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Notes -
Do you see an end to pop culture within our lifetimes?
Undeniably, we've reached the bookend to the 80's blockbuster era of mega franchises like Star Wars. But the vibe of recent years is not only "These corporate products suck" but a subtle apathy toward media in general. Songs are going viral on TikTok, hitting #1 for a single week, then disappearing. Obscure songs from the past are going briefly viral and then disappearing. We see and consume more media than ever, yet paradoxically we care about it less than ever too. There are no new phenomena like the Deadheads or 80s goths where media spearheads an alternate lifestyle. There are no new games we continue talking about for years after release. Fanbases are less passionate, less distinct, and shorter lived. Fanfiction is less popular. Being a gen Z fan of the smiths or deftones means having their greatest hits in your playlist while not knowing any of the band members besides Morrissey, Marr and Chino, let alone their history, their gear, their influences, famous gigs, etc. Modern artists get this treatment too. People just don't care anymore.
Do you guys notice that in your hobbies too? I.e. younger "fans" totally lacking the ability to nerd out? Do you sense the general level of passion drying up?
I'm 21, which places me well on the younger tip of my two biggest strictly recreational interests: MLB and menswear, and I would generally say I make a serious attempt at nerding out in those areas. What I think has changed is how atomized the communities are from broader audiences. Being a baseball fan 60 years ago meant arguing over whether Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle was better. Today, it means arguing over whether or not to use defense-adjusted or fielding-independent statistics to measure the value of pitchers, which is a much more interesting question (Mays was clearly the better player), but also far more granular and inaccessible to casual fans and passive bystanders. Similarly, I think a lot of people are surface-level fans of the Smiths than in the past, but I think past Smiths fans are probably pretty comparable to present Bladee fans in terms of depth of knowledge (although Bladee is probably a much bigger leap for a non-fan than the Smiths are). I think it's actually gotten harder than ever to start getting interested in a lot of subjects because most of the in-depth communities are in so deep that there aren't really any clearly visible footholds to start off with.
I agree with you but it’s also a very online thing. In real life an autistic hardcore fan is happy to talk to a casual fan at a party because it’s still better than talking to the 90% of other people who don’t care about [baseball / The Smiths / coffee] very much at all.
I have found that I can't stand reading anything written by most fanbases of the things I nerd out over, but I am happy to discuss with those I happen to meet in person. People can really be insufferable assholes online.
This may work both ways, because then there's the Motte. Which makes me wonder how recognizable any of us on the Motte would be to one another in real life, or if we would have anything at all to say to each other. Probably not nearly as much as we type.
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