For everyone else that actually liked English class growing up, doesn't modern adulthood in 2026 just seem like big ol letdown?
I'm positing this after recently re-watching Sideways 🍷(2004), and recalling the feelings I had watching as a teenager of "oh, so this is what adulthood is." It's like using fancy words, and being generally well-read, etc (obvi I was a Miles guy). I was also a big fan of early Kevin Smith, where those characters also spoke intelligently, albeit while also having a kind of slacker, anti-ambition bent.
Now in 2026, it's gobsmacking how little value having a developed vocabulary or being well-read is--- both professionally (pssht forget it) and societally (0% societal cachet).
As a high schooler who actually liked reading literature and writing about it, and writing creatively- it feels like a complete letdown. It's even funny to look back at being forced to study SAT words and how little this kind of knowledge grafts onto any kind of adulthood importance/value. I should have been learning how to unclog a drain; at least then that could have saved me a couple hundred bucks over my lifetime.
No profound way to close this rant. Just a bummer. A funny bummer. Anyone else feel the same way?
