Kampfkater's Guide to the 50s

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Kampfkater
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MC name: Kampfkater

Kampfkater's Guide to the 50s

Post: # 3404Post Kampfkater »

Hello there!
Since I've seen some people who did not have the best idea of what the 50s were like, I decided to write up a little something that shows some of the aspects of the time.


General

The 50s were a time of rebuilding and economical growth. The effects of WWII were not as noticeable anymore, at least in most parts of the world.
(On a side note, the war is not relevant in Toro RP.)
The technological advancement helped some industrial nations to hurry their growth even more, getting rich was possible for almost anyone.
A good example of this is the American Dream, which after dying off two times lives up once more.
Overall, most people in the western countries were rather happy, even though the society divided
into two generations whose intentions were very different from each other.

Technology

The TV became a normal household object for everyone, and the first colour TV's were introduced as well.
The invention of the first conventional plastics was a great achievement of the time, as it allowed for a more convenient way of life. (Polypropylene)
Diseases that were dangerous before became less and less threatening due to the quick advancements in medicinal technology,
for example the vaccine for Polio or the use of Ultrasound.
One of the major turning points in the history of science was in the 50s: The space race began, in which the US and Russia longed for the stars.
Harnessing the power of atoms for peaceful reasons began, the first concepts for nuclear power plants were being developed.
The first computers were being developed, but they were as big as a house and could only do basic mathematical tasks. (Look up Konrad Zuse if you want more information)
Cars had a rather peculiar, almost futuristic look, they were very low-profile and had a more luxurious interior than ever before.
Popular Culture

The mid-fifties marked the birth of Rock'n'Roll, some of the more famous artists are Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.
Jazz and Blues continued to be popular, and the style developed to even higher levels of perfection.
Folk music had a rise in popularity as well, especially in the United States.
Doo-wop, an accapella style of music also played a big role and offered an alternative to the other kinds of music.
WWII changed the film industry greatly, the style of films changed entirely, mostly to deal with the happenings of the past.
The first stereoscopic 3D films were made, the years '52 to '55 are known as the "Golden Age" of stereoscopic 3D.
Epic movies about i.e. biblical topics also became popular.
Television programs mainly consisted of sitcoms, game shows and westerns. Basically TV was for entertainment only, offering a temporary escape from reality.
Drawn art mostly consisted of very abstract, expressionist paintings, which Dadaism had a huge influence on.
Advertisement started developing a very special style as well, displaying a "Good Life" and what you need to live it yourself. (Any of you remember the Fallout Games? They display it pretty well.)

Everyday Life

As after most modern wars, the two generations apparent at the time had a huge gap between them.

The older one longed for a quiet, normal life. They had the typical conservative picture of a family, with a working man, a housewife and one or two children.
The wish for a "normal" life after all the trouble in the past was one of the major factors of the time, and the several wars (Korean war, Cold war) were a reason for constant fear.
Settling down and just enjoying life as well as they could was their way of dealing with that fear.

The younger generation however wanted freedom. Many of them admired Presley and his music and threw a lot of parties.
They tried to stop the government from warmongering by just basically boycotting it, living a rebellious life and
not following the social standards mentioned in the paragraph above. Mind that those were just a fraction of the young people,
many were just like their parents, just going to college and trying to fit into society as well as they could.

Those contrasts are in my opinion the most interesting part of the 50s, and they leave a lot of room for your potential character ;D

Fashion


Due to new kinds of fabric many new styles of clothing were possible. Fashion adopted to the suburban lifestyle,
women started wearing casual clothes more often than before. Casual skirts and pants became everyday-clothing. Jackets, hats and gloves still were very popular.
Party attire consisted of colourful cocktail dresses, narrow skirts and bolero jackets. Skirts became shorter than before, it was no longer a taboo to be a bit more open
about one's body.

(Side Note: I have no idea what I am talking about. How does Fashion even work?)

Men's clothing was very conservative, they wore classic suits for work or parties. At home they wore clothes fitting the so-called "Ivy League Style", consisting of
cardigan sweaters and pants made of natural materials, accompanied by penny loafers. (Think Mr. Rogers.)
Hats and Cowboy-style shirts were also somewhat popular among men.

