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Remix Culture
We stand on the cusp of two worlds.
A friend of mine has pointed out the stagnation of american culture in the past few decades. There is this glamorization of the 50's. Music, icons, brands. Reused, redisplayed, rehashed, and resold endlessly. Every couple of years we see a new release of the Star Wars movies or a re-issue of a Beetles album. It sometimes leaves one wondering whether or not there is room in the world for new things. Empires like Disney and the RIAA seem to have an endless supply of power from all of this stuff being repackaged and resold, and they can commission new artless soulless versions of the same old stuff.
Is it really true though? Have we really hit a cultural dead-end? I've been thinking about this for a while now and I'm still not sure. Art and music of the present has almost always been derived from stuff of the past. Yes, it doesn't seem as heavily branded, but I'm not sure that's true. Listening to radio shows from the 30s - 50s, banding was just as heavy back then, maybe more so. Most of the famous stars of radio and theatre were corporate owned properties that had to speak about laundry soap and cigarettes as frequently as they had roles in a film. Superman, Flash Gordon, the Shadow, and all the others often had product placements in their shows. Men in costumes were even hired to put on sales pitches for various companies at malls, no different from Santa Claus.
I might even go so far as to say that branding has been very prevalent since the start of the industrial revolution. The East India Trading Company put their stamps on everything from tea and soap to furniture, clothing, silks, spices, you name it. Buying goods from outside the corporation could result in fines, taxes, or even execution.
I think it may just be more obvious now because we're so overwhelmed with such an unending stream of data. TV and the Internet, where we can rewatch reruns and remixes as many times as we want. Not to mention the increase in world population, communication, and transportation. Two hundred years ago, the average human was unlikely to travel more than 30 miles from where they were born during the course of their life. News from the outside world could take a month to arrive.
I'm listening to Retro Arcade Radio right now. Songs about video games of the eighties. Yes, there are a few corporate shills in the play list, but it's not the majority. There's a second face to remix culture. There are the people who write about what they know, what's close to them, familiar to their world and the people they know. They might right with nostalgia or contempt. I think this is where things get interesting. This part of the remix culture has been becoming much stronger through the increases in communication. I'm starting to think all the stuff corporations make is more of an attempt to save their identity against an incoming tide rather than dominate the market. The laws extending copyright have only wrought a more negative view of their trademarks, brands, and logos. In a lot of ways, they aren't gaining power, they're losing control. People are getting sick of seeing different versions of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse clutching some new fad and their corporate torch tightly in their hand while trying to pimp Coca-Cola. Sales are spiraling downwards on each successive re-release of Star Wars despite an increase in population. Branding and advertising will continue to grow more and more fierce in coming years, that's certain, but I can imagine a future where they have less and less control over how people interpret those icons.
A friend of mine has pointed out the stagnation of american culture in the past few decades. There is this glamorization of the 50's. Music, icons, brands. Reused, redisplayed, rehashed, and resold endlessly. Every couple of years we see a new release of the Star Wars movies or a re-issue of a Beetles album. It sometimes leaves one wondering whether or not there is room in the world for new things. Empires like Disney and the RIAA seem to have an endless supply of power from all of this stuff being repackaged and resold, and they can commission new artless soulless versions of the same old stuff.
Is it really true though? Have we really hit a cultural dead-end? I've been thinking about this for a while now and I'm still not sure. Art and music of the present has almost always been derived from stuff of the past. Yes, it doesn't seem as heavily branded, but I'm not sure that's true. Listening to radio shows from the 30s - 50s, banding was just as heavy back then, maybe more so. Most of the famous stars of radio and theatre were corporate owned properties that had to speak about laundry soap and cigarettes as frequently as they had roles in a film. Superman, Flash Gordon, the Shadow, and all the others often had product placements in their shows. Men in costumes were even hired to put on sales pitches for various companies at malls, no different from Santa Claus.
I might even go so far as to say that branding has been very prevalent since the start of the industrial revolution. The East India Trading Company put their stamps on everything from tea and soap to furniture, clothing, silks, spices, you name it. Buying goods from outside the corporation could result in fines, taxes, or even execution.
I think it may just be more obvious now because we're so overwhelmed with such an unending stream of data. TV and the Internet, where we can rewatch reruns and remixes as many times as we want. Not to mention the increase in world population, communication, and transportation. Two hundred years ago, the average human was unlikely to travel more than 30 miles from where they were born during the course of their life. News from the outside world could take a month to arrive.
I'm listening to Retro Arcade Radio right now. Songs about video games of the eighties. Yes, there are a few corporate shills in the play list, but it's not the majority. There's a second face to remix culture. There are the people who write about what they know, what's close to them, familiar to their world and the people they know. They might right with nostalgia or contempt. I think this is where things get interesting. This part of the remix culture has been becoming much stronger through the increases in communication. I'm starting to think all the stuff corporations make is more of an attempt to save their identity against an incoming tide rather than dominate the market. The laws extending copyright have only wrought a more negative view of their trademarks, brands, and logos. In a lot of ways, they aren't gaining power, they're losing control. People are getting sick of seeing different versions of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse clutching some new fad and their corporate torch tightly in their hand while trying to pimp Coca-Cola. Sales are spiraling downwards on each successive re-release of Star Wars despite an increase in population. Branding and advertising will continue to grow more and more fierce in coming years, that's certain, but I can imagine a future where they have less and less control over how people interpret those icons.