen. There were plenty of overweight kids back then, and they were relentlessly bullied.

Hard to see how this isn't like a two-bit horoscope telling people what they want to hear tbh. I mean lol come on:

Could be AI, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

property. And it takes attention away from what's created by humans. I don't think you'd post AI music from tools trained on stolen music. This is just as fake.

I don't disagree. But I found the content real,,,,,as much as I can remember living this timeframe.

Slightly different wording, same slop.

It says their channel only started in October.

I did a search in YouTube for "psychology of people who grew up in the 1960s" interestingly there are a lot of videos that come up. Curiously all uploaded within the past couple of weeks. They are of different lengths and the graphics are different.... but weird. AI like you said.

I was listening to the words and noticed when he was saying "record" as in to record a song off the radio, he pronounced it "record" as in vinyl record. So i figured it was AI. If you listen to the other similar videos the voices are similar to downright funny. E.g., sounds like Edward g. Robinson:

in other countries.

I doubt any real experts were consulted for this type of AI video.

It's already a flood of slop, but a lot if data on what people like or fall for is also being gathered, and that data is likely to be sold and used in the future. What hooked someone on this video could be used in an ad aimed at voters of the same age.

And most of these channels ask for donations, as this one does.

... when some AI narration uses a heteronym, and uses the wrong pronunciation.

Such as "...they live to be free." Pronouncing "live" as in "the show is live"

I guess they still have a little more learning to do...

AI Overview :

That’s us.

…and remember calculating how long it would take for me to afford to buy a horse. It never came to pass.

of garbage is all over YouTube now. AI slop art in different styles, fake expertise, AI narration in a variety of fake voices, and videos cobbled together by AI and posted every day or two. This channel uploaded 7 videos between Dec. 11 and Dec. 20. Some of these AI channels soon start posting multiple videos a day as they get their formula down pat and figure out which clickbait works best. There's no real expertise here and some of these channels are from foreign content farms, not the US. This one is requesting donations through Buy Me A Coffee.

I didn't investigate that far.

It looks like AI will provide any and all validation you would like. Sad.

Seeing the horrific responses from most of the commenters here made me realize... oh. No. You've been right all along even if your tactics are not to my taste. I've just been in a bubble of savvy tech people who make fun of it or maybe use it successfully to help with coding, knowing full well it's limitations and sneering at it's pathetic attempts to generate "art."

More people need to wake up, but most people won't.

God this is so infuriating and sad. Is that how easy it is to manipulate people? Some of you actually fall for this goddamn tripe? All you need to do is be made to feel special by a fucking algorithm? That voice convinces you? Ugh.

So depressing.

Last edited Tue Dec 30, 2025, 03:12 PM - Edit history (1)

read and heard about AI for years - thousands of articles, tens of thousands of social media posts, private correspondence with some of the experts whose public statements I've quoted on DU - all I can do is post about a small percentage of the articles and social media posts to inform people, repeat warnings when it's relevant...and get blunter if it seems a blunter message might be necessary to get through. I can't introduce people here to the despairing artists I've met who hint or talk more openly about feeling suicidal because of the harm done by generative AI. Or introduce them to the exasperated and demoralized teachers I've met who are at wit's end trying to cope with what's far and away the worst level of school cheating we've ever seen, and who in some cases are talking about quitting teaching entirely because genAI has made a mockery of it.

I was able yesterday, thanks to the American Federation of Teachers president foolishly posting AI slop on Bluesky, to point people to the hundreds of replies in that thread expressing outrage over her treating that example of the serious harm done by AI as "fun" - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220895856 . But I don't know if the people here who think it's fun to create or share AI slop were willing to read their messages, either.

I talk a lot about ethics because it's not only the bedrock of liberal values, but because keeping ethics in mind, including for technology, is the only safe way to.navigate the future and advances in technology. I first got online in the mid-1980s, before there was a world wide web, and for two years then I ran a forum on technology and society and foreign affairs. I brought in as my comod a new friend who was a spokesperson for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a worldwide organization that unfortunately no longer exists, but that we could really use now. If there's anything that needs more emphasis in the debate about AI, it's social responsibility - which the AI bros seem almost entirely unconcerned with, though they sometimes pay it lip service.

I expect DUers to be concerned about social responsibility, too, and I have been stunned at times here when some DUers seem to have little or no concern for the intellectual property theft and all the other harms from generative AI that are obvious and have been documented in news articles and studies for years. And that FAR outweigh the benefits of generative AI.

We're in real trouble if we're fine with those harms because AI might amuse or flatter us, or if we think we're somehow smarter or more talented and creative using AI tools that only work because the AI companies stole all that intellectual property.

Too many people are sleepwalking into a dystopia the AI bros are peddling as utopia.

And I can't watch them doing that without trying to wake them up.

The threat posed by genAI is just as serious as the threat posed by Trump and those aligned with him - who now include the AI bros, even though that wasn't as obvious a few years ago. Not as obvious to me, anyway. Some people, like journalist Gil Duran, did see this nightmare alliance of tech lords and right wing authoritarianism coming.

