PBR, trucker hats, and lawn bowling
There was a great Frontline report a few years ago called "The Merchants of Cool" that invariably comes up in every conversation I have with others about a) media conglomeration and/or b) trend watching.
I have this love/hate relationship with cool hunters - I openly mock their work, but I secretly wish I were one. It's how I felt in high school - I viewed the popular "in" crowd with derision and scorn, but had they ever offered me the opportunity to enter their mysterious world, I probably would have jumped at the chance.
So today's article in the NYT filled me with many of the same feelings of scorn, bemusement, genuine interest and secret envy.
Q. ...Could you detail some of the trends you have been tracking recently for clients?Mr. Welch: There's "anticool," for those who think cool has been democratized, and the mainstream has access to it because of InStyle, MTV.
Ms. Lazarus: It's a defensive strategy by the leading-edge culture against the mainstream appropriation of cool.
Mr. Welch: There's a reappraisal of things traditionally deemed uncool: trucker hats, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller High Life beers, heavy-metal music.
Ms. Lazarus: It's the whole "white trash" culture, which has been the antithesis of designer culture. In the U.K., the coolest places to hang out are plain old pubs.
We've seen a resurgence in what we call ironic pastimes: camping, lawn bowling, knitting.
Um...yeah. I want to be cool, therefore I mock marketing efforts that openly cater to my desires. I look instead to my "cool" friends and neighbors (all of who sport mustaches, star tattoos, and regularly throw around words like "pomo") and emulate them. Of course, these people are the ones who are being approached by "cool hunters"...so, in the end, I'm being marketed to anyway. But only indirectly, so I guess that's ok.
I'm growing weary of irony. I still want to be a cool hunter - but only if I can be an ironic cool hunter.
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I was personally shocked, when I went to Florida, of all the "Von Dutch Trucker hats" on sale in the various trendy stores, selling at around 80 dollars. Especially when you consider a "trucker hat" is really a cheap baseball cap.
I wonder how much "cool" is influenced by capitalism. I'm sure various clothing manufacturers and the like go to Real World cast or what have you and slide wads of cash under the table along with their trucker hat.
I bet if you're patient enough, whatever lifechoice you choose to adopt will become "cool"....at which point you will no longer be able to afford it!
Posted by: Jake | December 2, 2003 12:05 PM
I've driven all over the continent. I've seen lots of truckers; talked to a bunch, too. Senator, those are no truckers' hats!
"Truckers' hats" resemble hats worn by farmers. Real truckers' hats are greasy and over-arched like frat-boy caps. But who am I to disagree with Madison Ave?
I found this quote particularly interesting:
"Mr. Welch: It's important to look at the periphery, because that's where trends start."
I never actually consciously thought about it that way, but if true it is somewh at heartening to see that some trends start because of people defying the norm and willing to stick out and/or make fools of themselves. Even if our Corporate Masters take these pieces of marginal culture, and subsequently re-appropriate, reformulate, rebrand, and reinject them into pop culture as "trends",it's still nice to hear that things started out at the margins. It seems that this sort of subversion is a nice "fuck you" to the "in" crowd which thinks that it is what sets trends. On the other hand, this situation is like the trust-fund baby Vassar chicks going 'slumming' and take-take-taking for their own nefarious ends. Man, there are no good guys...
Anyway, it would be kinda cool to see some of these people's file cabinets, so to speak, to see which "trends" they were tracking that didn't quite take off into the mainstream. That has got to be a fantastic body of pop culture knowledge. I'm starting to wonder, given their stated timeline of 1-2 years from margin to mainstream, whether legwarmers will hit the big time; I've noticed them poised on the mainstream's sideline for the past year or so.
This was another interesting one to me:
"Q. Another trend, please?
"Ms. Lazarus: 'Neighborhood pride,' renewed interest in local identities, down to individual districts,"
This one makes my little cultural geographer's heart beat with joy, given the sad homogenization of our Walmart/Interstate culture. But I could talk about this for hours, so I'll stop. }:)
I'll only say that my next cross-country road trip will occur on the two-lanes where scraps, remnants, and ruins of local color still exist. Speaking of roadtrips, this would be a fantastic destination for one:
http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/pcl/pcl.html
...I write too much...
Posted by: Rev Tom | December 6, 2003 6:53 PM