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Deja Vu

August 13, 2004

Words do not express the pain in the ass it has been to bring this new episode to you - hope you guys dig it.

I vaguely recall a conversation I had with my father many moons ago about the Internet and youth culture. I can only vaguely remember what sparked it but the gist was that “the problem with youth” was that we were too inclined to ironically celebrate failure or eccentricity and not provide any attention to seeking out excellence, hard, work, dedication.

I think I probably argued at the time there were probably some rose coloured glasses being worn. Even in the warm softened nostalgia hues of the past the “bad-boy-rebel” was always the revered one while the future business leaders and information visionaries of the day were getting sand kicked in their face.

Nowadays however, I’m not so certain as I was. I’m starting to critically recognize the (frequent) times I rabidly revel in reams of pop-culture that actually has no touchstone for the time period in which I grew up (my knowledge base of television, breakfast cereals, and toy brands both well before and well after my formidable years is kind of disturbing). Ironic detachment has started layering to the point where there are films I no longer know if I like because they’re good, or awful, or cheesy, or stylish… because all four seem to intersect on a spherical Cartesian plane of cool. If something is bad enough it become awesome. I (like many of my contemporaries) pooh-pooh the latest 70s retro revival with derision while embracing a technosexual culture that’s going to date even worse than bell bottoms, or break dancing in 20 years. And yet, like Merlin, well aware of the impending doom of having to explain to future generations (who will be laughing hysterically) why I possibly thought it was important to pay a premium price for a “got root” t-shirt, which is funny (at it’s height of relevance) to a very small portion of society - I still have a fervent need to have techie stuff that is bigger, smaller, glowing with blue lights, and full of juice respectively.

But I’m digressing from my main focus, which is the celebration of eccentricity.
What I guess it comes down to is that culture always gets very interesting at the fringes. There’s always that very fine line where insanity and inspiration meet and dance on the head of a pin. Fall one way and people are driven to excel, to innovate, to craft fine works, fall the other and you’re a ranting street preacher who is completely incomprehensible to anyone who is not wearing a tin foil decoder hat.

Previous generations have often had some kind of physical challenge for those individuals driven to eschew the traditional and force themselves to conquer abstract goals. They fought predators, invented tools, climbed mountains, discovered countries, painted great vistas and the like. But what frontiers still exist for a culture when an off the shelf GPS can show you map of the world with your location pinpointed to within three meters?

Welcome to the 21st century where noble exploration and perverse obsession collide; Where an almost textbook heroic quest and multi-national corporation meet in a coffee shop to take some photos. The Internet has accelerated culture into a strange blend of unchecked independence and consumerist gusto… and it’s only been around in it’s populist form for ten years at most I can only imagine where we’re going to be in the next ten… probably a Starbucks.

Congratulations, you made it to the end. Here is a fun game involving corralling balloons.

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