Friday, February 24, 2012

Then & Now

I spoke with my father (46) about his college years and early adulthood. He identified quite a range of aspects of the 80s in Midwestern America.

(THEN) My family is very into music, so the first thing he brought up was that the early 80s were really the start of dance club music. He said that every bar had at least a small 10x10 dance floor, and many were larger. There was always good dance music playing.
(NOW) It seems that a parallel would be the rave trend now. Though not all bars offer popular, dance-able music, or even a place to dance is there is music, raves are very popular. People gather together in usually fairly packed places and listen to very loud music that often would fall under remixed, or electronica genres.
(THEN) Most people aren't completely innocent in college, and my father doesn't claim he was. He actually identified cocaine as the party drug of choice when he was in college. He said that one of his friends told him "If you're ever given the opportunity, you should definitely try it."
(NOW) In a parallel, there is a very open feelings towards many drugs now. Most obviously is the acceptance and encouragement of  legalization of marijuana. This is actually very similar to the feelings in the 60s and 70s. It has actually become so popular that there are memes based solely on the culture of marijuana.
(THEN) Dad mentioned that the way to travel on campus was really on moped. It was The Thing to have. Now this may not seem much like pop culture, but what it came down to was expectations. College students claimed this form of transportation and it became almost expected for students to travel by moped (in Midwestern america).
(NOW) Now there isn't really an expected form of transportation, but almost as widely expected is familiarity with internet humor, specifically memes. To tie this with the earlier mention of memes and stoner culture, here's one meme:
but there are hundreds of memes, mostly dedicated to different aspects of humor. In my experience they naturally fall into the culture of my generation, but my parents don't really understand them, or why we take them and drag out jokes all from the same vein on that meme.
(THEN) Fashion doesn't seem to have changed too much, especially if you compare the two pictures I'll post here. It was expected for college students to wear a preppy style look. Izod was apparently huge, and Polo was just getting started. My dad mentioned that Polo was exceptionally expensive. My mom chipped in that a button up with a sweater was just what girls wore. We went through their yearbook, actually, and found only a couple girls who were not in that combo.
 (NOW) Not much has changed. Preppy is still considered a totally normal and acceptable look. Now, however, some other looks have established themselves as well. The current concept of "hipsters" isn't new, but it seems as though they are getting more attention and becoming strangely passe. If you aren't called a hipster at one point or another then you're probably missing quite a bit of the current fashion. Funnily enough, everyone hates hipsters. Especially hipsters.
(THEN) MADONNA. MICHAEL JACKSON. Need I say more? They ruled the music scene and everyone knew them. I would venture to say that they were more widely known and loved than Lady Gaga.
(NOW) I could go with music here, to complete the parallels, but I don't want to. I want to talk about the return of children's books. Currently children's books are as popular with adults as children, with the Harry Potter books having led the revolution. The Twilight books followed, and currently the Hunger Games books are sweeping the nation with children and parents alike being pulled in.

Each of these sets is a different aspect of popular culture, because they were the water that the fish of the time were swimming in. They are so deeply ingrained, that it took me almost an hour to figure out everything I wanted to know from my father for this assignment. These are the things we complain will complain about to our children when their culture has taken over, or will celebrate the disappearance of when a new fad or trend hits. So much of this is considered latent information, and knowledge of it is just expected and taken for granted. If you don't know about and understand these things then you are out of the loop of everything, and if you do then it's just accepted, not exceptional. Even the political views are almost passe now. In my peer group, if you don't support the legalization of marijuana and support gay rights, then you're the outsider. This expansion of expectations is slightly disconcerting, and endlessly interesting.

3 comments:

  1. Wow!! You really killed it on your fads and trends!! Do you enjoy all music or a particular type? Have a Great Spring!!

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    1. I like to think my taste in music is pretty varied. I have negligible amounts of rap, hip hop, and r&b, and only trace amounts of metal or screamo, but most else is represented pretty fairly. My personal favorite thing to do is put ym ipod on shuffle. I always find new songs that I didn't realize I had when I do that :)
      YOU TOO!

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  2. Seeing that I am pretty much the same age as your dad, I would completely agree with your assessment of the trends and fads. I like how you put that the music scene has really dominated our culture for the past 20 years or so. Nice job.

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