Today's pop culture...

[trancejeremy]

The Logan's Run thread over in the media section had me thinking about this: Is it just me, or is the pop culture (like music and fashion and such) of today, really really bland? For that matter, what the heck is today's pop culture?

I mean, in the 70s, you had Disco. You had outlandish clothes, big gaudy cars, weird looking hair.

In the early 80s, it was New Wave. Clothes and hair got weirder.

The later 80s saw the rise of hair metal and rap. Clothes from then look pretty stupid now, but it did have a certain look that I can't describe.

The early 90s saw grunge, in both fashion and music.

Basically, if you watch a movie from any of those eras, you can tell when it was made (like Logan's Run), just how people dress, look.

Nowadays, it actually looks like the 70s has returned, only minus the gaudy stuff. Teenage boys all have haircuts like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Most the girls have haircuts like Farah Fawcett. Even some of the fashions - the shirts and jeans look like they are from the 70s. Sadly, no leisure suits, but pimped out cars have kinda made a return. Though usually imports.

Anyway, no real point in this. Just something that's been bugging me. Maybe I'm too old to understand the nuances of today's pop culture and so it looks boring.

 

[jaerdaph]

You know our parents said the same thing about our generation.

 

[RangerWickett]

Fashion this generation is about eclectic styles and casual sexiness. Pop culture is defined by the erosion of distance caused by the internet and other global communication. People have more freedom to seek out things they like with ease, so there is less drive to make things with mass appeal, perhaps.

We seem to be all about where we've been, since we don't know where we're going. Fashion reflects the past, and there's nothing new under the sun (or at least not in Hollywood). If you recall a commercial from the early 2000s, Captain Sisko from DS9 exclaimed "I was PROMISED flying cars! WHERE are my flying cars?!"

We've reached the future. We don't know where to go from here, so we look to the past, to other cultures, and are churning the melting pot again. Too many artists seem to be stuck trying to recapture the past, but the really successful stories and musical works are the innovative ones that actually address our confusion with the modern day.

LOST, Rescue Me, Desperate Housewives, and many other shows revolve around restless and confused characters who can't seem to get out of their predicaments. Monk is about an insane man who will never get better. Venture Bros. is all about riffing on cartoon classics, while Chapelle Show genuinely tried to make us look at our beliefs and assumptions.

Maybe we should look at the most popular TV shows and see how they differ, or the sitcoms. We don't have Seinfeld anymore. What's 2006's Seinfeld, and what does it say about us?

 

[Ranger REG]

The Logan's Run thread over in the media section had me thinking about this: Is it just me, or is the pop culture (like music and fashion and such) of today, really really bland? For that matter, what the heck is today's pop culture?

I mean, in the 70s, you had Disco. You had outlandish clothes, big gaudy cars, weird looking hair.

In the early 80s, it was New Wave. Clothes and hair got weirder.

The later 80s saw the rise of hair metal and rap. Clothes from then look pretty stupid now, but it did have a certain look that I can't describe.

The early 90s saw grunge, in both fashion and music.

The late 90's saw 1960-retro.

It's only natural, with the help of 70's Show and most recent Invincible film (about a thirty-something bartender who tried out for the Eagles football team), that this decade we're going back to the 70's.

Which can only mean ... SIGHS ... the 80's are coming back in sometime in 2010. That can only mean one thing ... PBS will showcase 80's hit songs as part of their pledge drive, alongside the doo-wops, the 60's, and the 70's greatest hits.

Damn, I feel old.

 

[Fishbone]

Good, the 80s should come back, if only for the music.
Hardcore rap and thrash must rise again!
On the clothing and fashion side, none of this should be acceptable
Guys wearing eyeliner and make up
Spray on deoderant
Popped collars
Wearing a pink shirt if you aren't a good chested lady
Idiotic band shirts that make no freaking sense
Grills

 

[MonkeyDragon]

I lament the loss of good children's television.

When I was a kid, we had Voltron, Thundercats and Silverhawks, as well as classics like Loony Toons. The Simpsons was new and exciting. For little kids, there was Sesame Street and the Polka Dot Door (I think the latter may have been on the Canadian station that we in the Detroit area got).

