In response to the Berlin Crisis of 1961, President John F. Kennedy chose to encourage everyday Americans to construct homemade bunkers. Civilians could suddenly mitigate their fears of a nuclear holocaust through consumption, and thus prepper culture was born. This week the boys are joined by the writer and community builder Anna Savina to discuss preppers, survivalists, and other groups that have doomsday inspired “exit strategies.” They begin by examining the zine she created on bunkers, Bunker Mentality, to explain how bunkers fit into the story of how Americans shifted from being citizens to being consumers. Amongst other things they discuss how the towers that existed in medieval Italian cities were an early form of bunkers, how prepper culture seems to thrive in the interior of the United States rather than the coasts, and how the prepper aesthetics depicted in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding were beautiful but ultimately not representative of prepper culture.

Links:

Prepper Aesthetics Pinterest Board

Anya is Typing…

Anna Savina’s Twitter

Prepper Lingo: Terms, Slang, and Acronyms from A-Z

Towers of Bologna, Italy in the 12th Century

San Gimignano

Preppers in Death Stranding

New Survivalism by Parsons & Charlesworth, The Object Guardian

Conservative guy afraid of cities meme

Why We Love the Apocalypse - EP183 by The Casual Preppers Podcast

Wikipedia Database download

Graph of the Population of Rome Through History

Artwork:

How to build a fallout shelter, 1957

Creative Commons CC0 License

Recorded on 6/19/2024

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration

Many themes thus far discussed on Silent Generation are present in fast food culture: car-centrism, postwar decline, Americanism, and uniforms. This week the boys are joined by Mathieu (who goes by Sleepy on Discord) to talk about McDonald’s, CosMc’s, Taco Bell, In-N-Out Burger, Wendy’s, and Culver’s in detail. Chicago has four (in)famous McDonald’s locations that they pay particular attention to: Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's, CrackDonald’s, Jungle McDonald’s, and the McDonald's Global Menu Restaurant. Amongst other things they discuss the decline of fast food architecture from its Googie architecture highs, chains that are holding on for dear life like KewPee Hamburgers and Quizno’s, and their favorite discontinued menu items.

Links:

White Castle #16

Googie 101: A Space-Age Pop-Architecture Primer

Tokyo Toni 80 Pieces of Chicken

McDonald’s Broke My Heart from Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History Podcast

Rock N Roll McDonalds by Wesley Willis

Why McDonald’s looks sleek and boring now

Nonstandard McDonalds

The site of the former “jungle Mcdonald’s” on Google Maps

The rise and fall of Wendy’s sun rooms

Breaking Points: We Were TRICKED By Red Lobster Endless Shrimp Excuse!

What Happened To Chipotle?

Artwork:

Art Deco McDonald’s from Nonstandard McDonald’s

Clifton Hill, Melbourne, Australia

Recorded on 6/9/2024

On this week’s episode Joseph and Nathan examine sportswear worn by both athletes and their fans. Episode 14 of Silent Generation already covered Olympic sports, so this week’s episode focuses on major league sports. They cover each of the following: baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, and soccer (plus rugby, road cycling, and tennis for good measure). Amongst other things they discuss how White Sox players briefly wore shorts in the 1970s, how rappers popularized hockey jerseys in the 1990s, how cyclists were depicted in The Triplets of Belleville, and how coaches (like Tom Landry and Pat Riley) dressed better prior to league-wide contracts.

Links:

Sportswear Pinterest Board

American Apparel’s Poly Mesh Football Jersey

Gay baseball raglan meme 1, Gay baseball raglan meme 2

How Hockey Jerseys Became Standard Wear for Fans

When a Sweater Defined One of the Best Rivalries

The Rise Of Athleisure In The Fashion Industry And What It Means For Brands

Artwork:

John Stockton

Recorded on 6/2/2024

Why has the general public been skeptical of nuclear energy, seemingly even before the technology existed? Joining the boys on this week’s episode of Silent Generation is Madison Hilly, founder and director of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal, to discuss how the discourse around nuclear energy has been heavily influenced by its depictions in popular culture. They examine The China Syndrome, The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Chernobyl (2019) to examine how erroneous depictions of nuclear waste and nuclear meltdowns have fomented fear. Amongst other things they talk about when Madi went viral for taking a picture next to nuclear waste while pregnant, how the baby boomer strain of environmentalism leans more “conservationist,” why nuclear waste and slime in childrens’ media is always depicted as being green, and how left wing opposition to nuclear energy seems to come from subconscious fears that radioactive material isn’t “natural.”

Links:

The Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal

Madison Hilly’s Twitter

Pregnant Woman Poses With 'Nuclear Waste' To Prove Point About Radiation (Newsweek)

By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benét

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger’s Mutations

Science Behind Science Fiction: How do Teenage Turtles become Mutant Ninjas?

