How easily can cultural tidbit attain 'immortality'?

Geronimo · August 9, 2003, 23:56

Ever notice that a few items in history seem to have achieved a kind of cultural immortality in that they continue to see use regardless of trends in fashion in recognizable form decade after decade, century after century? Things like classical music, Shakespears plays, or religious texts are good examples. Well, does anybody think any of the pop culture of recent decades has any chance to achieve such immortality or is it clear that something more special is required? I guess I'll assume that something like recognizably human civilization will continue for at least a few more centuries. So far I'd bet on at least some of the pop music recordings of the last few decades achieving this sort of status, but maybe the rest of you have other ideas?

Space05us · August 10, 2003, 00:03

Star Wars and Star Trek will be around for at least a few more decades. Barbie might make it into a century or two.

Frozzy · August 10, 2003, 00:04

Spam!

GePap · August 10, 2003, 00:06

Something of this era will attain the status of cannon. No idea what exactly, but somehting must.

The new increase in the ability to store data will make it much easier for certaint things to make it, though anything that is tied to closely to the time in which it was made does not have much chance, as it looses a connection to other times.

Geronimo · August 10, 2003, 00:08

hrmm, perhaps I should add twinkies. If we throw a couple boxes in the Yucca mountain depository they will probably outlast the nuclear waste.

Verto · August 10, 2003, 00:08

Harry Potter?

Geronimo · August 10, 2003, 00:11

I'd have to give Tolkiens' Lord of the Rings better odds than Harry Potter but then I have to admit I haven't gotten around to reading a Potter book yet.

Space05us · August 10, 2003, 00:12

Quote:

Spam!

at first I thought you were calling this thread spam.
I dont think spam will be famous for much longer.

Jokes last a long time though, anyone care to finish?

"I can make you speak Idian."

(points at your shirt) "You have something on your shirt."

Dr Strangelove · August 10, 2003, 00:17

"Lord of the Rings"?

mrmitchell · August 10, 2003, 00:19

Frozzy's right. Spam is a food, a God-status comedy group's skit, and an unsolicited commercial e-mail--all 3 of which are very important things to be. A triple-whammy, if you will.

I already said, Monty Python will stay around. As will Star Trek...even if only for the symbolism if true, utter geekiness. Star Wars is nothing but a line of movies, and its chances of still being more than a cultural footnote in, say, 25 years is a little doubtable.

As for my own suggestions:

-Pop music recordings will be studied by music scholars as "the Dark Ages" of musical recording. (If only we were so lucky...)
-the concept of a beige box holding delicate electronics hooked up to another beige box with a screen will go out. Who knows when? but it will go out. (slow) prototypes of "computer glasses" already exist. as wireless connections become cheaper and faster, and computers themselves become smaller, cheaper, and faster, eventually we'll start carrying around notebooks everywhere, having something simple (say an mp3 player) integrated into our clothes, or have, hell, PDAs all over us. Who knows?
-DVDs will probably not last long. it's probably already possible with technology to double or triple their capacity in a smaller format, were it not for the need of a single simple standard.
-Apolyton will be a cultural landmark by 2020. After civilisation (not the game) collapses, alien archaeoligists will discover "think boxes" with data about an "ultimate civilisation site", suggesting that this "Apolyton" was an important world forum.
-soft drinks will be around until caffeine is banned. expect people suing Coca-Cola for making them addicted, and kids growing up thinking of caffeine with the same stigma that cigarettes have today. It's an unfortunate inevitability as more "protect the Idiots" groups get together and do things like sue fast food for making ppl fat

-people who send message spams on IRC will be hunted down by a whole federal bureau devoted to the task. the Federal Task Force on Killing Spamming Bastards

-Fast food places will, for the most part, have cleaned up their act and offered the bland, boring thing called "healthy" food. you'll roll through the drive-through and get a McBurger with no fat, no preservatives, and no taste.

But they will, indeed, be around.

(kinda threadjacked there a little, have I? I dunno. It's kind of a vague topic really

)

mrmitchell · August 10, 2003, 00:21

Quote:

Harry Potter?

Perhaps if Rowling's books did NOT become instant box office hits, it might help their staying power. A whole part of megafandom lies in being a fan while it ain't something big.

Geronimo · August 10, 2003, 00:25

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell

(kinda threadjacked there a little, have I? I dunno. It's kind of a vague topic really

)

Only a little. I guess I was hoping to have people identify things that have a shot of surviving indefinately in human culture rather than for instance, predictions of what technology will continue to be used in the relatively near future.

Frozzy · August 10, 2003, 00:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Space05us

at first I thought you were calling this thread spam.

I was hoping someone would do that

mrmitchell · August 10, 2003, 00:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Geronimo

Only a little. I guess I was hoping to have people identify things that have a shot of surviving indefinately in human culture rather than for instance, predictions of what technology will continue to be used in the relatively near future.

Meh. Technology IS culture, fool.

As for the "culture" around us, Hollywood movies and music will probably be looked upon as the "big pile of **** from the 1900s" by future historians. However, we will always have The King (of rock n' roll), "big hair" and "80s" will always be synonymous, etc. But aside from a few links as, say, Britney Spears = Slut, I can't think of a lot of the drivel that is produced today becoming a cultural thing, ESPECIALLY anything "high culture" like Shakespeare or Classical Music would be.

