Buffalo News — Another Voice: Spectrum auctions are important for broadband access (Copy)

Complaints about The Man were a common theme in film and television through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. As with so many parts of pop culture, the phrase had roots in black film and television before migrating to the mainstream. What used to be a mainstay of blaxploitation films was now being parroted by white teenage stoners. Anybody who grew up in the 90s can perfectly recollect “It’s just like, Society, mannnnn. It’s like, The Man, screwing us over” as spoken by an angsty teen.

This was seen as ridiculous. Not all complaints about society are ridiculous, of course. But this particular one always was. The person spouting it was always a disaffected loser. They were rarely making any sort of coherent point. Sometimes they were just listing random things they disliked about the world. And at the end of the complaint was the all-blame-taking Man, the omnipresent Society who was responsible for it all in some sinister way.