Generation Gap with Dancers
azdd
On the prowl in Tucson and Phoenix
OK, so I’m way older than the dancers I enjoy, but usually have some common ground on pop culture, music, movies, etc. Recently I was getting dances from one of my club favorites, a 24 year old blonde hottie. I was wearing a Rolling Stones concert T-shirt, with the well-known lips/tongue corporate Stones logo. She offered the usual “I like your shirt” comment, but then asked what the logo meant! I responded, are you kidding me??? The Stones? This has been their international brand for decades! She piled on with, “I don’t think I know any of their songs”. This dancer is not prone to stripper shit, but my jaw dropped that she could really be that clueless or disconnected from something like The Rolling Stones. I told her that I could guarantee her Mom knows who the Stone are, and she should check them out.
What other huge generational gaps have you encountered with your dancers?
What other huge generational gaps have you encountered with your dancers?
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68 comments
SJG
SJG
Personally I find the Who and the Kinks and the Byrds are a lot more interesting examples or the era.
Glenn Miller, the Ink Spots, Bing Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Harry James, Benny Goodman
It’s frightening she has no idea who the Stones. It’s not like they’ve out of the spotlight
The Rolling Stones haven't had a #1 song on the US charts since 1978 which was 20 years before that stripper was born. That would make a 24 year old today about as familiar with the Rolling Stones hits from 44 years ago as someone who turned 24 in 1987 would have been with Glenn Miller.
You also have to remember that most of us grew up during times where a lot of our entertainment came from whatever our parents were watching on TV or listening to on the radio. I didn't have a TV in my room until I went off to college and I didn't have my own radio until I was 16. That meant I watched what my parents were watching or listened to what they were listening to. Most people that have grown up in the past couple of decades have had a TV in their bedroom, a radio of their own and a computer with internet access and that means they haven't had to watch or listen to their parents preferences throughout their teenage years.
Also I believe that the younger folks don't watch the same TV content we do, most of us watch broadcast or cable network shows, the younger folks are more likely to watch alternative programing such as you tube channels we don't watch, so references to the culture icons we take for granted aren't really relevant to their experiences.
In general I think the Internet makes it easier for people to learn more about more diverse things. And it does not replace book, rather it gives one reason to read more of them because the bar for knowing about something has been raised.
And so for the young people of today, the opportunity is there to learn a great deal, and it has never been this easy.
SJG
Dizzy Gillespie - A Night In Tunisia Live 81
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkemox04…
Most people don't know much about pop music before they were born. The biggest surprise I ever had was when I told a stripper I like old Chicago blues and she started talking about her Muddy Waters albums. I asked her how she got into that, and she told me her father was a professional blues musician. If strippers know any old music, it is usually because their parents introduced it to them.
In the early 90s when I was a kid, we'd visit my grandparents a couple times / year, and my grandfather would play the 1940s big band station on the AM dial... Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, etc., while driving to the store. I "heard" it, but didn't "listen" to it, had no idea who those people were until I was in my 30s and screwing around on Sirius XM, trying to find any interesting stations to save.
If you showed her a pic of Jagger, she'd probably think he was somebody's meth head great grandfather. If you showed her a pic of Keith Richards, she'd probably say "oh that's the guy from Pirates of the Caribbean". If you showed her any of the others she'd probably think they were just a couple old guys who came in the day before you did.
20 years ago that was probably true. Now the content providers just try to gorge you on the stuff they've determined you want.
Anyway, it's an easy and interesting source of chit chat before or after getting dances, etc.
Ski: well what do you know, a punker! Johnny was a Republican to the end, but you probably knew that. Funny thing about the Ramones is they occupy a special slot in the current punk world: not just for being ground breaking, iconic, and awesome, etc., but there is a weird cult of Ramones worship over the past 15 or so years. It's even got a name: Ramones-Core, and there are a zillion bands playing and even dressing and naming themselves like the Ramones. The Ramones somehow created their own genre and then Ramones fans went and packed it with their own bands. Really none of the other major punk acts ever had this going on. Kind of amazing and awful at the same time bc most of those bands suck, as you could imagine. Though there are a few good ones.
Icee, once again your reading comprehension skills are waning. The point being, this IS generational. People my age did know musicians who were popular 30 years before they were born. Especially when they’ve reached the iconic status of the Stones. And we know a lot of current stars too. That’s not at all the case of today’s youth
It’s funny, many of us on here are saying “how on earth do you not know who The Rolling Stones are?” Then she responds with “how on earth do you not know who The Weeknd is?”
