Iraq, iPod, Barrack Obama, Arod.
Space shuttle Columbia, Hurricane Katrina.
Nine-eleven, GPS, Reality TV made a mess.
Sarah Palin, gays wed, Ford and Reagan both dead....
Remember that Billy Joel song, "We Didn't Start the Fire"?
In 10 years, so much has happened. Ranging from hightened cultural conflict, disastrous natural events, political shifts and huge political movements, new and wide-spread technology, changes in education, global economics, the list goes on.
What defines this decade for you? People? Places, specific cultural or social events? What common, widely-known American or global symbols or icons have given you the most personal and emotional responses or reactions? I am curious, so post away.
I’m curious about the pervasiveness of retro culture during the past decade. From VH1’s “I love the (fill in the decade)” to hipsters melding of popular retro fashions, it seems that the early part of this decade has little culture of its own. Technological advances may separate this decade from previous generations, but I don’t believe the digital world we now live in produces that much “new” culture. If anything, technological advances, mainly the Internet, have repackaged previous mediums and sped up our cultural memory.
ReplyDeleteWe can now relive our childhood anytime by watching Alf (HA!) chase cats on youtube or purchase an entire set of the origional Starwars action figures complete with the Darth Vader head carrying case on Ebay. The saturation of retro culture in the first decade of the millennium has increased our cultural memory and in turn made time speed up. As author Chuck Klosterman states, “As culture accelerates, the distance between historical events feels smaller. The gap between 2010 and 2000 will seem far smaller than the gap between 1980 and 1970, which already seemed far smaller than the gap between 1950 and 1940.”
I believe Klosterman’s statement is right on the money like Scrooge McDuck and I believe that the internet allows people to more actively remember past decades; however, the mere inception of the internet does not explain why people have become so enamored with retro culture. I’m sure people have always looked back fondly on the past, but it seems as if this is more pervasive than ever.
This is the dawn of my fourth decade, so perhaps I’m too much of a youngin’ to make this claim and would like to hear what others think about my diagnosis. Is the culture of the 21st century a retro culture? If so, why?
Justin, Mrs Stout would be so proud of your new verse to "We Didn't Start the Fire." While I am no expert at sociology or current culture, I will be interested to see the discussion.
ReplyDeleteTopics to think about:
1. Sporting
- the shift of "America's Team" from the Cowboys to the Patriots to the Steelers.
- The introduction of the BCS into college football.
2. Music
- The social movement created by U2
- The death of Michael Jackson
3. Grammar
- The impact of spell check
4. Public Health/medicine
- The tobacco settlement of 1998 has lead to societal norm shift against public smoking.
- Movies like "Super Size Me" and "Sicko"
- What is the 2000's version of the commercial "This is your brain on drugs"?
I look forward to your thoughts and blog postings.
@Jake a few things to think about in relation to culture:
ReplyDelete- culture isn't universal
what we think of as 50s culture and 70s culture and 2000s culture isn't necessarily what other americans think of. Certain events and people are cultural touchstones, but they're the exception rather than the rule.
- culture isn't monolithic anymore
in the 50s, 60s and 70s, "culture" was produced by a relative handful of people: politicians and those who ran the movie studios, publishing houses and television stations. since then, the number of cultural producers has exploded, as has the number of methods of cultural dissemination as well as the number of people who have access to those methods (compare the number of people who owned TVs in the 50s to the number who own them now).
- Taken together, these two ideas point to a different thesis than "We are enshrining past culture at the expense of producing new culture". Instead, I think of it more as "Americans have fewer common cultural touchstones than they did in previous decades" or even more broadly "What used to be the common 'culture' is now the individual 'personal preference'"
However you look at this trend, it is certainly happening and is most likely irreversible. One of the takeaways, in my opinion, is that the events, people and things that become "culture" in the 21st century have to be much more broadly appealing or universally interesting.
@Mark: Mrs. Stout might enjoy them, Billy Joel, however might roll his eyes. : )
ReplyDeleteI like the list you came up with--especially the notion of grammer, spelling and language in general. I think texting has had a huge impact on this. Definitely something to explore.
@Dan Wonderful notion of a monolithic culture. However, I think the idea of a cultural dissemintation also influences and produces a counter-culture. Another question lies in this thought, if there is no (or much less) of a monolithic culture, does that attribute to the lack of producing new movements.
ReplyDeleteSo many big, wonderful brains here. :) Kudos to you, Justin, for starting this thing!
ReplyDelete@Dan and Justin- I agree- there is no "universal" culture- but I think in terms of exploring this concept in one country (ie: the US) one could pretty much identify the overarching memes that define our "culture" as Americans. Certainly individuals will have differing views on this or that subject, but ask someone for the defining social moments of the last decade or most impactful persons and I think you'd find very similar responses.
More importantly, regarding "monolithic" culture- I think you've got this one backward, my fine friends. I'd argue, though more avenues to the public sphere exist today than perhaps ever before and yes, more people have access to this sphere, there is significant shrinkage when you examine who, or what, is disseminating that content. Fellows like Rupert Murdoch, entities like Time Warner and NBC/Universal, even big business like Philip Morris aka Alitra Group- have an ever-expanding reach and control over what becomes "popular" in our public and cultural sphere.
To address your point, Justin- I think everything else that fractures off from what I would argue IS a monolithic public culture today is what comprises the counter culture you speak of. Now we have millions of blogs, YouTube channels and lesser-known news sites that offer an alternative view to what I would label as "mainstream" or "monolithic" American culture. This proliferation of choice in media consumption is itself a counter culture to the big-media machine that I believe churns out what most of us view as popular or perhaps defining.
Starting this blog could be construed as your contribution to counter culture- offering a space to discuss and dissect the people and events that have shaped our experience as Americans, rather than deferring to Google trends to tell you what is important.