There is a meme circulating on social media showing John Wayne on one side and a young man with a bun and a cell phone on the other. The caption reads “Something went terribly wrong between then and now”.
It doesn’t do what it should, but very likely does what was intended.
This is my response to that meme:
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
The 50s were only the “best of times” for a select few. For everyone else they were not great.
In the sixties we tried to correct some of the injustices of the past severel millennia but found it much harder than we expected. It only worked cosmetically.
And the corrections came with there own problems.
The biggest issue now is not a man bun. It is ecocide, the new robber barons, and a virulent form of late stage capitalism. To say nothing of climate degradation verging on collapse.
I don’t think you can tell this whole story in a meme.
The fifties, the 2020’s, and what happened in between is too complex.
You would have to capture the Cold War, the evil isms, the wide open environment with many fewer people and less environmental degradation.
And also capture the incredibly high tech, low touch, over- amped, overcrowded angst of the 20s along with the greater freedom of expression and the polarization. But most of all the predatory capitalism driving everything.
I don’t think a meme can do that.
This one ain’t it.