A representative of my generation...
I just read the Onion article...
Perhaps I am merely a product of society and my generation—but I have trouble believing I am putting history into crisis mode by enjoying various musical samplings and clothing styles from the last four decades…
Really? Like…really??? "if current levels of U.S. retro consumption are allowed to continue unchecked, we may run entirely out of past by as soon as 2005…" Well, as of 2007, I do not feel as if we have “run out of past,” but then again I am not an historian.
I am probably posting too quickly after reading this article, but my reactions to it were so strong, I feel like I have to indulge in potentially saying something uninformed by not reading everything first. I have taken note that the article was written in 1997, as in pre-9/11 as it has now become to be known, and a lot has changed culturally. However, here I am, wearing one of my mother’s shirts from the sixties as I do on a regular basis, wondering if this act is aiding in destroying my country’s cultural heritage…or maybe my mom had awesome fashion sense that is pretty enduring and clothes were made better then and didn’t dissintegrate after one season of washing…
One of my father’s claims to fame in our family is his ability to name the title and artist of any song played on his favorite oldies radio station (much to his chagrin, and my amusement, his new car’s radio screen now posts the group/title and through technology, I am now able to foil his attempts to look savy…mwa ha ha!) I am not sure if my father falls into a category of prolonged nostalgia or not—granted, he does love his oldies and only occasionally mixes it up with smooth jazz or classical, but we have gotten him to throw in some Norah Jones and Dave Matthews Band. Is he nostalgic, stuck in his ways, or does he simply prefer a certain genre of music—and is that a bad thing?
I had considered the onslaught of mp3 players as potentially culturally cultivating simply because with a device that holds thousands of songs encourages the listener to be more adventurous with his/her musical samplings—with a cd or tape player, I may have had one or two modern albums with me—now, my little iPod carries Schubert, Edith Piaf, A Perfect Circle, The Beatles, The Violent Femmes, and a variety of other artists spanning decades and centuries…little did I know I wasn’t simply listening to various types of music I happened to like, but that I was adding to a downward spiral of cultural sabotage!
If new styles are still being created, is it bad to appreciate the old stuff? I wonder what the authors of this article say today, ten years later? Culturally speaking is one thing, but socio-politically, I am definitely feeling some nostalgia for 1997…