Is pop culture dead?
A woman I work with was telling me the other day that she grew up in Idaho - near the Snake River. As a person who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I immediately thought of Evel Knieval and his attempted jump of the Snake River Canyon. I think it is an event that anyone who grew up in that era would remember. Sadly, Mr. Knievel passed away last week.
But this got me thinking. Do kids today have similar common pop-culture experiences? Or are they spread so thin across TV channels, radio, iPods, Wiis, and websites that they all are experiencing life differently? What will they "collectively remember" 20 years from now?
It used to be that, when our entertainment options were more limited, people all over the world were watching and worshipping the same cultural icons - Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe. Then television and radio gave us more choices and we started to go our separate ways.
Today, with more entertainment choices than ever before, are any of us watching and experiencing the same thing? We all want more options and more choices regarding how to spend our leisure time. So we've obvisously gained freedom and choice in this technological age. But part of me wonders if we've lost something too.
Labels: Evel Knievel, modern life, pop culture
posted by Alan Evans at
10:15 AM
1 Comments:
I got to your blog by Googling the statement: "pop culture is dead". I was hoping to find confirmation of my assertion. Instead, I found half-hearted contemplation of the obvious.
Let me break it down for you, since your inclination is to post on your blog the first half-baked questions that come to mind:
What will today's youth remember? That's easy: the multitude of channels on TV, iPods, and Wiis ARE the shared experience - this generation needs no more than a shared purchase to claim some commonality with another human being.
Youth today is more shallow and less intelligent than the day human kind scratched its butt and walked out of the cave. Yes, kids SEEM more savvy, but they're generalists - they have street cred, but it goes no deeper. They're all poseurs hoping you won't ask that next question to blow their cover.
And youth attitudes are but a slice of the whole pie. Contrary to the hopes of closet revolutionaries everywhere, the Internet, pop culture, and your blog are the antithesis of meaningful dialog. Civilization is becoming a jungle full of paper tigers who rant on their blogs but who won't take action in the non-virtual world.
Yeah, I'm posting this anonymously. That's not because I'm a coward; it's because I'm not a needy person who seeks validation of his opinions from other people on the web.
I do this only because my hope is that you'll abandon your keyboard and venture into the real world where you'll converse (verbally!) with other human beings about your opinions.
Alas, I've validated your medium by posting my most authentic feelings. Kids, can you spell "irony"?
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