Grammy night just passed and with it comes the inevitable backlash. I came across many views formed from the same root that looked similar to the following Tweet:
"Grammy's totally sucked this year. Mainstream music is lame, it's all just American Idols and Jonas Sisters."
I hope the Jonas Brothers are not too hurt by this comment, I hear they are fragile. Turns out there has been quite the counter culture formed in response to the growing insta-celebrity culture we have formed. The "haters", as they shall be known from here to forth, seem to gain some sort of pleasure from explaining, bluntly, that our movie stars, tv shows and musicians who have become famous are frauds and non-deserving parasites. Hey, whatever gets you going, that is your own thing. What I don't really understand is the anger by which these views are spewed.
Billboard Doesn't Know
Take a look at the Billboard chart right now. Go ahead, this post isn't going anywhere and they have pretty colors. Ok, we good? Great, so anything pop out at you? Depends on your age:
Under 16: all your favorite artists are represented. The world is good.
16-21: like most of the artists, think that some are not fairly reresented
21-25: where are my indie/underground artists? this list is a joke.
Post 25: i miss U2
As a representative of the 21-25 year old demographic, I do not listen consistently to most of the artists on these "Hot" lists. But you see, I understand the more important fact behind the list. Billboard does not care for my opinion. I am not the target. They care what the popular music is based on the younger, iTunes downloding, mall-going, money spending members of society are listening to. The radio station producer is not stupid by any means. There is a reason why Ke$ha is played on a constant loop. If they were flooded by angry calls everyday demanding not one more note of "Tik Tok" be played, then it would happen in an instance. This never happens though. Radio play works much like anything in society, by the laws of supply and demand. If there is no demand for Ke$ha, there is no supply of Ke$ha. It is why no one makes pagers anymore.
So angry counter culture man, who are you mad at? It is often misplaced at the big corporations like the radio stations or the institutions giving out awards. Instead, though, they should be mad at society for demanding "bad" music.
Society is Wrong
A new catchphrase has been invented recently where someone will tell a story of their friend who likes the Jersey Shore and reads US Weekly then adds "this is why the world hates America" to the end. This is to indicate that our obsession with fake celebrity is in some way a detriment to global political debate. Honestly, people think that our love for Snooki and the Situation puts us at a disadvantage in the world.
Fortunately for America's sake, this is quite untrue. Our top export is, and will continue to be, culture. Go anywhere in the world and you will find it difficult to avoid the Americanization of culture. Now this has generated a backlash, but it is not the content of the culture simply that we have pushed our culture everywhere. We could be sending the greatest technology and life saving procedures into every household and still see a backlash. The celebrity obsession is clearly not an American issue, which means counter culture man has to step up his argument and complain that society is wrong.
"You watch Top Chef?"
Sure do.
1967 would have been terrible
The end of the road for our counter culture spokesman leads to only one place. He is resigned to the fact that we live in a cookie cutter world which shoves mainstream garbage down his proverbial entertainment throat. But, wait, a minute. What is mainstream? Where is this stream? Who is making you watch/listen/read what you are complaining about? This is the point of contention which confuses me so. This is the era of the free spirit. You can have your 1960s and 70s. They have free love and experimentation. We have complete freedom of choice in terms of EVERYTHING. The idea of mainstream is dead (or dying quickly). Jumping back to music for a second, not only can we access (almost) any song we want instantly (for free most of the time) but we can design our own radio stations, have our friends tell us what they are listening to, speak directly to our favorite bands, watch concerts in real time streaming or whenever we want. You could go the rest of your life listening only to neo-goth-metal if you wanted to. Try doing that during the so called peak of music culture.
This idea applies to all areas of the mainstream. The stream has been diverted into countless tributaries and offshoots. I can only speak for myself, but you can keep your culture time machine, I love today.
My point is that we have never been more in control of what we decide to do. If you disagree with who is most famous, don't even acknowledge them. Look away. Turn the dial.
Celebrities, we need you!
We have determined that there is nothing wrong with our culture. In fact, it is the best it has ever been simply due to the choices we have available. Now we can shift our focus to the most important thing in the world, why we need celebrities.
I have already ran long on this post, so I will keep this short and try to tie it all together. We live in society which is fragmented to a dangerous degree (kinda like how Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter endangered his soul by separating it into too many Horcruxes or when the NHL expanded into 17 more cities than they needed to). A slippery slope has appeared. Yes, we can make our world look and sound like we want it to. Often, though, this comes with isolationary qualities. Our neo-goth-metal friend is in trouble. He may be a wonderful person to talk to in regards to the new fads within the neo-goth-metal circles, but how does he connect on any level to the secretary working behind the desk or the taxi cab driver or the coworker with three kids. And what if the secretary is consumed by wedding shows or the taxi cab driver listens to nothing but classical Hungarian composers and the cowoker with three kids reads only Danielle Steele works. A disconnect is clear.
Enter celebrities. The glue of our society. As a celebrity grows larger in the cultural conscience they have the ability to draw more people together. People who may have never had anything to talk about. Aside from weather, what else is a more common or easy conversation starter than a glance at the tabloid pages? Did you hear they are making a fourth Spider Man movie? I hear the Who is playing at the Super Bowl. Do you watch Mad Men? Jon Hamm is just great, don't you think?
It would be hard to find a common point on the intersecting circle of neo-goth-metal, wedding shows, Hungarian classical music and Danielle Steele, but I would be comfortable sitting them all in a room and asking them what they thought of Tom Cruise. They will all be familiar, and familiarity breeds togetherness.
The One Where I Defend Things I Hate
Do I like that Pauly D gets $10,000 to DJ for a night or that J-Woww can demand thousands for just coming to a club? No, no I don't. Do I spend my time watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians? Nope. But I have an understanding that some things make a certain group happy. More power to these networks who have found a niche covering what seems like meaningless daily routines.
I used to be the counter culture spokesman that we have been analyzing. Then I realized the power of celebrity and the ability that we have to pick our own entertainment. The only wasted time is the time spent telling someone they are wrong to enjoy something.
No excuse me, I have a Project Runway marathon to get to.
GRM for RAL
In Defense of Celebrity
