I've come across a lot of Gen Z

Everyone I've met seems to have at least one of the above:

A love of 70s/80s/90s pop culture
Love for 80s/90s music inc hair metal & alt rock
Love of 80s/90s fashion
An 80s/early 90s inspired haircut IE a mullet (regardless of gender), teased hair, or even in some cases 90s style layered hair, mustaches on men

Why?

I've come across a lot of Gen Z

Everyone I've met seems to have at least one of the above:

A love of 70s/80s/90s pop culture
Love for 80s/90s music inc hair metal & alt rock
Love of 80s/90s fashion
An 80s/early 90s inspired haircut IE a mullet (regardless of gender), teased hair, or even in some cases 90s style layered hair, mustaches on men

Why?



Most of these things you mention seem to be stuff that Millennial hipsters revived.  Mustaches, 80s fashion & hairstyles --- all hipster trends 10, 15 or 20 years ago.  If anything, I think they've mostly been in decline during the past several years.

I'm simply not seeing most of the trends you mention, at least where I live.  Are you sure you're not confusing Generation Z with the Millennials?

As for the music, I think Rick Beato is on to something here:

My Uber driver said: "Paul McCartney? Never Heard of Him"
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The issue today is that people have access to SO much music.  Human beings only have 24 hours in a day.  It's impossible to know everything that's out there.  (I think I read somewhere that 400 HOURS of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute.  Of course, not all of that is music and not all of it is original.  But the point I'm making is that there's just way too much STUFF out there --- whether it be about politics, sports, news, movies, music, fashion, gaming, science, math, literature, economics, technology, etc. ---  for one person to humanly take in.)  Even if you spent every waking minute of your life on Youtube or Spotify, it's physically impossible to meaningfully absorb everything that's available to you.

People like me who came of age before the internet had, for better or worse, a relatively limited number of sources to be introduced to music.  The record store, the radio DJs, your classmates, your roommate, your relatives, your friends, MTV (later on), etc.

The effect of all of this is that we used to have a SHARED set of  CULTURAL REFERENCE POINTS (in all areas of life: TV, movies, sports, etc).  You may not have liked ABBA (for example), or maybe you did, but everybody knew who they were and their major hits.

Contrast that with the situation today where you are forced to choose what elements of culture are relevant to yourself.  This is how you end up with bizarre situations where you have people like Rick Beato's Uber driver who knows all about Jay-Z and LL Cool J, but has no idea who the hell Paul McCartney is.

Those acquaintances of yours who have a "Love for 80s/90s music inc hair metal & alt rock" --- I wonder how broad their knowledge of late 20th century music actually is.  For example, would they know who The Moody Blues are?  Johnny Cash?  Elvis?  King Crimson?  Judy Collins?  Dionne Warwick?  Run-DMC?  Jethro Tull?  Jackson Browne?  Sly & The Family Stone?  Peter Paul & Mary?  Iron Butterfly?  Fleetwood Mac?  Prince?  The 5th Dimension?  The Grateful Dead?

A few years ago, I talked to one of my former college professors, a genuine former 1960s hippie and a Deadhead.  He told me, half-jokingly, that he decided to retire because none of his students knew who Joni Mitchell or The Grateful Dead were anymore.  This is at one of the most granola tree-huggy colleges in America.

Contrast that with the time I took one of his classes back in the 1980s.  He taught us how to use a celestial globe; you have to imagine yourself being inside the sphere.  I raised my hand and asked him, "So, is this the Timothy Leary view of the universe?"  He said, "Yes!  This is what the universe looks like from the outside looking in!"  In the 70s/80s/90s college kids knew about The Moody Blues, in addition to countless other artists from many different genres.

When I say "know who they are" I don't mean that they know every single album and song and trivial factoid about every member.  I mean just a general idea.  Like a general idea of what The Grateful Dead are about.

As Rick says in his video above, the trend in the future might instead be towards specialization.

I'm curious to know if your GenZ aquaintences -- is their knowledge of the 70s/80s/90s broad based or narrowly focused on a few aspects of late 20th century culture?

they're not

Simple really. They grew up with sheeshty pop culture.

Why?

Well it was right before the world went to crap basically.....

Im GEN Z :)