I remember a few years back Kanye West and Paul McCartney did a song together, and all these youngins’ were saying “oh this guy Paul McCartney is about to become famous thanks to Kanye.” Um, yeah, okay!
Girls in their 20s now have, since the age they've had an interest in music, been able to access anything they want within seconds.
There's a reason there aren't new rock bands coming out now and selling out football stadiums like decades ago; where you used to be forced to listen to whatever bands the two rock radio stations in town gave you, now they don't listen to the radio. They don't buy records or tapes or CDs. If they purchase music, it's a song or two a la carte. They listen to Spotify and whatever else is streaming. Instead of being force fed two bands, they're listening to one song from 100 bands. Instead of a couple massive ones like the Stones or Led Zeppelin selling out stadiums, there are hundreds of little bands selling out venues that hold 2000.
The times, they've been a changin'.
This all reminds me of when Grandpa Simpson told Homer he used to be "with it", but then what "it" was changed.
https://youtu.be/5DlTexEXxLQ
My favorite disconnect time though at the club was during a dayshift, and it was mostly the older whiter customers in the room at the time. And the DJ plays this song for my set:
https://youtu.be/L6eeYWxSA_U
And a couple of dancers get really excited and start singing along at the top of their lungs. And the customers were looking at them open mouthed with the biggest “wtf” facial expression…which I thought was pretty hilarious. Ah, fun times
after a few moments the girl asks, "who's that on the radio?"
baio: "what? it's bob dylan."
girl: "i've never heard of him.
turned off by the reply baio goes, "get out of my car."
my old fave who is about 18 years younger used to have a necklace of a miniature electric guitar. she even said that she saw lenny kravitz live at jones beach. i once played her 3-4 led zep songs and her response was she never heard of them.
tip: with 99.999% of these young girls don't even bother to engage in a musical discussion.
I have my own niche hobbies & interests and won't make people feel like they live on the moon if they've never heard of them or don't care for them because they're MY interests. I don't understand why you 55+ find it so mind boggling when we don't know the songs or bands you listened to while fucking in the shitty beater your parents got you in high school. Those days are long gone.
Not to pile on azdd, but this 100%. For this reason I try to steer clear of pop culture stuff when I talk to younger strippers. There is almost always common ground somewhere, just not there.
Drew I always tell people that except for seeing Pink Floyd at their height, the Ramones shows I saw were the best concerts. They epitomized my college experience in the day time. At night we wanted to get laid so it was a flowered rayon shirt, platform shoes and the fucking Bee Gees .... stayin allllllllllllllllllive.
^ next she probably told you that you were the most handsome gentleman who ever set foot in the club. Then she told you that you have the biggest dick she ever seen.
"Duderino and Icee show their ignorance."
^ WRONG!!! Skibum is the most ignorant fuck on here.
That is why all the younger generations listen to 1990s music and 1980s metal bands. That was the greatest generation of music ever!
^ lmfao shailynn
Also every now and then you'll find a young stripper that's into old music or movies. My last fave, in her mid 20s, loved 80s alternative music which we had in common. We had good, long convos about it plus we both liked the same current Netflix shows.
Then again, it seems to me that a large percentage of the people who are nostalgic for the 80s didn't actually experience the 80s.
Because when you were 14 back in what, 1965(?), you made it your mission to seek out swing bands from 20 years earlier. Your parents or uncles or friend's families or whomever else didn't expose you to it. You were a rebel!!! What're you rebelling against? No, not "what've you got?". You rebelled against your own!! You didn't want to listen to what was "cool" at the time, you wanted to listen to something else. So you chose the music of yesteryear, of your parents' generation... because you'd never heard that in the house...
You'd get your Schwinn out of the garage, ya know, the one with the Ty Cobb rookie card stuck the spokes (wasn't Mickey Mantle, he came too late), and ride five miles in the snow, uphill both ways, to the local record store, and ask the clerk, "can you point me to what was cool 20 years ago?"
If, when you were 8, or 10, or 13, or whatever, had the ability to listen to whatever the hell you wanted, from any time period, from any region on the face of the earth, and it would take a mere five seconds to access it, do you think for a second you'd choose the shit your parents' generation listened to?
To sit there and call people "weak" and "ignorant" and "pathetic" because they don't listen to stuff that was popular 30 years before they were born...which is often 50+ earlier (because their music tastes are developed in their teens and 20s), is your own ignorance. Your parents' generation listened to jazz and Benny Goodman, thus you knew who they were. My dad listened to The Eagles and Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, so I know who they were because that was playing in the house and in the car. These people have had smart phones since they were like 10; they've been listening to their own shit on headphones in the backseat of the car the whole time. They may have some exposure to what their parents listened to, but not nearly as much as the three or four generations before them... because they didn't have to. Yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition, eat shit.
