Posted on 01/05/2015 12:41:05 PM PST by Red Badger
It's becoming more and more apparent that a new generational gap is forming. Whereas one generation didn't grow up with iPhones and high-speed internet, the newest generation sees these things as everyday commodities. It's natural for gaps like this to form, and with those gaps come plenty of hilarious consequences.
With how quickly technology is advancing, these gaps show themselves more frequently nowadays. There are the usual complaints (like 'those darn kids never put their phones down'), but it's really the disconnect between the two generations that stings. For instance, it seems unimaginable that the younger generation doesn't know who the Beatles are.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened this past week after a collaboration between Kanye West and the legendary Paul McCartney debuted. It's hard to imagine that McCartney would ever be 'discovered' by Kanye West, but according to Twitter, that's how it happened:
OVOJosh @OVOJosh Follow
I don't know who Paul McCartney is, but Kanye is going to give this man a career w/ this new song!! 9:27 PM - 1 Jan 2015
As is the usual, Twitter was soon overtaken with tweets about the aging Beatles star. Aside from the standard outrage, there were plenty of tweets that were obviously sarcastic: people trolling for a quick laugh at the younger generation's expense. That being said, many of the tweets asking who this 'Paul McCartney' guy was seemed legit:
Justin Morello @Morello_Justin Follow
Kanye West really knows how to expose great new talent. Bet this Paul McCartney guy is gonna be HUGE after this song. 8:12 PM - 2 Jan 2015
Cocolish @BeCoco77 Follow While seeing a story like this is still all sorts of sad, it's really just a byproduct of aging in a culture that glorifies a new celebrities seemingly every 15 minutes. Sir McCartney has seen something of a career revival over the past few years, and in the end, the older generation should just be happy that the newer, younger generation is being exposed to the legendary performer. After all, how many people went out and researched his music once all of this started? There are going to be hundreds of new Beatles fans once all of this is done; it's almost guaranteed. Even so, that doesn't stop tweets like this from summing up how we feel: There's a whole generation of people that think Kanye is about to make Paul McCartney a super star. Epic fail folks. End times are near. 8:33 AM - 5 Jan 2015
Fifty years ago, how many teenage Beatles fans knew about music from 1915. That would be the equivalent.
Who the hell is Kanye West?
A POS rapper married to that fat ass Armenian whore.
Hehe
A gay fish.
POS and rapper, a bit redundant aren’t we?
A city in Florida?
5.56mm
No it wouldn’t.
There is more continuity and public appearances and elevator music and media appearances and mention on music shows about the Beatles and Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney, than the example of a 1915 musician in 1974, when Paul, Wings, and the Beatles were super stars, not to mention how big 1960s music still has importance in current America.
The most popular recording entity of the acoustic era (pre mid 1920s) was the Peerless Quartet. How many teens of the 60s (or even 50s) knew who they were?
Now THAT makes me feel old.
Chronologically it’s equivalent. The differences you cite are all very real and are a result of changes in communications media but it helps to have a sense of proportion about stuff like this.
I didn’t sleep well last night, mea culpa.
I wonder how many of these are people being silly. Written English doesn’t really do sarcasm well, and you get these waves of “are people really this dumb” every few months, and I can’t help but think they probably aren’t. I mean McCartney was at a Super Bowl not long ago, he’s not exactly unknown to young folks even if they’ve never bothered to explore so-so 60s pop.
“There are going to be hundreds of new Beatles fans once all of this is done; it’s almost guaranteed.”
Hundreds of new fans? Drop in the bucket of stardom.
Flaming Lips’ cover of the Sgt. Pepper album with Lady Gaga probably exposed more people to the Beatles than Kanye will.
What are the drum beats that people loop from Beatles songs?
I know there was a gansta rap song that used rhythms from “Somebody’s Knocking At The Door” (the refrain is the same except there is a shotgun being cocked before the line “Open the door, and let ‘em in”)
50 years ago a lot of the chart topping songs were covers of much older songs written by old black men.
Top of the billboard charts the day I was born and written by Leadbelly many years before that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgTSfJEf_jM
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