‘80s pop culture in general had a lot more Chicago & Broader Rust Belt/Midwest influence compared to what came after. John Hughes was from Chicago, there was the whole heartland rock thing, the type of blue collar hero character that Kurt Russell usually played feels very Midwest to me, despite Kurt being a Californian. Those vibes seem to have faded as young people moved to coastal metros and much of Midwest culture got eaten by the generic southiness that’s taken over rural America
Yeah the 90s started out with a strong Bulls run and then there was the whole Liz Phair/Smashing Pumpkins/Lollapalooza Wicker Park scene and then Chicago just vanished from American consciousness, behind like Detroit
My actual sincere hot take is that if The Left or whoever is invested in delegitimatizing patriotic celebrations and big monuments to slavers and whatever, we really do need to come up with some replacement stuff for people to uncomplicatedly feel good and dance and get drunk about.
Like unironically people like excuses to party and some sort of mythology to tie it into. As far as holidays go Juneteenth is a good start. But, like, fewer educational infographics, more barbecues.
I still cant believe the moonlanding is not an actual holyday in the united states, is one of the few uncomplicatedly incredible things that country achieved
“All of the following are important aspects of modern American culture: cars, fast food, rap, baseball, Christianity, computers, video games, the Bible, guns, movies, fast food, rap, the Bible, baseball, cars, computers, video games, and religion.”
I recently learned that the Star-Spangled Banner flag (as in, the flag flown over Fort McHenry that inspired the Francis Scott Key poem) has fifteen stripes instead of thirteen, because the tradition at the time was to increase the number of stripes along with the number of stars as more states joined the union.
I assume this tradition ended because of cowardice.
I’ve prepared several options to revive the tradition:
The most direct approach. Looks vaguely pink from a distance.
I like how this one emphasizes how much more America there is now than there used to be.
I think plaid fits nicely, too. As a bonus, a lot of existing tablecloths could be converted to this design with just the addition of the canton.
Honestly, I just spent too much time making this one not to post it.