Studies Show That, As We Age, Our Ability To See Vivid Colors Decline

Holtec reports “remarkable progress” towards restart of Palisades

Artwork:

Nuclear power plant LCCN, Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division

digital ID highsm.13019, CC0

Recorded on 5/26/2024

Full episode available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SilentGeneration

Many parents today tell their children to simply “be a good person” and do not offer them moral guidelines beyond that. “Being a good person” isn’t a robust enough moral framework to deal with the complexities of everyday life, so many people resort to creating their own moral codes (either completely independently, or through the help of internet gurus like Jordan Peterson). On this week’s episode of Silent Generation, Nathan and Joseph reflect on their own moral codes and talk about the origins and justifications of the rules they’ve made for themselves. Amongst other things they discuss how gay culture doesn’t offer gay men a moral framework, how you should aim to be contrarian only 50% of the time, how the public has become tired of plotlines that deal with moral gray areas, and how modern Hollywood has only offered the public antiheroes in place of actual heroes.

Links:

Jordan Peterson - Are You a Good Person?

The Epidemic of Gay Loneliness

Artwork:

The School of Athens by Raphael

Recorded on 5/19/2024

As previously noted, Nathan has a general aversion to bikes and bike infrastructure. But where does his “bike skepticism” come from, and why do many other Americans feel the same way? On this week’s episode of Silent Generation Joseph gets to the root of Nathan’s bias (the temperament of cyclists, tacky bike lane infrastructure, and the “aesthetics of control”) and makes the case for bike-oriented cities. Amongst other things they discuss how most Americans approach biking from a sports angle, the way streets were shared by multiple transit modes in the early 20th century, how biking becomes less viable in the Winter, and how Los Angeles has the potential to become America’s foremost biking city.

Links:

The new Silent Generation Patreon!

San Francisco streetcar footage from a hundred years ago

Years and Years by Russell T Davies

On Adam Levine's tattoos

Why Many Cities Suck (and Los Angeles Doesn't Have to)

Strong Town’s idea of “complex vs. complicated”

Artwork:

AI generated

Recorded on 5/12/2024

In Western culture men often wear little to no jewelry, often opting to only wear a wedding ring and/ or a watch. What meaning can be discerned from the jewelry that Western men do wear and why don’t they wear more? On this week’s episode of Silent Generation the boys begin by discussing the form and function of the types of jewelry men most commonly wear: rings, cufflinks, tie pins, watches, necklaces, and belt buckles. Amongst other things they discuss the popularity of pearl jewelry amongst male queerbaiters, when men’s jewelry becomes a red flag, why wearable tech lost its potential to be considered jewelry, Nathan’s time working in the jewelry industry, and how millennial pink was a stepping stone into alternative fashion for preppy people in the late 2010s.

Links:

Rings & Their Meaning by Gentleman’s Gazette

Fran Lebowitz wearing Calder cufflinks in Scorsese’s “Pretend It’s a City”

how’d you know im uncut meme

“I got court” starterpack meme

Artwork:

Screenshot from The Talented Mr. Ripley

Recorded on 5/5/2024

On this week’s first ever sequel episode the boys are joined by Shan Beaste, best known by her stage name Zombelle, who was one of the co-creators of the Seapunk movement and aesthetic. As detailed in episode 12, Seapunk (2011-2014) was a ‘90s inspired aquatic subculture that Nathan participated in during high school. Zombelle recently re-released her seminal seapunk album Tropicult (remastered by Myrrhkaba) which fortuitously led to her and Nathan connecting over Instagram and spurred this week’s episode. In this reexploration of seapunk, Shan and the boys discuss Shan’s early musical history and life story, confirm that she coined the term slimepunk, reiterate the place of mermaids in seapunk culture, attribute the idea of the “internet subculture formula” to Zombelle, and speculate what second wave seapunk (or “seapunk 2”) could look like.

Any former (or current) seapunk listeners are encouraged by Shan to send testimonials, photographs, or other ephemera from Seapunk’s existence to seapunkpreservationsociety@gmail.com for an impending book she is writing on seapunk’s history!

Links:

Zombelle’s SoundCloud

Zombelle’s Instagram

Zombelle’s Seapunk Spotify playlist

The Mainframe.im Instagram page

The seapunk Wikipedia article

Don't Call It #Tumblrwave

The Complete CORAL RECORDS INTERNAZIONALE catalog from archive.org

Random Aesthetic Generator

New miracle weight loss drug! by Praefoco21

Artwork:

Provided by Zombelle

Intro song:

Bad Creation by Zombelle

Recorded on 4/28/2024