The Rock'n'Roll crowd wore leather jackets and colourful pants, polka-dotted dresses also were popular with them.
Those people were not accepted by society though, because they were considered to be some kind of rebels.
Alright, that's all folks!
If you can add anything feel free to post it below,
I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff (especially the whole Fashion part.)
I hope this'll help out if you don't know what the general idea of the 50s is.
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Thovian
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MC name: Thovian

Re: Kampfkater's Guide to the 50s

Post: # 3405Post Thovian »

Hey Kampf! I wanted to thank you for posting this, its cleared up a lot of issues I had. Hopefully now i can contribute a better RP experience, But there are still a few things I'm unclear about, and whether this is a personal thing or if other people have this issue as well, I'm not sure, so I'll try and help out and explain.

Well there are a lot of technologies that I've seen people try to RP with, such as headphones and regular cellphones, that the 50's simply didn't have. For example, when i first joined the server and knew little to nothing about RP, my skin had headphones, I'd RP listening to music, talking on cell phones and using a laptop. Not because I was disregarding the 50's theme, but because I assumed certain things were different. For another example I could be like

Aeiden Bishop pulls out a calculator and begins to crunch some figures

Then someone could tell me oocly that they didn't have handheld calculators in the 50's. Which I'd understand, then it wouldn't make any sense to me. Because at my characters waist there are 6 balls that are capable of expanding and shrinking in size, converting organic and inorganic systems to energy -Negating any type of mass-, and reconverting said energy to the state the organic systems had before the initial conversion.

Now that would confuse me greatly, because 63 years after the fifties, we aren't even close to coming up with a processor that could handle that amount of info. So if you think about it, you'd think our current (2013) level of technological advancement would have been achieved decades before the first Pixelball. And on top of that, to the aspiring Toro fan who has scrounged the entirety of the Forums and Wiki, they'd find this:

http://toro-league.com/wiki/index.php?t ... ng_station

The Healer is capable of the manipulation of P-Rays, which is controlled by advanced hardware and gaOS, or golden apple Operating System. Then i read this:
The first computers were being developed, but they were as big as a house and could only do basic mathematical tasks. (Look up Konrad Zuse if you want more information)
So in other words a calculator the size of a house, yet there's machines that are advanced to the point of having dedicated operating systems and carrying out quantum functions. Not to mention even getting started with the pokemon storage system.

So how can some things be incredibly advanced, yet the things that the incredibly advanced systems stemmed from be simplistic and prehistoric? Because of that I wouldn't be entirely sure about things that would be acceptable to RP and things that wouldn't match the 50's.

So those are some of the things that confused me (And if I may admit, still somewhat confuse me) about RPing in the 50's in the Toro region. As I said before, I'm not sure if anyone else had this issue or if its just me (I can think wayyy too literally at times), but hopefully clarification will help anyone on this.

- Cheers
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Kampfkater
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MC name: Kampfkater

Re: Kampfkater's Guide to the 50s

Post: # 3406Post Kampfkater »

Hey Thovian, I believe I had a talk with Peach about that stuff quite some time ago. We agree it's somewhat weird, but the we had to come to the point of saying that the only technologically advanced thing is pixelmon technology. This is not because we want it to be like that but because there'd be no other way to play the game without them. Besides, if some old man named Kurt can make them by glueing together a couple of apricorns it can't be that advanced, can it?
Such inconsistencies happen. Believe me, if I could mod well enough to change all those technologies I totally would, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell of that happening. We kind of depend on other people's work and just have to work around them.
Anyways, just try and ignore the advanced pixelmon tech and if you need to use something not pixelmon related think of alternatives. Instead of using a calculator use i.e. a slide rule, a nice example for an analog computer that is totally valid in RP.

I hope that clears the issue up,
have a nice day!
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Thovian
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Re: Kampfkater's Guide to the 50s

Post: # 3407Post Thovian »

Well the process wasn't quite that simplistic, but I get your point xD. I appreciate the help, and it did clear things up. Thank!
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