New Toys in the Ancient Attic

I've never seen this movie.

Just about everyone alive today has played with toys when they were kids. Saturday morning cartoons, video games, and comic books, were a staple of many youths, but it was toys that gave a more tangible form to the entertainment they enjoyed when young. While some decried the commercialism of all this back in the 1980s, they understood why and how kids appreciated toys. They used these trinkets to stretch their imagination to its limits--a concept all too alien today.

However, there is a darker side to all this, and we're currently living in it. What happens when we misuse toys for the opposite of their intended purpose?

About a week ago I took a gander into the background of a major player behind a recent reboot of a classic children's property created decades ago. I'm not going to single them out for the sole reason that their identity is irrelevant to the larger point. It's also a wider problem that goes beyond just them. This mentality they have is not-uncommon from those in higher corporate positions these days.

Suffice to say, the person behind this reboot doesn't have much of a track record behind them, yet were put in charge of a reboot behind a fairly large property decades old. Why they were given the keys to the kingdom is difficult to explain as anything other than obvious nepotism. Once getting in charge they then proceeded to do just about everything wrong, proving they aren't right for the job.

So what did they do? They insulted the original and fans of said original, as well as even making swipes at the staff of the source material. They were more interested in doing what they wanted at the expense of any wider audience. Outside the Tumblr demographic, which is so irrelevant that only out of touch hipsters pay it any mind, the reception to this reboot series was anemic. It came and went, and will be forgotten shorty. Another reason why there is no point mentioning the name.

This is how it goes with 2010's pop culture. It vanishes as soon as it comes out.

However, I did find an interview with said person in charge, and one of the parts in the interview struck me as particularly odd. They spoke of their childhood, and it explained so much about why this reboot was as bad as it was.

This entire digression clashed with my experiences and what I've heard from others in creative industries from decades ago. The interview showed someone that does not understand the creative process much. It's a sign of someone who is stuck in the past, under the delusion that they are forward-looking and progressive. What I saw was a person who had no concept of storytelling because they had never grown up.

Paraphrased heavily as to shield identity:

"When I was a child, I never watched [the series]. I took the toys my parents gave me and made up my own stories not tied to any canon. I did what I wanted. These were my stories. I played with toys from every franchise, whether I watched them or not, and mashed them together to do whatever I felt like. I made them do whatever I wanted. So when I got put in charge of [the series], I used the chance to make my own childhood stories canon."

Again, this isn't close to a direct quote, but one close to the intent revealed in the interview. This is what this individual believes because this is how they grew up. They grew up in a different world than the current one we live in. It's the experience of one who grew up as Gen Y, when many members of the generation were showered with more material possessions than love. Now they are making the entertainment you consume. It goes a long way to show why things are the way they are today.

The people in charge of these industries are still playing with their toys. Even as adults they haven't changed a bit. Why would they? They've never been given any incentive to learn differently.

Every person that played with toys stops when they get older. This is normal: toys are a way for kids to use their imagination via concrete and tangible objects and allow them to create inventive scenarios with said toys. When you get older your imagination develops to the point that you can move past that into imagining wholly originally scenarios and ideas on your own. You don't need them anymore. That's what growing up is about: putting away toys. At least, that's how it works for normal people. Those in charge of mainstream art now still think the world works like their childhood toy-box, and have never moved beyond it. They believe creativity, just like life, is their toy-box. It s all about whatever they want at the expense of anyone else.

Think about it: when you were a child did you care what the neighbor kid thought about your toy-box and what games you played? No, you just did what you wanted because it was your room and your stuff. It isn't about them--this is your world. No one has any say other than the kid. Those in charge of entertainment now think of you as that irrelevant neighbor kid. This is their toy-box, and you have no right to play with it. You were not given permission.

