Capitalism realized a while ago that a huge swath of young millennials and elder Gen Z are just broke enough to not comfortably start a family or buy a house but just flush with enough cash to fill the emotional holes left by shitty boomer parents with overpriced children’s toys.

https://bsky.app/profile/wapplehouse.bsky.social/post/3ly23expml22j

  • lapis [fae/faer, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    50·
    12 days ago

    fun fact, that’s also why the price of veterinary care has been increasing at an alarming rate lately – millennials can’t afford houses or kids, so we have (relatively inexpensive) pets and treat them as kids, so of course the parasite class wants to make owning and caring for a pet expensive.

    • stink@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      5·
      11 days ago

      I didn’t even know my vet was owned by a venture capital firm until they shut down randomly. Tried to book an appointment, they cancelled, google maps said they were closed.

      The employees still had access to their instagram account and were saying they were locked out and out of business and the VC firm cut contact with them.

      I go to a privately owned place now, but they nickel and dime me more than the vet I used to go to… $80 poop inspection, $200 visit fee, $30 for a single dewormer pill that you can get for $5 online. Everyone’s taking advantage of it now it seems.

      • lapis [fae/faer, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        my partner and I also take our cats to a private practice vet, and same; our 9yo cat’s last visit was ~$350 for physical exam, rabies vaccine, routine bloodwork, urine sample taking + testing.

  • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    33·
    12 days ago

    anakin-padme-1 The New Lego Death Star is $1000

    anakin-padme-2 So it’s a massive, highly detailed set for only the most dedicated collectors, right?

    anakin-padme-3

    anakin-padme-4

      • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        17·
        12 days ago

        It’s a lot of pieces sure, but I was imagining a big nice looking model of the Death Star at that price, not a playset where they’ve crammed a representation of every single room from the movie into a little dollhouse.

        • Parzivus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          2·
          11 days ago

          I was gonna say kids love dollhouses but it’s a $1000 set lol. It’s a shame that Lego barely makes the cheap sets anymore, most of the sets I got as a kid were like $10-20 but now most of the new sets are like $100+

  • tombruzzo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    31·
    12 days ago

    I remember there was that Lego Death Star about the size of a basketball that had rooms on every side. There was still some expectation you would play with it.

    This is just a bookshelf piece for Zelda-Shirt Cargo-Short guys.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      25·
      12 days ago

      If you had told the early teen me in 1977 that Star Wars would still be incredibly popular in 2025 - I probably would say “Super cool!” But then just a few seconds later I might say “Why?”

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          11·
          12 days ago

          I’m sorry about your mom’s passing.

          I saw Star Wars and Jaws at movie theaters. Star Wars blew my mind. Jaws scared the crap out me. For the life of me - I can’t remember exactly when I saw The Exorcist. It came out in 1973. Did I see it before the other two? After? In any case - the vital thing is I watched it on tv. I must have secretly watched it late at night on Creature Features. And in the fat-back tv era - the tv experience was shit. The resolution was low. Maybe like a sort of crappy 480p rip today? Broadcasts were “edited for tv” and there was pan-and-scan. At best watching a movie like The Exorcist was 1/10th as powerful as watching it at the movies.

          Unlike the other two - I thought it was “scary” but I quickly forgot about it. Decades later I watched it at home and I really liked it. Right now - I’m thinking about watching it again. Maybe I can’t. I used to love horror - cough - to death. The problem is that I’ve watched 100s of hours of terrible, shitty movies and tv series that ripped off The Exorcist in a way that might make it hard for me to enjoy it now.

          An example is a series I watched where possessed people spewed CGI vomit that flowed upwards so it covered the ceiling. For fuck’s sake. That’s not scary. That’s silly and dumb! [Ninja edit. Maybe it was Outcast?]

          -–

          Pan and scan

          Pan and scan is a film editing technique used to modify widescreen images for display on a fullscreen screen. It involves cropping the sides of the original widescreen image and panning across it when the shot’s focus changes. This cropping can result in the loss of key visual elements but may draw the viewers’ attention towards a particular portion of the scene.

            • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
              8·
              12 days ago

              Google rant

              As is my custom - I thought got all the details wrong. It turns out - I was spot on. The series I was thinking of is called Outcast and it has 20 episodes. Never mind the vomit - can’t find a CGI screengrab of anything from that series and I can’t find anything useful at all. Incredible. Every time I think google can’t get more garbage-y - it surprises me and it beats my expectations. Top-notch, google - top-notch.

      • SovietBeerTruckOperator@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        12 days ago

        Eh, there’s older franchises, by like A LOT. None quite as big as Star Wars but close. Heck one is quite popular here (technically) picard

        I think if I lived in 1977 and was told the same thing I would just assume the movie turned into a SciFi TV show, not that it’s become a sprawling slop empire of mid-overall-quality (with the very occasional banger). Though I think it would be hard for someone in the 70s to imagine modern media enshittification.

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          11·
          12 days ago

          I would have been equally surprised that Star Trek was super-popular in 2025. How? In 1977 - I thought of the series as “really old”. And it was in ~10 year old reruns after all. If I thought about “trekkies” at all - I surely thought of them as dumb dorks. Plus the first trek movie was two years away.

    • Babs [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      11 days ago

      There is actually a space in this model explicitly designed to put in a tie fighter and a couple dudes working on it. Early photos of the kit included this.

      They decided to remove it and turn it into a special separate kit that you can have included with the death star, but only if you buy it now!

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      19·
      12 days ago

      Hey, guys - welcome to my Youtube channel. Wanna build the GELO Depth Star at about 1/20th the cost? The GELO Depth Star for $50 bucks! Sweet! You know what I’m talkin’ about - right? No copyright infringement. No copyright infringement. No copyright infringement. Heh-heh. Let’s get to makin’…

      • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        11 days ago

        Lol, Chinese clone factories will have one out in a month or two. 20% the price. You can’t copyright the shape of a starship or a recipe.

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          2·
          11 days ago

          Oh, man. I already have to edit my joke?

          Hey, guys - welcome to my Youtube channel. Wanna build the GELO Depth Star at about 1/20th the cost? The GELO Depth Star for $50 bucks! Sweet! I know you can get a Chinese clone for $200 but it’s more tons more fun to make it yerself!..

          • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.ukEnglish
            2·
            11 days ago

            I may have missed the first part of your post and have an unquenchable lust to spread knowledge of Chinese clone Lego sets.

  • Feinsteins_Ghost [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    14·
    12 days ago

    B-b-b-b-but the manufacturing tolerances are so tight!

    (I had someone tell me this like that fact alone excuses what Lego does to pocketbooks and the environment)