Saturday, I was sailing with a kid who was born in1991. I was reminded of a 1996 conversation I had with a friend, about how the nineties were "depressing". A "dark ages" was creeping over the culture. Jerry Garcia was dead and DOMA was alive. Burning Man was driven from the beach to the desert and required to pay the authorities $375K for "fire protection". Bin Laden was demanding that the US quit supporting brutal dictators, conducting Western police-states in the middle East.
But this is all he has ever known. He is nostalgic for the time when the Coast Guard was not a part of Homeland Security, shaking down sailors on the bay and when there was no Patriot Act or Gitmo.
It's not a matter of age, it's a matter of quality of life.