Star Trek conventions and other stuff too. But all of those were a very fringe thing to what Comic-Con is today, and were not attended by late-20 or 30-somethings...
Before that, the niche interests just change -- my dad and his friends have been dressing up in 20s garb and driving 20s cars to period events since the 60s. There are Civil War re-enactments and sex clubs and costume parties and all sorts of things.
A costume ball or a civil war re-enanactment (much less a "sex club") is not the same kind of thing as a comics/star wars/etc based pop culture that's mainstream with adults.
This page has a picture of the nonexistent 20-40 year olds turning out to see Stan Laurel in 1947
Not sure what the relevance is. Stan Laurel was a comedian and a famous actor. Nobody said comedy and movies weren't popular with adults.
We're talking about stuff like Batman and similar superhero stuff -- which was something few 20-40 year olds cared for even in the early 80s.
Oh. Even monster movies like 1931's Frankenstein don't count? (Which grossed $185 million in 2015 terms.)
Well, OK. I guess you can argue the "infantilisation" of society from the narrowest possible definition so that it represents just one particular modern fad. I guess that means you get to believe society is newly infantile up until the novelty of realistic superhero movies wears off?
My mistake, anyway. I thought there was a debate over "this fad means society is more infantile than it used to be", not, "superhero movies specifically mean that society is now infantile". The first argument is common but wrong and easily rebutted, the second one wouldn't've been worth the time.
Comments
Star Trek conventions and other stuff too. But all of those were a very fringe thing to what Comic-Con is today, and were not attended by late-20 or 30-somethings...
A costume ball or a civil war re-enanactment (much less a "sex club") is not the same kind of thing as a comics/star wars/etc based pop culture that's mainstream with adults.
Not sure what the relevance is. Stan Laurel was a comedian and a famous actor. Nobody said comedy and movies weren't popular with adults.
We're talking about stuff like Batman and similar superhero stuff -- which was something few 20-40 year olds cared for even in the early 80s.
Oh. Even monster movies like 1931's Frankenstein don't count? (Which grossed $185 million in 2015 terms.)
Well, OK. I guess you can argue the "infantilisation" of society from the narrowest possible definition so that it represents just one particular modern fad. I guess that means you get to believe society is newly infantile up until the novelty of realistic superhero movies wears off?
My mistake, anyway. I thought there was a debate over "this fad means society is more infantile than it used to be", not, "superhero movies specifically mean that society is now infantile". The first argument is common but wrong and easily rebutted, the second one wouldn't've been worth the time.