People have to wake up.

THEIR era, have no basis for judgement. Just as we who did live through it can not really relate to what OUR parents lived through during the 20s and 30s.
Feelings get hurt by succeeding generations who don't understand how much better each succeeding generation has it.
I would love to have grown up today with all the new technology and not have to put up with the problems we had which of, course are never as bad as current generations.

I remember A LOT of heavy drinking men, who never really 'came home from the war'.

The rage against women was accepted as normal- remember how Ralph Cramden would wave his fist around and threaten "TO THE MOON, ALICE!" played over a laugh track?
Of course not.
One girl in my glass showed up with TWO black eyes.
Were the cops ever called?
How about Child Protective Services?
Did the teacher intercede?

Nope.


Anyone who wants to buy into this DrPhil-osophy, go right ahead, but it wasn't the golden age depicted:

AND EVEN IF it was so perfect in 'boomer times'- why are so many hateful, bigoted, INSANE boomers running around now, cheering a madman like trump?

suicided in lock-up in 1962

sexual abuse of children--and not just by billionaires--but by parents, older kids, ministers and priests--with absolutely no recourse for the victims.

No rape crisis centers.

No understanding of rape trauma syndrome or sympathy for survivors.

Then too: rampant, out in the open homophobia, and god help any kid labeled gay, whether or not it was true.

Not that any of these problems have gone away, but at least they're seen--by some of us anyway--as problems.

I'm always skeptical of "good old days" mythology. Scratch the surface of any era and you'll find the same old atrocities, more or less well hidden, and often completely denied.

If intergenerational comparisons are a productive excercise.

I'm a classic product of the boomer gen (b. 1954), Never, ever did a nuke excercise but I grew up in the UK.

The accent is Brit, but I suspect this is an American AI product. It's very flattering to boomers which is unusual; looking for boomer clicks?

Life was not that much better back then, it was just different. People still have the same basic needs and we need one another. Born in 1937 with a childhood in the 1940's and a teen in the 1950's.

We need to acknowledge the truth of history and not sanitize it. We are always learning and adjusting. That's life.

Recommended for the OP and discussion.

I got older in the '60s, though one could argue that I've never given up. Thus, I found this interesting, and having some good information. I do think it might fit white, middle class kids from that era, but not so much for many -- perhaps most -- minority and low-income kids. And I think that in some areas, there may be some errors. For example, those who grew up during the Great Depression knew the value of pennies and mastered delayed gratification. It left off Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, too,

There are, exactly as it notes, differences between kids then and now. However, I remember a study of college students in the mid-'70s, indicating the majority said being alone for a weekend, with nothing but books, would be very difficult. Stereos and televions were considered essential then. Cell phones are more so today, but the idea is the same.

I shall end by telling about a second grade "tuck your head" in the hallway, rather than under our desks. A classmate I'll call Bob was so anxious he shit his pants. This made the next kid puke, and then a girl a few kids away puked as well. This remains etched in my memory, as if Bob's shit and the other two's puke were an uncanny prediction of the felon, Stephen Miller, and Steve Bannon being in and around the White House.

both of my parent were deceased by the time I was 12. My twin and I left an abusive step-mother.. We just walked out the door and never went back for anything. We changed schools a couple of times. An aunt and uncle took us in and meager SS survivor checks helped pay for food and cloths. We both worked from 12 forward and we involved in the community. I put myself through college and bought my own vehicles. My father was a WWII Vet and some of his pals looked after us. We always had one or two for advice. It wasn't easy, things were hard.

the nuclear weapons threat determines much of how we view the world and where we see ourselves in it.

in a very small town in the Midwest. Can relate to the post above about kids roaming loose from breakfast to dinnertime, especially during the summers. We did all sorts of things that seem to be pretty rare now with the proliferation of helicopter parents terrified at the prospect of their children being snatched from playgrounds and swimming pools. Sports and physical activities were our main focus...all the levels of youth baseball, for example, that allowed for all skill levels to participate. Very few overweight kids at all...and, yes, they did at least get teased to no end or worse.

Our school was never very big on duck and cover drills, and I think the focus was as much on tornado protection as nuclear. One of our neighbors had a bomb shelter in their basement, but I was never curious enough about it to ask to see it. For many of us, our parents' relationship with alcohol was a greater source of anxiety. Not much to do for them in our small town...only a bowling alley, movie theater and a dozen or so bars and restaurants that served liquor within a 10 mile radius. Private parties on weekends centered around drinking were also popular. In fact, one of my first-ever memories was reaching up as far as I could on my tip-toes to grab off the kitchen counter a glass full of what I thought was Coca-Cola and taking a drink. Turned out to be booze and I gagged on it.

