Yes, I Got That Reference. But Who Cares?

When I think about it, I can't help but think of it like memories with long time friends. When you're young you don't have any shared memories with people, so you spend all your time making memories. As you get older you start spending less time making memories and more time talking about those old memories you made long ago.

When a movie or TV show is nothing but old references, it is like that old chat at the bar between really old friends who have run out of things to talk about. "Remember when...", "Yep." "Oh...".

I hope as I grow older I can keep making an effort to make new memories and I hope this phase in media doesn't last too long so we can have a higher percentage of new stories instead of new stories that just remind us of older ones. The younger crowd may know something is a reference, but have no connection to the source material. At some point it becomes as abstract has the save icon for people who have never seen a floppy disk.

I am now become aware that this view might just be due to my age. This same thing likely happened with every generation, but you only realize it when you're old enough to actually get the references. After all, every creative work is influenced by what that came before it. Some influences are just a little more obvious than others.

"It's like when..." Probably not, but the comfort one derives from a pretense of continuous thought must keep the blood pressure down.

Is the entire article a ragedump inspired by the author basing his life experience on the #1 grossing action film of 1988?