Brats

Last night, I watched a new documentary by Andrew McCarthy called Brats. I watched it because I enjoyed watching the “Brat Pack” movies back in the day.

Welcome, nostalgia!

One of my favorite scenes is a discussion between Andrew McCarthy and Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm says that at the time, 90% of people in their twenties could talk about Pretty in Pink. Today, there is nothing like that. Our society has become more fractured.

We don’t have as many common touchpoints today. Sure, lots of people in their twenties may use Instagram. But they’re all consuming different content on the platform. They live in different worlds from each other.

Heavy social media use has been linked to feelings of depression and loneliness. I wonder if this fracturing of society plays a role. Today, we may feel very connected to a certain sub-group of people, but we tend to be less connected to people outside of that sub-group.

When I was in my twenties, my sister and I watched many of the same movies and could talk about them. Today, we watch different movies most of the time. Now and then, one of us recommends a movie we both end up seeing, so we still talk about some movies. But the viewings could be separated by months!

In One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse warns against letting a society become too much the same. He talks about the tyranny of the majority. There is value in having many different cultures that can each flourish separately.

Still, I don’t think it’s ideal for the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction. When there are no common touchpoints, when a society becomes too fractured, we struggle to connect with each other. We struggle to recognize our common humanity.

Almost everyone I knew at the time was watching the “Brat Pack” movies. My friends and I talked about The Breakfast Club, one of my favorites.

Despite the occasional whining, I enjoyed taking a trip down Memory Lane with Brats.