The 80's also had some of the darkest horror and dystopian sci-fi that we've seen in popular culture. Interesting in the article he never mentions Seinfeld or

The 80's also had some of the darkest horror and dystopian sci-fi that we've seen in popular culture. Interesting in the article he never mentions Seinfeld or Peanuts as those were turning points into more realistic or less sympathetic characters for their genres (tv comedy and comics respectively) edit as I'm still reading: "The one note today’s entertainment strikes is the depressive tone" is an eye roll level of reductionism. I'd be curious how the reduction in influence in religion has played a roll as well. The FCC rules on what you could say in TV/radio used to be downright archaic, and I think religion espouses this idea that good people are happy and everything turns out ok in the end because god.