People complain about Pop Music
People complain on "Pop Music" going to shit... but there are PLENTY of choices in music. And the music I enjoy the most gets covers done and frankly does not get memorized in my mind. Great art is like great food, my mind does not memorize it, it experiences it. It doesn't doesn't get boring or tired on a short term. And people complain about this, how F.M. radio would play a great hit over and over for months. But that is exactly what religion is to me. People re-read the Torah, Bible, Quran over and over every week. In the Middle East, when I lived in Amman Jordan, Taxi Drivers would do prayer beads and listen to the Quran over and over on the radio... out of CHOICE! And it is the EXPANDING MonoMyth pattern that I enjoy this way, where there aren't just a dozen authors in The Bible, but thousands of artists working on songs and lyrics I enjoy...
And as Joseph Campbell spells out, at different points / ages in your life you have different ressonance. And sometimes what at age 26 I found a pattern in my life and mind with 50 different songs, I see the changes in my interpretation and experiences.
What Went Bad in 2014
What went bad in 2014 onward was Fox News, networks of falsehoods and "Stand up for the Big Guy" media messages that people latched on to. Radio stations, social media, multiple TV networks found an audience that was thrilled on "hate Mexicans" and anti-intellectualism. Depth of understanding became replaced by aggression and hate.
People TUNED INTO Falsehoods, Anti-intellectualism, Hate messaging
Mocking of science, which was extremely apparent when the COVID-19 pandemic came about as a growing topic in January 2019. Absolute AVOIDANCE of learning the 1918 pandemic and quoting books, perspective on it.