I will talk endless shit about millennials and those younger (hey...I'm from 1981, that's borderline Gen-X, damn it!!), but they run circles around you in regards to exposure to different types of music. Just because they don't choose to listen to Cream or know who The Yardbirds are doesn't prove ignorance. If that's the case, then it shows how stupid the rest of us are because we don't intentionally choose to listen to that Korean boy bands' entire catalog, AND have tickets to go see (insert latest "hot" performer here)'s sold out show at one of the many 1,000-person venues in our towns, AND know the 2,500 other artists they're listening to today. So maybe take The Clash record off the turntable, download a music streaming service on your phone, and go searching for a Celtic rock band made up of Malaysians who grew up in Sudan.
I will give you one point though, skibum, the lack of history awareness in general is rough. A buddy married a younger girl, a teacher in fact. At a Super Bowl party years ago, they wheeled out the (then) real life most interesting man in the world, George H.W. Bush, and she asked, "who's that?" We still laugh at that years later.
It's completely myopic and conceited to expect people in their 20s now to be as familiar with music from 60 years ago. Any of you old farts in here, when you were in your 20s, cruising for chicks in your jalopies, were you blasting 8-tracks of the shit your grandparents listened to?
If you say yes, you're a liar.
You’re way missing the point. “Listening to” vs “being aware of” are two entirely different concepts.
The Rolling Stones are iconic. I’m not expecting a 24 year old to listen to them but it’s beyond stupid to not have heard of them. When I was in high school, I certainly did not listen to Al Jolson, for example, but as a historical figure in the entertainment industry I knew who he was
For a stripper who is 24 now (born in 2008) the equivalent music for her would be bands from the 90s and early 2000s. I bet if you asked her about groups like Greenday, U2 or Pearl Jam she would be at least somewhat familiar with them from hearing her parents listening to them.
The Rolling Stones would have been either her grandparents, or more likely great grandparents, music since her parents were likely born in the late 80s and her grandparents were born around 1970is. Her great grandparents would have been teenagers at the height of the Rolling Stones success in the mid to late 1960s.
By the time you were 24 how much did you listen to the music your great grandparents were listening to when they were teenagers? For someone Fishhawks age that would be bands that saw the height of their popularity around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century since that was 40+ years before he was born, not the big band era of the 30s and 40s he mentioned.
But again, I have to concede. The AARP crowd is more cultured and knowledgeable about music than anyone born post-1980. You guys didn't have music of your parents' and grandparents' generations forced upon you because those were the only options at the time, with just one radio in the house. You sought that stuff out - rather than watching The Lone Ranger, or Adam West run around in blue tights, or playing kick the can, 3rd grade you begged your moms to play Cab Calloway and The Andrews Sisters records because "all the kids were doing it!".
But these kids today, dag nabbit, they just can't be bothered to pay attention to what was popular FIFTY-FIVE years ago! Ungrateful assholes, and their tens of millions of songs they've had available at their fingertips their entire lives. They should have listened to 1960s Brit rock before anything else!
Impressed with such a young girl's knowledge of classic television programs, I said, "oh, cool, are you a fan?"
"Oh yeah, Twilight is my favorite movie. I'm into vampires!"
"No, that's not... y'know what? Me too."
And then I bit her.
It seems like it just came out yesterday. Dammit I’m officially really old
To which she replied, "This is a band?"
I thought it was funny. I told her to look them up and she might like their music, or get a kick out of it. I was wrong, by the way. "Tommy Ramone" passed away in 2014, and the coffee shop girl was older than eight.
I don't know who these Bach and Beethoven guys are. Are they like Hall and Oates
🤷
+ 1,000, LOL. Maybe it's because I have kids, but I'm acutely aware of the pop culture disconnect between me and someone in her 20s. Music is relevant to the people who were exposed to it during certain periods of their lives. Treating it as something akin to understanding the Civil War or the Declaration of Independence is just plain silly.
When I was a kid working at the family business, every Sunday morning my father would put on the local oldies radio station for Elvis hour. To him the music held great significance, but if I could have I would have sledge hammered that fucking radio into little pieces. I had no connection to Elvis nor did I found his music to be anything but boring. Years later, when I did a travel job in Memphis, a few people asked me if I visited Graceland while I was out there. Why the fuck would I do that?
If I had been born 20 years later, I might not even know who he was. It's just the nature of the things.
I was in St. John's, Newfoundland, and went to a small club. The girls danced to sea chanties.