Off in My Own Little World
One of the things I remember hearing – and thinking – as the Internet, DVDs, and other new technology came to the fore in the Nineties was that all of these new gadgets would help spread the word on new artists; stuff that previously would have flown under the radar would get an all-new visibility. I remember signing up with the Firefly service and entering, in fairly extensive detail, my musical and other preferences; the idea was that my custom designed Firefly “agent� program would flit about the system and find other users with tastes similar to mine and let me know what other stuff they liked. The technology never quite lived up to the potential, but the Net was young, and I was pretty sure it would get better.
Today, old and new technology alike has made the situation better. I’m a member of one of the best public radio stations around, WXPN in Philadelphia. I have a Netflix account that delivers my selections from a vast library of DVDs right to my mailbox. I have digital cable that not only gives me dozens more channels, it lets me access many programs at a time of my choosing through its On Demand service. Over the years I’ve developed a huge profile at Amazon that informs their recommendation lists, and my Internet access lets me peruse message boards to see what new acts I might be missing. There should be a never-ending stream of Cool New Stuff making its way into my cranial space.
But an unanticipated – at least by me – result of this technological access is that I spend less time than ever looking for and experiencing said Cool New Stuff. There’s no television comedy or drama that I make a regular attempt to watch, and even the nonfiction programs I check out I do unfrequently. This despite the fact that I know how much I enjoy Jon Stewart, for example, and that on the rare occasions I have watched them, shows like Smallville and Angel have seemed at least somewhat up my alley. I started a thread recently about albums I’m anticipating this year. With the exception of Pete Yorn, that list bears an uncanny resemblance to the list I’d have drawn up in the beginning of 1994, not 2004. My Netflix queue is mostly dedicated to catching up on films and TV series from the last few years that I missed. And often I don’t even get to those discs for a while because I’m using the DVD player to rewatch my favorite movies and TV shows.
I don’t think this is because the creative world was so much better in the sepia-toned Nineties. There are a few idiosyncratic explanations for it. Ten or fifteen years ago, I was still figuring out who I was, and figuring out what I liked was part of that. Now I’m further along that process, and I’ve built up quite a store of books, CDs and DVDs. It takes time to re-listen, re-watch, or re-read, and that’s time that doesn’t go into finding new things. When I was in college, a large part of my social interaction was watching TV with friends or swapping books and albums around; now I stay closer to home. But what’s interesting to me is that technology has greatly expanded the depth to which one can experience particular creators and works. In a sense it helps make the old new again.
For example, Matthew Sweet hasn’t released a new album in the U.S. since 1999’s excellent In Reverse. Since even that album got criminally underplayed, there’s not a whole lot in the music press about his current projects. A decade ago, I might have shrugged my shoulders, wondered what happened to him, and tried to find something else to like on the radio. But by keeping tabs on fan sites every few months, I discovered that he released an exclusive album in Japan a few years ago that he is just now releasing in the States on his own label, that he recorded a side project album as part of The Thorns, and that he has already completed another album, which is also slated for release this year. Despite the lack of new product, the new information has kept my interest going and reduced the incentive to look elsewhere for a music fix.
Keeping current is also not nearly as vital as it used to be as technology continues its decades-long transformation of popular culture into an on-demand world. I barely remember life before the VCR, when if you wanted to see a particular movie, you better catch it in the theater or hope it would be popular enough to show up on TV; if you liked a TV show, you usually had a handful of chances to catch an episode before it disappeared. Technology enforced a schedule that ensured we had common touchstones. VCRs started the shift, making it easier to watch movies on one’s own schedule. Now I feel much less impetus to watch a TV show as soon as it airs, since I figure I can usually grab the DVD set a few months down the line. And those DVD sets usually further enhance that depth-over-breadth factor, with additional documentary features adding even more perspective. Web news sites and message boards let me keep track of current goings-on, so I know what’s going on even if I’m not directly familiar with all of it; it goes into the mental storage bank to be pulled out again when time and circumstances permit. I feel more like a pop culture historian these days than a pop culture experiencer – and given the degree that I love history, to a large extent that’s fine by me.
But as I think about it, something seems just a little wrong. While the cultural world is certainly splintering into more and more subcultures as more and more options become available, that depth and diversity has the potential to become a force of isolation. And at the same time, there is a broader pop culture out there, the folks who watch the hit movies, listen to the hit songs, and play the hit games. It’s important not to disconnect totally from that. Understanding the culture of the moment is important in understanding how people are thinking right now – not how they were thinking two or five or ten years ago, which my historian brain somehow feels more equipped to analyze. To not fully engage with contemporary popular culture feels like I’m not fully engaging with the contemporary world itself. And that would be as much of a mistake as leaving the recent past unexplored.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.