Keeping up with pop culture in the present is a tough enough concept to wrap your head around, but this train is showing no signs of stopping! So many technological advances over the last decade have redefined how we view and hear our culture, and many more are appearing on the horizon.
INTERNET
- You can't deny the power of the all mighty internet. This new kid is bullying his way right to the center of attention, and picking up popularity by the minute. Younger generations, those that are just in the toddler stages now, will not know of a world without high speed access to anything. They will expect more. With personal devices like iphones an zunes granting mobile access from anywhere, it will be even more difficult to get the attention of a teenage kid once he has the equivelant of a satelite dish and x-box 360 right there in his hands.
- You tube-esque sites will continue to be an outlet for up and coming performers, musicians, and filmmakers, which will grant even more people their 15 minutes of fame. The other side of the coin is that it will be more difficult to obtain and keep a substantial following to make a career out of art.
TELEVISION
- More channels. Yup, you thought that 350 channels (not including the pay-per-view) was too many? Get used to it. Population growth and further expansion of signal will result in more options.
- With more people competing for attention, the 'professionals' that create programs will have to really shine. Say a kid from Nebraska can shoot films with a minimum budget and limited resources, and those films are clever and entertaining and gain enough popularity to get over a million hits on an internet site. If a televsion program is going to compete with that, they need to utilize their bigger budgets and fancier toys and produce what that kid cannot.
MUSIC
- The CD will follow the 8-track, cassette tape, Beta and laser disk to the graveyard of forgotten technology. Since the invention of the ipod and similar gadgets, it is just pointless to lug around any music collection that can't fit into your pocket. I used to drive around with two huge cases, the size of phonebooks, full of CD's. Now, the same collection, and more, fit into something the size of half a deck of playing cards.
- Practically all music will be purchased online. This will produce a rise in the sale of singles. It's already starting. There are plenty of people who would rather buy a few 99 cent tracks rather than spending 10 bucks on an entire album.
- Will the album cease to exist? No. Most artits will continue to release material in bulk. The good ones will hold true to the standards of previous greats and put out albums with concept and arching theme in mind.
- Vinyl will survive. It's outlasted cassette tapes, and it will outlast the CD. Vinyl still has the most pure sound out there, and that will still count for something to music junkies. They will not be as prominent, but they will still exist.
LITERATURE
- Yeah, the number of people that will not read for recreation will probably grow with the growing population and flashy stuff everywhere. The good news is that the number of us who do still get a kick out of tangible, wonderful books, will still create a need for more. Ray Bradbury's Farhenheit 451 showed this necessity so well. Even if the rest of the world gets hypnotized and drawn away from the aspect of reading, there will be those that realize how much better a story looks in our own imaginations.
It is this recognition of quality, even if it only exists in a minority of the population, that will keep culture respectable. There is a heavy responsibility on those of us who were of the last to remember a childhood without such constant media influence. Hopefully, we can remember ourselves long enough to resist settling for mediocre culture, and influence future generations to do the same.
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