Can We Get Back to the Future From the 80s?
Parts 1 and 2
I will be visiting family this weekend. For this reason I will publish an older piece from my previous non-Substack email-only newsletter called Foisted (because I foisted it on friends that never asked for it).
Music writer Ted Gioia recently appeared on Plain English to talk about how showbiz seems stuck in the 80s.That is certainly one facet of how we are reliving that decade. Also, many current events are echoing the '80s. Including:
* a mysterious "gay plague"
* finance as a hip, druggie subculture
* a revival of conservatism after an exhaustively narcissistic, do-gooder liberal movement
* backlash to Eastern philosophy
* one channel dictating youth (MTV/TikTok)
* revitalized downtown New York art scene
* liberals worshipping a conservative icon (Reagan/Trump)
* renewed enmity between US and Russia/renewed nuclear fear
* skepticism of the era's reigning technology (NASA/Silicon Valley and their respective backlashes)
* the record shattering popularity of video games
Why are we seeing such a recurrence? Yes, time is cyclical but that feels too pat in this case. It will have to do for some of the items here (mysterious "gay" plague, Russia vs. US, video games) but for the others we can find a common thread.
The reason why finance is cool, conservatism is back, Eastern philosophy is out, there is a ziggurat of coolness, a revitalized New York art scene, and all the other items on the list is because of the vibe shift. The current vibe shift echoes the 80s vibe shift and both can be summed up in the following sentence: knee-jerk, hypersensitive liberalism is unsustainable and exhausting no matter how good the intentions.
Finance as a Hip, Druggie Subculture
Many millenials and freshly graduated Gen Zers see that "hot takes" are not profitable for everybody. Without a book deal or a major podcast circuit, many failed content creators and influencers need cash (ugh...."crypto") and need it fast. Much like in the early '80s, when boomers moved from the communes to the corporations.
A Revival of Conservatism After an Exhaustively Narcissistic, Do-Gooder Liberal Movement
Many of the liberals who failed at keeping up with the increasingly arcane, tortuous demands of the academic, professional middle class journalists and Twitter personalities that drove "the conversation" had a severe case of the "fuck-its" and decided to rail against the cyberorthodoxy. In the '80s, this led to a renewed patriotism, Nowadays this is not the case. There is more skepticism than ever at the "deep state.' But Reagan was the lightning rod for that patriotism and Trump, even out of office, still commands the attention of these skeptics, who have grown tired of a liberal ruling caste system that is more focused on neo-Victorian repression than poor families trying to make ends meet.
Backlash to Eastern Philosophy
This is almost identical to the 80s. Then, like now, there is a renewed interest in Christianity. Nowadays there is a buzzy online movement called tradcaths. As for the actual backlash it is two-pronged. Leftists bristled at the whitewashing of an ancient Asian tradition as well as the corporate McMindfulness meditation seminars for workers to be more productive more present. Right-wingers resented Eastern spirituality being weaponized against Western civilization (conservatives may not be as patriotic anymore but they definitely revere the classics).
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The current vibe shift echoes the 80s vibe shift and both can be summed up in the following sentence: knee-jerk hypersensitive liberalism is unsustainable and exhausting no matter how good the intention
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One Channel Dictating Youth
MTV was the definitive vehicle of the '80s vibe shift. As I said in Issue #1, the boomer balladeers that ruled the late 70s increasingly had difficulty keeping afloat with the glamorous, flamboyant video victors of the 80s.But it wasn't just the image. It was also the ethos. In one of the few cases of stand-up comedy predicting wider social trends, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks and Andy Kaufman moved away from the sincerity of Carlin and Pryor and took comedy in a more ironic direction. The pop music took a similar turn. Less "Landslide" more "She Blinded Me With Science."
TikTok is retro in many ways. One way: swiping up for the next video reminds me of channel surfing absent-mindedly in the 80s and 90s. Also, like MTV, if it's not a hit on TikTok it's not a hit. But for our current discussion I am most interested in looking at how TikTok emboldened Gen Z to mock their older Millennial siblings much like MTV vaporized the hippie aesthetic. For a few years, Millennials would gather at Buzzfeed, their favorite digital watering hole, and smirk at all the gauche things Gen Z did. TikTok was the treehouse for Gen Z to launch spitballs against Millennial mids. At their language, their humor, their music and yes, their fake wokeness.
This was all aided by the monocultural underpinnings of the "For You" page. Yes TikTok has an algorithm that matches your preferences, but it will always give you the things you like that are also viral on the For You page. Hypothetically, if you liked a socialist video, it will recommend a funny one man sketch about how work sucks. Yes Ben Burgis would be a better fit, but the sketch has more fans, so you must like it more right?
Revitalized Downtown New York Art Scene
This is an interesting parallel development between the 80s and today, especially considering the parallel indifference to social messages. To be sure, many of the doomsday preppies of Dimes Square flirt with right wing and left wing fringe ideology. But there are many fiction writers, artists and filmmakers that are apolitical. Which brings us to an interesting paradox in art; there is no art without an ideology or an agenda; all art functions, however unwittingly, as propaganda. Yet not only are the very best artworks made without any of these as the focus of the artist, but invariably, these are the most revolutionary art works made. Alfred Hitchcock, Sylvia Plath, Ernie Kovacs, Miles Davis and hundreds more blew the roof off human consciousness. This decade might similarly give us our Sonic Youths and Basquiats yet.
Liberals Worshipping a Conservative Icon
Yuppies flocked to Reagan in the 80s. Aging hippies and socialists run to Trump currently. Unlike the 80s, the current crop of turncoats do not change their stripes. Many socialists like Trump precisely because they see him as a battering ram against neoliberalism and the deep state. As giving lie to the bullshit dream of a neoliberal post racial post Obama era.
Skepticism of the Era's Reigning Technology
NASA was already undergoing a post-Apollo 13 hangover in the 70s. By the Challenger explosion in 1986, with a cheerful, hopeful school teacher among those who did not survive, NASA was a bona fide money pit. The only time you heard the term "Space Age" again was in infomercials describing the quality technology of cookware and mattresses. As divided as our culture is now, the one agreed upon boogie man is Algorithm (or as my friend calls it, the Malgorithm). With TikTok representing an increasingly hostile China, Instagram devolving into a Peter Panning middle age bachelor with a sandy blond toupee and Twitter increasingly seeming like a drunken purchase Elon Musk clicked on too soon, is it any wonder people aren't exactly chomping at the bit for Web 3?
WAIT you say: didn't I ask if we can go back to the future from the 80s? Sure. Then, like now, like in 1999, 9/11, and 2012, everyone was convinced that it was the end of times. Tempting though it might be to smirk at this pre-apocalyptic anxiety, I wonder if it is precisely this way of seeing the future as a blank canvas dead end that helps us innovate and come up with those crazy left brain ideas like podcasts, hip hop, Vine?