One time my grandma used the phrase, “back in the day.” I always wondered exactly what that meant. Is it saying that things in the past led to a better society today? Or is it something more philosophical like “the past is behind us”? I decided to find out exactly what that phrase means, in a few cases, old things are better than some of the new things we have today, such as, music, technology, and movies.

Music in the 60s and 70s had a lot more meaning than most of the music we listen to today. British music was very popular in that particular time period, according to Southern Methodist University, and if you don’t believe it, listen to the radio and see if you hear any songs by the Beatles. Another popular kind of music was the kind that had a sole purpose of carrying a message, like anti-war, civil rights, or even the rise of feminism. The first Woodstock (a music fest known for “hippies”) was in 1969 with pretty much just a bunch of “bands with a message” according to Jack Madani, who reported about it on spectropop.com. These “bands with a message” were grouping together to share their beliefs about, for example, the War in Vietnam. But nowadays we get our message from the internet.

Technology has had a huge impact on the modernization of human society, and I don’t necessarily think that it’s good. I don’t want to live in a community with people that try so hard to invent something just to make everyday life easier, is it really that hard to look something up in a book, or send somebody a letter, instead of an email? I know I am guilty of using it, because it’s the only way to survive in today’s school system. Students can’t write a researched paper in two days just by looking up stuff in books, but that’s what made it so special to write a paper, it took more effort, instead of just looking it up on Google. We are losing our creativity in life! And not only in technology, but in entertainment as well.

I wish movies didn’t have to have “good graphics” to be interesting. Movies used to be about the stories they told, not about how much money was spent on it, or how many visual effects they used. Now movies take away all the creativity and imagination, and replace it with almost real life animation, and only the “cool” actors and actresses. I wish movies could be more like The Lion King, and teach kids lessons through entertainment, instead of showing what it would be like to be a paraplegic on a planet filled with blue people/animals. Some movies still follow tradition, and still turn out pretty good, but they never seem to be able to compete with the multibillion dollar animated screenplays that modern Americans seem to love so much.

This is why I think music, technology, and movies should have remained unchanged from the past. I guess all we can do from now on is just keep rolling and see if we get any better. I guess all I’m trying to say is, I miss “back in the day” (even though I wasn’t born…).