Perhaps it's because these Gen Y creators grew up with the greatest toys ever made and were told they could do whatever they wanted that this disconnect in the generation exists, but there's no way to be certain. What is certain is that modern creators have an inherent selfishness to them that is backwards to the idea of artistic expression. It's not about your great toy collection and what you can do with them in the privacy of your own room--it's what you can do to express ideas and connect to an audience outside of yourself.

Let us try an example.

If I grew up with He-Man, for instance, and I was tasked with creating a new He-Man series, I would do several different things.

The first is that I would watch the original show and take note of the characters, plots, and general themes therein. The second is that I would look at audience reaction both from the time period (what is available) and from those who are watching it today. The third is that I would explore the series' inspirations and similar style stories in order to craft the new series in the spirit of the old with a brand new twist. All three of these things are important in order to create a product in line with the original's intent while also creating something new. It is about connecting with the past with the present in order to move to the future.

This should all be obvious: it was for decades. Until it wasn't anymore.

What I wouldn't do if given charge of a legacy franchise was remember my childhood toy-box and the games I thought of as a five year old and then craft a series around that--especially if my games had no relation to the reality of the franchise. That is the exact wrong way to create art because it is aimed inward.

There are a few reasons for that, one being that I would have (hopefully) grown a lot from being a child, and the second being that everyone's toy-box was different. No one in Gen Y played with toys the same, and few had the same collection. There were so many, and they were the best ever made, after all. This lack of shared experience certainly contributes to how this fractured mentality has caused such a fissure in popular culture and in the wider western landscape.

The truth is that there is no more shared culture. The alienation of every post-Boomer generation has led to a splintering that will never truly heal. Everyone is off in their own little world and are more interested in forcing others to accept their vision instead of trying to find one they can all share together. Without outside connections you are just posing to a mirror.

A transformers collection found on youtube

There is a specific mentality from a segment of Gen Y that believes life is a toy-box. All one need to do is play pretend and problems will go away just as they did when they were kids. You can see this outside your door without even looking too hard.

Someone has offended you? Call the toy's employer and get them fired and in financial straits. Who cares if it hurts them or their family? They're now out of the way and you can go back to your game again.

Someone doesn't believe in something you do? They must be evil like bad guys X in your toy-box. There is obviously no other solution, they must be just like those dastardly X villains. Slander, lie, harm, libel, and kick and scream, until their reputation is destroyed and you don't have to see their faces anymore. Now they can either believe the correct things, or they can starve. It doesn't matter which: they are villains and deserve whatever happens to them.

Life is a toy-box: play around to get the results that you want. You are the good guy, after all. You must be--you decided you were. And everything is all relative, after all. Toys don't get a vote; they get to obey.

Most people knew what toys were for back when they were kids. They got He-Man figures and they played out He-Man stories. They got Power Rangers figures and they played out Power Rangers stories. This is fairly straightforward, but that is what they were made for, and that is the way the majority of kids played with them.

Others used the toys to make up their own games. Some created new characters and worlds based on these trinkets, some mashed everything together to make the dream crossover they always wanted to see. These types of kids usually turned out to be creative types and would go on to make their own stories whether it be fanfic or graduating into becoming full-on creators themselves. Nevertheless, these toys helped them become the adults they would grow up to be. They fulfilled their purpose.

Apparently there is a third type, one I hadn't thought of much before, of kids who watched Scooby Doo, thought Velma was attractive, then created dating scenarios in their head. They used their toys to create shipping fantasies instead of adventure stories.

From the quote above: our mystery creator used their toys to play out the world they saw in their head--not the one presented on the television screen. This wasn't out of the ordinary for the time period they for children in. They were told they could be and do anything they wanted, so they saw what they wanted and used their toys to play out games that couldn't exist in reality. Their delusions were fed into instead of smashed. They grew up in this isolated world uncoupled from reality and thought this is the way it is supposed to work. Then they become surprised when others not only don't agree with them, but find their interests ludicrous. Hence, the conflict in the wider culture.

