What's The Next Big Pop Cultural Push?

[MGibster]

Worlds biggest youtuber may actually be more relevant than Hulk Hogan in his prime.

I was a huge fan of wrestling for about three years from 1985 until 1988. I watched Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n Wresltling cartoon, never missed the World Wrestling Federation's Saturday Night's Main Event, and even wrestled with my peers in emulation of those wrestling gods. My interested pretty much ended with my discovery of girls and the creation of a vaccination that ended the Cootie epidemic.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure how relevant Hulk Hogan ever was. He was certainly a cultural icon. Even if you didn't watch wrestling you had probably heard of Hulk Hogan and might even have recognized him. There was nothing we could do to prevent Hulkamania from running wild all over us. Contrast that with Mr. Beast whom I had never even heard of until a few years ago when he had long established himself as the premier YouTuber and was (seemingly) fabulously wealthy. It's hard to make comparisons between now and the 1980s because media is so fragmented today. This fragmented media is probably why I hadn't heard of Mr. Beast until a few years back.

I don't think he'll ever have the relevance of Hulk Hogan though. Hogan was/is a household name. Mr. Beast isn't and probably won't ever be.

 

[Kaodi]

I still have no idea who MrBeast is. I have heard of him before but when I saw that name the first thing that came to mind was The Beast, Eddie Hall, whose clips I keep seeing on Facebook recently.

 

[Zardnaar]

I still have no idea who MrBeast is. I have heard of him before but when I saw that name the first thing that came to mind was The Beast, Eddie Hall, whose clips I keep seeing on Facebook recently.

Worlds biggest youtuber. Recently had a $100 milion show on Amazon Prime.

Does large wash prizes type youtube comment. Free car, Lamborghini, yachet, million dollar type videos.

Older videos won 10k doing xyz or give monet away.

 

[TiQuinn]

It’s kind of weird seeing comparisons of Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson to Hulk Hogan. I guess the only thing I’d offer up is that culturally for awhile Hogan had a bigger impact and it remains to be seen what Donaldson does. Financially, Hogan made a lot of money for Vince McMahon. Donaldson has made a lot of money for himself.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Media consumption habits are formed as children.

That's clearly not entirely true. Perhaps not even meaningfully true.

If it was, I'd watch loads of broadcast TV, and listen to BBC Radio 4 constantly.

Instead, I don't watch anywhere near as much TV of any kind as I used to, and the way I watch it is completely different (intentional streamed, rather than lazing in front of what was on or staying up late to watch C4 or w/e), listen to podcasts and audiobooks, not the radio, and frankly watch a ton of stuff on YouTube.

Having been raised on YouTube as preschoolers, I can’t seem my grandkids suddenly switching to the BBC when they hit adulthood.

I don't think they will switch to broadcast TV, but I also don't think they'll stick with child entertainment YouTube celebs any more than my generation stuck with CBBC (or whatever it was called when I was a kid, I don't even remember now!). And I think YouTube's format itself is kind of on a clock for everything but informational videos (which will live on immortally on it). In fact I'd go as far as to say YouTube personalities are kind of dinosaurs at this point. They're on the clock too. That's exactly part of why people are trying to make the transition to streaming TV - because they see it as having more time left than YouTube celeb stuff does.

And kids absolutely do watch streaming shows, and indeed, some are virtually raised on Disney+ or the like, so we can't pretend they don't watch streamed video content.

Conventional streamers like Netflix will follow the BBC into irrelevance, just a few years later.

When though? I'm not seeing any real evidence that streaming services are "becoming irrelevant" and certainly not that non-informational YouTube is "becoming more relevant" than it was, say, four-five years ago (whereas informational YouTube arguably has become more relevant or at least better-known). Broadcast TV has dropped off hard for all age ranges, but streaming doesn't seem to have the same issue.

Maybe we'll see some drastic swing away from streaming in a future generation, but people predicted that extensively with Gen Z, and... it didn't happen.

 

[Zardnaar]

Steamers will likely consolidate into top 3 or so.

 

[Kichwas]

We're in an age of decentralized, balkanized media.

20+ years ago if I liked Star Trek and you like Star Wars we'd see each other as in the same fandom and just argue about which was better.

Now if we were both Gen-whatever-comes-after-Z and I'm into 'this' but you're into 'that' we might not even be aware the other's fandom still uses the alphabet let alone exists. We don't even debate which one is better at that point.

I think the next big pop-culture push is the end of pop-culture.

As strange as that may seem, it's key to note that pop-culture barely pre-dates the post WWII era.

The early proto-stages of it begin with radio and cinema, but it didn't take off until the rise of 'Americana' coinciding with a post-war baby boom in Western and Asian countries.

Now we have an almost global culture, but also a lack of even local cultures.

As soon as K-Pop fades, I think someone's just going to come along with a broom, sweep up the floor, and turn off the lights on 'pop'.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm a terrible, terrible person to ask.

I never would have predicted the runaway success of The Great British Baking Show. And yet there it is, one of the best and most successful shows of recent years, and from such a humble and simple formula.

And before that? No way I could have predicted the success of "reality TV" a couple decades ago, either. That whole genre (subculture? cult?) still baffles me. Take the least-interesting people they could find, put them in the least-interesting situations they could fabricate, and film it.

I mean...I can't even explain how I end up mostly watch long-format essays on YouTube now. About historic recipes and deep-sea creatures. About our country's legal system, or the funeral industry. About old episodes of Murder She Wrote, and the field of civil engineering.

You wanna know what's next? What's next?! Don't ask me, I clearly haven't a clue.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As strange as that may seem, it's key to note that pop-culture barely pre-dates the post WWII era.

Pop culture requires media to disseminate it. So it changed much more slowly when all you had was wandering bards!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's clearly not entirely true. Perhaps not even meaningfully true.

A large part of the job of a secondary science teacher is trying to unteach the misconceptions children have acquired as pre-schoolers. The younger a human is, the faster they learn, and the harder it is for them to unlearn that stuff later. That doesn't mean that they don't ever change, but it becomes harder and slower as they get older. I do the standard model of particle physics with year 7 in science club, because that kind of weirdness is much easier to accept when they are 11 than when they are 17 and have to do it for A level. The fact that you have heard of something called "BBC Radio 4" sets you apart from current high-schoolers. At my age (about 10 years older than you I think) I still listen to it on the car radio.

I also don't think they'll stick with child entertainment YouTube celebs

No, they will move on to adult YouTube streamers. It's a natural progression from Blippy to Mr Beast.