(un)glamorous

What once, or for a certain time has been glamorous, fun, original, exceptional, is in many ways nowadays miserable, or ridiculous (for those not having to go thtrough the relevant misery. To be noted, that all of the items below are first-world, peacetime problems).

There is a tweet that captures the concept well:

https://twitter.com/PaulSkallas/status/1850438655468245079

(text pasted below in case the link disappears):

“Highways were probably amazing when they first built them. Imagine driving down the interstate highway system in the 1950s. Felt like pure freedom. Not that many cars on the road. Just smooth driving Now they’re full of traffic and its miserable”

But it’s far more general, almost universal.

Examples?

• Driving (on a once-empty now-full highway. The example above)
• Traveling (travellers are more and more cattle. Business travelers, too, just with smaller barns and a bit more privacy)
• Owning sportscars (especially in urban settings), with all the additional issues with it
• Climbing/mountaineering (only for the popular spots)
• Flaneuring (besides not yet tourism-impested areas. Applies to the above item, too)

While I might be somewhat familiar with driving (“coach class” cars…) and travelling, I am not with sports cars, but I see them often enough around to sense their misery: People cleaning their cabriolet to enjoy some sunshine, smelling their own exhaust gas while queueing in a busy city road. Or - worse - driving on the leftmost lane of a shitty highway made in the 70s.

Not to say that all those things were ~ok for boomers and not anymore. The categories above end up mixing separate levels: Climbing and exploring can be noble activities (largely performed by those who could afford it. One of my most beloved writers, Buzzati, was certainly not a proletarian). Running with a sportscar along maritime pines on a riviera in the 60s not as much. Surely leisurable. Back then…

This change of tone of many activities (scientific. technical, and business conferences are no exceptions, but in that case misery was - for most of them - there at a design level already. Thus they are not included in the list. The - RIP - LPSC chili cookoff is not exempt) is substantial, since at least several years.

It might seem unfair (and it probably is), as things once acceptable for elites, when reaching the masses, seem to degrade. Dumping money into non-functional luxury items might be considered a degradation in itself, regardless how many do that. But exploring old alleys, or a wood, walking past ivy-covered ruins, not. Docking onto a small Mediterranean harbour with a self-fitted sailing boat (again, mostly a upper class thing a few decades back, and still now) was clearly different from a herd of tourists coming from a cruise ship and rushing into a café toilet do dump their share of norovirus.

Perhaps it is a bit parallel to - say - the West lecturing some countries after having done the same in the past, to pretend that once people can afford something, they cannot do it. The issue is broad, widespread, and across many contexts. It is also unsolved.

When and at which stage should have one figured it out? When first Lovelock shared his ideas? When first Meadows did?

At the end of the day it is about dynamics: Nothing lasts forever and definitly nothing lasts unchanged. But our perception of it might last longer than the thing itself, at the scale of a few decades, supported by living examples, media, and personal account. This is a big deal in fact, and goes hand in hand with - ça va sans dire - with denial of such dynamics.