Unlike the earlier examples where kids used toys to grow, this mentality is one of pure narcissism brought on by neglectful parenting. Kids played with toys to either play out adventures based on what they saw on television or read in comics and the like, or they created their own rules while still keeping the characters in-character, or they created wholly original characters based on these toys. There are different ways kids use their imagination. None of these examples are out of the ordinary. The art connected with them, and they reacted to it. This is what entertainment is meant to do, and the product did this.

What it was not meant to do was feed into the delusions of a narcissist who rejects reality and wishes to rearrange it in their favor. This is how you get swaths of people who disrespect the idea of canon, call who who disagree with their harebrained theories playground names, and as a general rule hate anyone who is more knowledgeable in their field. Nothing outside of themselves matters. It can't. They are the ones in charge, because they say so. Mummy and Daddy and their familial connections got them this new toy-box to play with, just as they did when they were rugrats. It's not yours! Who do you think you are?

They're still a child living alone in their room with that expensive toy-box. Reality is whatever you make of it, and their reality owns yours. They decided so. Instead of making anything new, they can simply alter what already exists to be whatever they want. That's how it has always worked.

Is it no wonder what these people cannot create? They have never learned how to do anything outside themselves. They've never moved beyond smacking their Scooby Doo and Transformers toys together and saying: "They're married now!"

These children have never developed a sense of imagination, because they have never developed a sense of reality. And now they've been given new toys to play with: society itself. The results have been as disastrous as they should be.

That goes a long way to explain the sort of garbage we're seeing today, and why it doesn't appear to change for the better no matter how many failures those in charge suffer from it. Their reality says they were successful--it has to!--and if you disagree you must be an enemy. Now we have a bunch of silly and needless conflict where there never was before, all because unimaginative people were put in creative positions where they don't belong.

I'm uncertain where this generational trait came from aside from maybe a group who was given more material possessions than emotional or spiritual attention and simply are acting out because of it. The world didn't turn out the way they wanted, so they just ignore the world and go back to their toy-box.

That is all they have, after all.

Toy-boxes are made for storage, not for display

When I was a kid, my grandparent's generation used to be laughed at for being misers when it came to things like toys. They didn't quite see a value in these things. They said kids didn't need so many and would be better suited focusing on obtaining friends, joining sports teams, and playing outside instead. Staying inside alone will spoil them. It was a common refrain of that generation. Their worries were waved away as being behind the times from the more progressive adults.

While that generation was wrong when it came to the toys themselves, nothing is stopping a child from sharing toys with siblings and friends after all, they were right when it came to the bigger point. The objects themselves aren't the goal, just part of the journey. Their are those who never moved beyond their toy-box and wouldn't know how to if they wanted.

Childhood is not magical, it is just another stage in life. It is a time where kids learn what family, friends, community, and effort, is for. It is also a time where a sense of imagination, ethics, and religious sensibility, is formed. What you learn here determines the type of person you will eventually turn out to be. It is about learning and growing.

But we have a whole generation denied most of this, for whatever reason. They have now come of age as broken, incomplete people, and were handed entire industries by parents that did not hand them down anything that actually counted instead. They were never told how to grow up, so they never did. This is why these grown children are destroying entire industries and are completely incapable of understanding it is their fault. This reality is their toy-box, and the good guys always win in their games. Now they are dragging century old industries down with them because Mummy and Daddy are still incapable of telling them anything to the contrary, convinced that things will just work out as long as they "believe in themselves" just like the television shows of their youth told them it would. But it won't.

The larger issue is that they can't grow beyond themselves because don't even know what a community is. They are trapped inside themselves.

While much has been said about latchkey kids as far as Gen X was concerned, little has been said about the other sort of neglect foisted on some in Gen Y. Instead of being given anything solid to hold onto, they were handed toys and television, were left alone in their rooms, and were told everything would work out as long as they wanted it to. Go to college and get a degree--it doesn't matter what--and everything will work out. Not once were they told to work in their own communities and form connections there. Just the opposite: they were told to move out and "see the world" instead. Never once was the importance of family or community emphasized.