Most of my uncles served in WWII, yet I never heard one war story from them. One survived D-Day and subsequent duty in France and another participated in a handful of the Pacific island-hopping landings and survived them all. Alcohol became a big part of their lives as well. I started work at 12 years old in a grocery store for 25 cents an hour after school and on Saturdays 7 AM to 7PM. Watching what was happening all around me made me want to become independent as soon as possible. Bought my own used car at 15 and worked summers on vacation fill-in jobs on the railroad that my father found for me. Got out of there at 18, worked my way through college and rarely returned.

That was my 50's and 60's experience...

we see it as just a modern approach to telling a story. We all have critical eyes and ears and some of us appreciate the sentiments while others see something else.
Someone pointed out that many of these same boomers support trump.
The New York Post presents their version of the truth as does the NYT. It is all an attempt to inform and share a world view.
Ken Burns' piece on the revolution depicted the war as a seminal event, but did it really describe the real revolution that came before; the actual philosophical change of the minds of English men to Americans?
AI is here. It will get better and trashing it will continue, but not everyone using it is out to get us anymore than media outlets want our clicks.

Yes, we did the duck-and-cover thing, and there were scary movies about nuclear war - there was a chilling show on TV, maybe it was a made for tv movie, called Alas, Babylon that I still remember. A neighbor even built a bomb shelter. There were sonic booms that would startle the hell out of us. But we also did kid stuff and didn't think about those things all the time. We were free-range kids who were left pretty much to our own devices - go out and play with your friends, don't go too far, come in when it gets dark. Here's a quarter, go to the bakery and buy a loaf of bread and bring back the change. I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan but didn't think they were earth-shattering. I remember the civil rights marches, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, the Vietnam war body counts on TV. A lot of consequential shit happened during the '60s but a lot of shit always happens. You are always affected by whatever it is you grew up with. Maybe handling real money and being left unsupervised most of the time made us more independent; I don't know. It didn't necessarily make us better people, though. Some of us grew up to be assholes. The analysis is shallow, probably AI.

Monolithic!

I do think, though, that SEVERAL MAJOR ASSASSINATIONS during our teens might be different from the experiences of the previous two generations. Plus, we had a war that was controversial relative to our engagement and purpose.

But then, we had no Great Depression. And many of us lived a Middle Class upbringing because of the hard work and sacrifice of our elders.

We still had heroes and ideals, on all sides of the political spectrum. I mean, Clean For Gene. Bobby. Hey, Hey, LBJ. Tricky Dick. Nixon's the One. Even Hillary was a Goldwater Girl.

Obama came close. But then, but then......

At the very least, the video makers should disclose how they used AI in the video. The OP, if they reasonably suspect it is AI, should also disclose that suspicion if the makers did not.

they elected trump. Well, enough of them did.

As a kid in the 1960's, you were still expected to respect your elders..
School days, maybe you got to play after school, but most times you were doing homework and cleaning up before and after dinner. The stereo was for background music while cleaning. The TV was for watching the news and maybe one show your parents approved of. The rest of the night was for homework, a family game or project, or to spend an hour bringing out the toys you were going to play with or reading. Then pick up and get ready for beds.

Weekends were never "carefree and casual" - you still had to get up "early" (by 06:30/07:00) on Saturday to gather up your dirty clothes to put in the laundry, make your bed, put up everything in your room, and go out and get a broom to sweep your room (including under your bed) before coming out to a cooked breakfast and a short time watching cartoons on TV if you had one.
Then you helped with heavy cleaning until late morning.
And then...the Family weekend - day trip to a park (walk or bike), home or furniture repair (basic carpentry, auto, painting, plumbing, roofing, yard work, ect...), going berry picking, walking the dog, family games, club events (camp fire, sports or hobby groups) heading to the library...

Summer was for the family camping trip, hanging out at the city park or running around the block, or a hobby jobs "for pin or sweets money", or charity work - whether or not you belonged to a church, there was always some sort of local charitable organization that needed quick hands or a kid with a bike or wagon to check on people or deliver items.

Spending the day sitting on your ass in the morning or afternoon watching TV was only for the days there was a televised sports event to watch.

I've always believed Teen Age as we know it in the US is a product of Marketing and a conservative economic push to create generations of passive drones forcing families to have two working adults and a lot of unsupervised or non-directed free time for adolescents.

Teens aren't necessarily stupid, but they can be selfish and pig-headed in thinking they're adults without understanding the responsibility on what being an adult in a community entails.

And the "Leave it to Beaver/Happy Days/Brady Bunch" BS TV was pushing on kids of the 60's and 70's was not what most of their parents experienced growing up, unless their folks were well off enough to have a housekeeper or nanny.

Most urban/suburban kids grew up with chores, neighborhood friends, and periods of family boredom where they had to read, make things, explore the local area, or otherwise figure out ways of entertaining themselves in the 1960's and 70's.

Beaver was always screwing up and then "learning his lesson". Then I had to have mom give me the " look" to learn from Beaver.

Hated the show. Only people who could act were Eddie and Lumpy

NT

and I fondly remember the Great Society PSAs of the era.