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Journal Entries: |
28 January 2001 - by Scott Grafton I have been doing some thinking for the past hour, and I would like to report my findings right here, right now. Hey! It's your tomorrow! Right now! Wait! I'm terribly sorry. I slipped into some Van Halen lyrics. As you can see, the thinking I have just thought upon has warped my sense of reality.
When Van Halen gets into your mind, you know that all Hell is going to break loose. Anyway, on to my ponderous ramblings. It all started when I began thinking about all of the websites out there that owe much of their content to past cultural icons, such as Mr. T, the Harlem Globetrotters, Brisco County Jr., and Richard Simmons.
This guy is not one of the aforementioned cultural icons. I surf the net a lot, probably too much, and the stuff I find is either useless, "look-at-me-I'm-special-because-I-can-build-a-webpage" type pages, porn sites, or humorous sites. More often than not, these humorous sites crack jokes at the past cultural icons. I ask the question, "Why must we look to the past to humor ourselves?" Is the past really that funny? It may be a little weird and out-dated, but that is the point of being the past. The past is always weird. It's weird because it's something that hasn't been experienced for quite some time. It's kind of like watching Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure after not seeing it for about 6 years. You laugh at it. You make fun of it. Even when there is no joke present. Why? Because it is stupid, little, yellow, different. Nuprin. Do they sell that stuff anymore?
Anyway, the point I am trying to make, but failing at miserably, is that why can't we be satisfied with making fun of our present day culture? Why can't we let the past be and get on with our lives? Why is it so appealing to us to dig up some dead fad from twenty years ago? Well, the answer is probably simpler than what most would think. I believe the answer to this riddle is that we are currently in a cultural slump. I mean really, what can define our culture today? All I see today is old fads being brought back to life. An example of this is the Backstreet Boys, N'sync, 98 Degrees, and those other boy bands. Do you really think that the boy band began at this day and age? Hell no. It started way back when. Back to the Jackson Five and even before that. I think the most relevant old boy band would be none other than The New Kids on the Block.
I believe the root to our cultural slump links all the way to our technology. In today's world, everything is high paced. People want things now. They don't want to hear, "It may take a few days."
People nowdays would die if they had their cable modem connections and cellular phones taken away from them. The hyperactive, rush-rush pace of today basically prevents us from having new cultural breakthroughs. I mean sure, we have Baywatch and Ally McBeal, but I don't watch that stuff. I don't think those shows define what our culture is today. We aren't all beautiful and have big, gigantic breasts, or are anorexic.
Now back in the day, Mr. T defined a culture. He was all about "Stay in School!" "Drink Milk!" "Don't Do Drugs!" If you went against his word in those days, you'd be the sucka who T was gonna take out.
But today, it is not the case. Who is going to take me out for not following the fads of today? There's no one today to call me the sucka just because I don't have big breasts and an eating disorder. I'm ashamed of the American culture. We really have nothing in common. There's no one around to whom we can all look up to and say, "Hey, now there's a cool, yet wise person!" I fear our future as a nation. If TRL is the only binding force for teenagers, intellectually challenged ones at that, then I don't want to be a part of this culture. Where am I to go? What can people like me do? The answer to that: Look to the past. Find something long forgotten and bring it back to life. Hopefully we'll be able to slow down in the future and make something new for ourselves. The icons of today die too quickly. For now though, I am completely satisfied with the past. It's interesting. It's fun to discover what's been lost for so long. Thus is where my thoughts end. |