This dangerous combination of materialism and alienation is why we have the warped nostalgia-obsession these types possess. This is all they have, and if they lose it there is nothing left. Instead of being left out to freeze in the cold like their older Gen X brothers, or sent to brainwashing factories like their Millennial younger brothers, they were smothered in She-Ra pillows with the television left on in the background. The only thing they have left are these possessions and memories.

Why else do they use corporate brand IPs and hobbies as a replacement for real community? You see it in advertising everywhere today: the lifestyle brand. This is aimed at Gen Y. It works because they've never seen a real community, and have no idea what one actually consists of.

They've never gone out to play with the neighbor kid in the woods behind the house. They've never taken their bikes down to the corner store to see what their allowance could get them. They've never gone to the church social and learned how to dance. They've never had a big family Christmas where aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, come to visit under one roof. They've never considered knocking on their elderly neighbor's door and seeing if they need help carrying their groceries in. It has never crossed their mind to do any of this.

All of this is what happens in a real community. It has nothing to do with shared hobbies or investment in corporate IP. It has nothing to do with feeling comfortable or welcome. It has to do with living your life with other people. A product cannot form a community, because that's not what it's for and that's not what a community is.

When I was younger we used to call them "subcultures", a smaller part of a bigger whole, but we never called them communities. Because they aren't communities. Shared interests, goals, and likes, have nothing to do with who you live next to. Hobbies are only a part of life--they aren't the entire thing.

Life is dealing with people who aren't like you, who don't think like you, who don't like you, and who don't look like you. You learn to deal with it. Being part of a community means accepting everyone has quirks or temperaments different from yourself. You live, and you learn. Sometimes you might argue, or even get in fights, but you work them out and come to an understanding. Maybe you might eve become friends over it. It isn't easy, but that's just the way it is. Part of growing up is accepting this as a reality.

But life isn't a toy-box. You don't get to mold your reality the way you do when you force your toys to act. You can't warp reality to the canon you have in your head instead of what is already there. It is what it is, whether you accept it or not. Unfortunately, those in high positions now have never learned this and steadfastly refuse to.

They were told that "All interpretations are valid", "You are good as long as you are not bad", and that "History is on your side", when none of that is true and is completely nonsensical when thought about on any deeper level. But that is what they know. They grew up with televised slogans as their philosophy, and they warped these words however they wanted because they were told that is how it works. Someone who cannot accept that the world does not work this way cannot create good art to reach audiences. They can only create fun-house mirrors to reflect their own personalities back at themselves and if anyone finds it distasteful that is their problem! They are still playing with their toy-boxes to this day.

Unfortunately, these are the people in charge of everything you grew up with now, and it isn't likely to change any time soon.

However, that is merely the decaying industry of Hollywood, OldPub, and the like. Those in high positions before them had already begun to forget the things that made them what they are. Entertainment in the '00s has already aged incredibly badly, after all. The current generation has merely completed the transformation.

This is why, more than ever, we need to choose a different way. It's been said that you shouldn't give money to people who hate you, but that isn't just for your benefit. As you can tell from the above, rewarding these people only sends them deeper into their own toy-box and further from reality. It gives them an excuse to continue ignoring reality. Alternatives, paths towards better futures, are needed for both artists and costumers to reconnect with each other again. This current climate is not the way it should be.

Thankfully there are many such opportunities out there for everyone right now. Much has changed over the last decade, and most of what we thought would run for decades to come turned out to have no gas left in the tank. Everything that was obvious and normal even ten years ago has been forgotten and turned on its head. Times have entirely changed.

However, more people know this than you might think. And that is where it's going to start. Once we diagnose the problem we can fix it.

Put those toys back in the attic, and move on. The old days are gone, but that doesn't mean the good times are. There is plenty of road still ahead.

You'll never see it coming if you don't look away from the rear-view mirror.

Exciting Stories Ahead!