@eidolon I don't know, people seem hyper-sincere about trivial shit nowadays. 80s, people were really optimistic, but the 90s were, like, I mean look at the big albums that were selling, right, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", "Nevermind". Marilyn Manson was big. You listen to the lyrics of "Zero" or "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and it sounds like a parody almost. Or "The Beautiful People". I think it reads like optimism, but there was a strong sense of self-determination.

I was talkin' with the lady a while back and she asked me to get the Fight Club torrent and launched into this diatribe about how the big movies at the end of the 90s, "Fight Club", "The Matrix", were about how everyone was in a shitty constructed fake world. The world didn't get any realer but the cult of authenticity went away.

Highly relevant: https://catandgirl.com/mexico-city-all-over-again/
smashing_pumpkins--mellon_collie_disc_1--04--zero.mp3