#1980s-ambition

#1980s-ambition

Digital typewriters are carving out a niche for a more focused writing experience, stripping things back to the essentials: just you, a keyboard, and your words.

'We had a few songs that we were like, 'These are really good, these are genius, and we are the Spice Girls slash Destiny's Child,' said singer Ayden Mayeri in the documentary, on which she served as director.

Over the years, there have been Populists, Progressives, Farmer-Laborers, Unionists, Constitutional Unionists, Unconditional Unionists, Know-Nothings, Nullifiers, Readjusters, and more. My favorite party with a presence in the chamber is the Silver Party, founded to support a platform of bimetallism, or backing the country's money with silver as well as gold.

R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.

So I've seen generations change, and Gen Z is the generation that's most similar to my generation, the sixties. They're very value-driven. They're concerned with climate, they're concerned with authenticity, truth, being who they are, and relationships.

Beleaguered Louvre president Laurence des Cars quits after a historic heist under her watch. The next morning, a new leader is announced. It's Christophe Leribault from the Palace of Versailles, a true museum animal who ran a few during his career.

We internalised an idea of cool that involved the appearance of, if not actual, effortlessness that's hard to shake. But maybe, probably, we were wrong. Certainly, there was something disingenuous about our pretending not to care. Of course we had goals and ambitions and lots of people pedalled desperately to achieve them beneath the surface, while maintaining a nonchalant, no revision front above the waterline.

The past decade has seen a surge of new ways of self-expression online, but somehow, netizens reminisce about the grainy selfies with dog ear filters, old movies, and less AI-generated content.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found the average age of entrepreneurs who start a company and go on to hire at least one employee is 42. A study conducted by the Census Bureau and two MIT professors found the most successful entrepreneurs tend to be middle-aged, even in the technology sector.

These ghosts of our nation drove overdose deaths to record highs during the pandemic. More than 100,000 Americans ODed in a 12-month period ending in April 2021, up almost 30 percent from the prior year. The majority of these deaths of despair, about 70 percent, were among men between the ages of 25 and 54, men who should be creating or influencing or building cars or welding high steel.

In stark contrast to the much larger McDonald's menu of today, there were only nine items back then - no combo meals or anything, just à la carte options. The only food was a hamburger, cheeseburger, and fries, while for drinks you could get a Coke, root beer, "orangeade," coffee, milkshake, or just plain milk. The most expensive item on the menu was the milkshake, at 20 cents, while all the other drinks cost 10 cents, as did the fries.

Remember those summer days that stretched on forever? No phones buzzing, no parents tracking your every move, just you and your mates figuring things out until the streetlights came on. I grew up in the 80s outside Manchester, and looking back, I realize how different childhood was then. We didn't have helicopter parents or participation trophies; we had scraped knees, hurt feelings, and parents who expected us to sort it out ourselves.

Three of the four things that gave Trump a foothold, in my opinion, were failures in this century (the fourth is the legacy of slavery and the organized political violence that replaced it). The other three, though, are the War on Terror, the financial crisis, and social media. (COVID was the final catalyst, I think; having moved during the height of COVID, I can't express how much worse the US dealt with it than much of the EU.)

Even before he'd graduated from the University of Bath in 2024, Arnau Ayerbe landed a highly coveted role as an AI engineer with JP Morgan - yet he felt limited and uninspired. "I realised very quickly that the person to my right and to my left were going to be me in 20 years, and I didn't want to become that," recalls London-based Ayerbe.

Last weekend, I was visiting a friend when his teenage son asked how to address an envelope. Not how to write a formal letter, mind you, just the basic mechanics of where to put the return address. It struck me that what seemed like essential knowledge when I was growing up has become almost arcane wisdom in the digital age.

We might be exposed to more ads and commercials today than ever before in human history, but the idea of advertising itself is certainly not a new concept. According to Instapage, the first signs of advertisements actually appeared in ancient Egyptian steel carvings from 2000 BC. Meanwhile, the first printed ad was published in 1472, when William Caxton decided to advertise a book by posting flyers on church doors in England.

I remember adults coming up to me and saying, 'Ohhh, Medeiros! Like Glenn Medeiros, the guy who sang that love song!' And then they start singing it in front of me," Lyric tells TODAY.com. "Older women would come up to me and say, 'Oh, he was a heartthrob!'

Few ideas are as central to the nation's identity as that of the American Dream. With the 250th birthday of the United States coming up in July 2026, it's worth stepping back to examine a concept essential to the nation's self-image. The term "American Dream" was actually coined in the 1930s by historian James Truslow Adams. Ever since the establishment of the Colonies, however, America has been viewed as a land where individual and collective hopes and aspirations can be realized.