I suspect Albert Speer will come in about 15 minutes and tell you about how rap is the new Shakespeare...ah, it'll be a good laugh.

notyoueither · August 10, 2003, 00:53

The music of the Sixties.

ajbera · August 10, 2003, 02:21

Superman.
Rock and Roll in general, and the Beatles in particular.
I think Star Trek will influence us for a long time to come.

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:31

mrmitchell:

rap-like artforms have already pre-dated shakespeare... ever heard of bards?

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:35

and i completely disagree with every bit of bullshit in this thread...

what was shakespeare and classical music during their times? shakespeare was a lewd playwright who, to most contemporaries, had bastardized the fine art of play-writing... he completley broke away from the established Greek and French customs and story-lines and didn't always write in verse...

who would have thought that Shakespeare's plays, which during the 16th and 17th centuries were seen as rude and inferior and nothing more than a little show for the dirty masses would now be classics?

Rufus T. Firefly · August 10, 2003, 02:48

The very nature of pop culture is that it's not supposed to last. By that reasoning, Lord of the Rings shouldn't count here, since Tolkien was actually trying to create an enduring mythology. Lucas wasn't trying -- but then, Star Wars won't endure.

You want to know what bit of 20th century pop culture will last? It's not a work, it's a genre: the American hard-boiled crime story, of the Dashiell Hammett/Raymond Chandler/James M. Cain variety. Invented in the 20's and 30's, it continues to inform contemporary pop culture (think of The Usual Suspects, LA Confidential, and a host of lesser vehicles, as well as genre crossover pieces like Bladerunner) and has created a character -- the trenchcoat- and fedora-wearing private eye -- that is probably second only to the cowboy as an American popular icon. I really think it will last.

Beyond that, my money's always on the Beatles.

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 02:54

Rufus:

and because rap is really the only music form to take those crime stories and put them to verse and music, rap will last as sure as the stories of those authours you mentioned will last...

Rufus T. Firefly · August 10, 2003, 03:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Rufus:

and because rap is really the only music form to take those crime stories and put them to verse and music, rap will last as sure as the stories of those authours you mentioned will last...

I don't think rap will last. I think the spirit of rap will last, but that spirit pre-dates rap, and can be traced back to Mississippi Delta blues, among other sources.

FrustratedPoet · August 10, 2003, 05:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
which during the 16th and 17th centuries were seen as rude and inferior and nothing more than a little show for the dirty masses would now be classics?

It's worth noting that there were several private performances of Shakespeare plays for the English Royalty during his lifetime. So they weren't solely appreciated by the unwashed masses.

However, your general point stands I think.

Geronimo · August 10, 2003, 07:52

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmitchell

Meh. Technology IS culture, fool.

As for the "culture" around us, Hollywood movies and music will probably be looked upon as the "big pile of **** from the 1900s" by future historians. However, we will always have The King (of rock n' roll), "big hair" and "80s" will always be synonymous, etc. But aside from a few links as, say, Britney Spears = Slut, I can't think of a lot of the drivel that is produced today becoming a cultural thing, ESPECIALLY anything "high culture" like Shakespeare or Classical Music would be.

I suspect Albert Speer will come in about 15 minutes and tell you about how rap is the new Shakespeare...ah, it'll be a good laugh.

I didn't object to listing technologies (although for a technology to be a candidate it must not be possible for it to ever become obsolete). I just thought it looked like you were making forcecasts as to what things might be around for the next couple of decades rather than thinking *really* long term.

Geronimo · August 10, 2003, 07:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
and i completely disagree with every bit of bullshit in this thread...

what was shakespeare and classical music during their times? shakespeare was a lewd playwright who, to most contemporaries, had bastardized the fine art of play-writing... he completley broke away from the established Greek and French customs and story-lines and didn't always write in verse...

who would have thought that Shakespeare's plays, which during the 16th and 17th centuries were seen as rude and inferior and nothing more than a little show for the dirty masses would now be classics?

Good grief AS. I said those things are examples of things that have demonstrated cultural immortality and then I asked what recent items might get added to that list. That is an invititation for you to post your opinion not some sort of attack on every cultural candidate I didn't cite as an example!

:) Smiley · August 10, 2003, 11:13

Things only reach cultural immortality when they enter public domain and new works start being made based on them.

The way US copyright laws keep getting extended, most things die out and drop off the radar screens before such can happen.

st_swithin · August 10, 2003, 11:20

The only things that endure are those to which people can somehow attribute their faith; hence, the Bible, Barbie, and Bach - also known as the three B's.

Sleepers, awake!

What's big, green and slimy and lives at the bottom of the ocean downstairs from Moby Snot?

Anjelica Huston!

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 11:22

Geronimo:

What I meant to say was that today's classics were yesterday's embarrassments... so all the people here saying that pop music or 20th century hollywood would be seen as the dark ages are dead wrong... if history proves right, they would be classics.

FrustratedPoet · August 10, 2003, 11:30

I'm not sure it's as clear cut as that Albert. You're grossly over-simplifying things.

st_swithin · August 10, 2003, 11:37

Said one Idiot to an apprentice indiot:
"I can make you speak Idian."

Said the Walrus to the Eggman (points at your shirt) "You have something on your shirt."

Al B. Sure! · August 10, 2003, 11:44

Frustrated Poet:

i know but some certain people in this thread are over-simplifying **** by saying that whatever their elitist attitudes consider as bad will be seen as the dark ages while whatever little underground thing they like will be glorified...