Now what? The cartoons I see now all seem to be about oddly drawn kids and their wacky hijinks...most of which seem to involve gross-out humor and lumpy green goo. And one mom I've talked to says it's getting harder to find Sesame Street on the air. Sesame Street! Now, I'm not for babysitting one's kids with TV, but this was a show that had me singing ABCs and counting to ten at age two.

I'm sure there are entertainment gems that I've just not seen, but this is what's been on every time I walk past a TV with a cartoon playing.

 

[Gunslinger]

This is actually a question that's been on my mind quite a bit lately. As Ranger Wicket pointed out, today's "pop culture" had become much more fragmented than in the past due the sheer depth and quality available over such a multitude of sources (1000 tv channels, internet, radio). Rather than creating media with universal appeal, the niches are being more explored than I believe they previously have. There was recently a segment on the Colbert Report in which nielsen ratings for the most popular TV shows of the times were compared. I Love Lucy controlled 60% of the tv audience in it's time, while today American Idol only has 25%.

Personally, as a 20 year old male at a major university, I simply can't comprehend the segment of the population that enjoys watching shows like American Idol and Real World, finds grills appealing, and eats up whatever music Clear Channel chooses to play 10+ times per day. IMO you are right about the blandness today, mainstream pop culture seems to pander to the lowest common denominator.

Some days it seems to me that I'm just about the only one my age I know with any sense of taste (I don't mean to sound like a snob, but in the last few days I have had one of my female friends tell me she likes Paris Hilton's music, and another who professes to enjoy rap who had never heard of a little song called "Changes" by Tupac) or any genuine interest in what is going on in the world around us, and it makes me sad.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Thank cable for the loss of cartoons - with the glut of channels the quality watered down and the price floor dropped. "The Big 3" all got sick of trying to compete and dropped their Saturday line-ups for news. the WB and UPN picked-up where the others left off but now they are combining into one network, so who knows.

As for the fashion of the age, it will be recognizeable, in about 10 years. the grunge thing wasn't really recognizeable at the time either, not until the late 90s did it really show its age, the same will happen with this "disjointed" fashion era we are in, but there are a few things that stand out: "Oriental, Biker and Gothic" print button up shirts, my son has about 15 in his closet and 8 on his floor; The return of Pink, my daughter has more pink clothing than I care to recall (and she doesn't even like pink); the cammie/poet blouse and fitted bell-bottoms (not those nasty 40 foot wide ones from the 70's, but the cute flaired legs), Gothic anything (neo-Goth/ the Goth style popularized by non-Goths/ is pulling this along; Underwear as outerwear, in the 80s we called this backwards day, today its called Tuesday... :/ ); Retro-anything (regardless of the year 40s,50s,60s,70s,80s,90s, its all good); Broadway Bumpkin' (the modern Urban Cowboy).

In a few years the kids of tomorrow will look back and tell our kids, you wore THAT - ewwwww!

 

[RangerWickett]

IMO you are right about the blandness today, mainstream pop culture seems to pander to the lowest common denominator.

This is the same as it has been in the past. The lowest common denominator hasn't changed. You've just decided (unconsciously, through years of habit and socializing) that you are better than most people, so you spurn what they like so that you don't have to feel like you're also part of the "lowest common denominator."

Back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, I'm sure all the folks here who were in grade school or high school at those times listened to their fair share of trash too. We just only remember the good stuff, so we don't recall that we had crappy tastes back then.

I mean, who else here listened to Def Leppard or Pantera or Ghetto Boyz, or watched Peewee's Playhouse or Gummi Bears or M.A.N.T.I.S.? None of these were bad, but they certainly weren't high-class, intellectual works of art.

Now, I'm not saying I'm not a snob too. I don't watch American Idol, or most reality TV, but I enjoy my fair share of low-denominator music along with my classics-in-the-making, like Black Eyed Peas or Outkast.

 

[Thunderfoot]

What's wrong with Def Leppard!!!! - I'll get you for this Ryan.
Outkast - classics in the making? Boy, self-depricating humor has found a new high in lows. Good job.