I know this is old people talk. But cartoons were way better when i was a kid in the 80s.
I don't personally agree especially with the first half of the 80's. Cartoons were driven far too heavily on merchandise in that time, Transformers G1 is a prime (pun intended) example of this. The first three episodes which serve as the pilot hurl dozens and dozens of characters on both sides at you which is insane, it's like if the first Star Wars movie gave every random Rebel trooper and stormtrooper a name and unique look and expected you to care enough to buy all their toys. Beast Wars and the following shows Transformers Animated and Prime introduced only 5-6 characters per side in their pilot and only slowly introduced new characters as their series progressed, actually allowing the viewer to care about them instead of just an obvious, "hey, here's so-and-so! Buy their toy!" factor being used. And ironically, while not a great show, Transformers G1 is at least watchable, I remember rewatching the original He-Man years ago (someone had brought a few DVDs to our break room) and wow, so cringe-worthy.
Now, the second half of the 80's did offer improvement particularly with the Disney Afternoon rolling in with Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, etc. But it was really the 90's when cartoons finally began to really nail it. But I'd say they are still evolving, yes today has a lot of trash but every decade has trash if you actually go back through it all instead of only remembering the shows they enjoyed, I can attest to that as Nostalgia Critic's Disney Afternoon video made me go, "oh, Quack Pack, I pretty much forgot about that one, god that show was terrible. And Shnookums and Meat, ugh, I vaguely remember that and yeah it was bad". Speaking of, he did a great video on modern cartoons (
) talking about how the medium is clearly evolving and we're seeing shows that wouldn't have got made even in the 90's. And that's not limited to kid cartoons, adult cartoons are also starting to diversify some as stuff like Bojack Horseman and Final Space are welcome deviations from the standard adult comedy cartoon you see everywhere.
Honestly, something like Teen Titans GO feels like it has the same mindset of a lot of cartoons made in the 80's but at a different angle. While the 80's cartoons may have been more merchandise-driven, obviously that also means they're corporate-driven shows and not writer-driven shows and TTG feels the same way, it doesn't take chances or try to offer subtle or clever humor, it instead relies on safe, predictable humor that can easily appeal to a mass kid audience and lo and behold Cartoon Network shows it all the time as a result. In both cases, they are not what I want for cartoons, I want stuff that has actual good writing, characters, etc., not stuff that practically feels soulless.