Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century by W. David Marx

Early 20th century culture is fairly blah. This book describing it is pretty blah. 

Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now

Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu,and Philip Wang

"Asian American" is a huge category. Over half lives in Asia. Pacific Islanders are often included in the group, further expanding the diversity. A Somoan, Pakistani and Vietnamese are all grouped together in what becomes a catch-all group. Though they have little in common, they are often seen as part of this "other" and band together. After events such as 9/11 or coronavirus outbreak, Asians found themselves in an area of shared victimhood.

The book provides some background of Asian history and early pop culture, but the focus is on more modern times. Early pop culture was fairly bleak. There would often be white actors in yellow-face playing to Asian stereotypes. Even when there were Asian actors, they would rarely be the stars. Asian films and TV shows would lose much of the Asian-ness when coming to the US. Things have changed over the past decades. Crouch Tiger, Hidden Dragon was popular and earned awards despite being subtitled and having an Asian cast. Asian actors have been playing more leading roles. Kpop and Kdrama have become extremely popular. Yet despite this popularity, they still are paid a fraction what white actors would be paid.

Asian-Americans often grew up with the same popular media as their white friends. However, they also had some of their own culture and expected values. The group is diverse on many levels. There are more actors and musicians today with Asian backgrounds. The diversity remains. One recurring part of the book is podcasters that talk about "disgrasians". A group are criticising Asians that disgrace their community - which often means they are behaving in a way that they don't like. (It can be challenging to advocate for identity politics while still being open minded.) The book bounces around among advocacy, history and culture and is quite relatable, if not a little long.

There are also good explanations of the "pop history" of Asian Americans. Many of the "towns" still have old-time ethnic inhabitants. However, newer, well-to-do immigrants often decamp straight to the ethnic suburbs like Cupertino. Will Asian immigrants retain a cultural identity after a few generations? Or will they become subsumed in a new Euro-Asian melting pot? 

Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change

Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change by W. David Marx

What is the role of "status" in human society? How does that connect with culture? The book starts with an interesting topic, and has some success discussing it. However, it also meanders around for a while and seems to lose focus.

Different people have different standards of status. People tend to look at the class just above them. They also view certain things as "markers" of success. often these markers have value beyond their monetary value. The difficulty in obtaining certain goods helps people to show that they have greater wealth or standing. Sometimes people attempt to "fake it", but that can lead to rejection by their group. Sometimes the "markers" may be less material and more about cultural views. Anything from Ferraris to Avocado Toast may be a marker.

Today there are many small groups. People may seek standing in their group of gamers or even a chat forum. People may have status in one group, while live a normal life in others. There are many different individual "cultures" all with their different standards of status. Youth culture today is dominated by constant change. Tik Tok has reduced things to a quick soundbite. The standards of status are much more ephemeral, yet there remain "cultural beliefs" behind it. Where does status and culture go from here?

But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present as If It Were the Past

If you ask people if anything that we believe in today could be considered wrong in the future, they would likely say yes. However, if you ask about a specific thing (such as gravity), you are likely to get an answer that it would never be considered wrong. That is a conundrum that we run into when looking at the present. We know that past accepted truths are no longer believed today, yet we have trouble imagining specific truths of today no longer being accepted.

With his experience as an art critic, he pays special interest to how music and art will be remembered. The 78 era is defined by those who have collected these records. Their tastes are different than the general population that purchased records and thus tend to show a more quirky taste than the general public. Moby Dick was a commercial failure when written, but become well regarded later. At the turn of 19th to 20th century there were a large number of march composers. However, Sousa is pretty much the only one remembered today. Centuries from now, the "rock" era may be consolidated to a single person or group. Perhaps the Beatles or Bop Dylan will be remembered. Or perhaps some obscure artist that we don't think of much today will be used to signify the era. The past works that are acclaimed are often more a reflection of the current day than the time they were written. There is a great deal of subjectiveness in the matter. 

There is also a "merging" of years from the past. Julius Caesar and Constantine are lumped together as "leaders of Rome". Yet they were much further apart than George Washington and Joe Biden. Roman history may be summarized as "Julias Caesar was assassinated, Augustus became emperor, Constantine became Christianity. How would our history be summarized?

Science and technology are also evolving. We scoff at "flat earth" beliefs of those of the part. It is difficult to see that some of our beliefs are just wrong. Yet, we have seen accepted scientific truths change before our eyes. Einstein ripped apart details of Newtonian physics. New work has lead to different understandings of basic physics. Our knowledge of biological science is constantly evolving. Germ theory seems second nature. Fields like epigenetics seem to take us back to understandings that were disregarded before. The slow evolution of science causes us to miss some of the big changes that have occurred. When we look back at a long view, they may become much more apparent.

I liked the premise of the book, but did feel it dragged on a bit. The pop-culture analysis seemed to be the author's forte. There were some great chapters, though there were also areas that seemed to ramble on without building up the central thesis. It is a great topic to explore, yet also a difficult one to get your brain around. It feels we are "stuck" in our current view, and our brains extrapolate forward from where we are today rather than expect turns and detours.

The Nineties: A Book

In the 90s, the Internet made great headways in culture. Before the internet, it was normal to just not know things. You couldn't easily look something up, especially if it happened relatively recently. There could be a communal remembrance of the "wrong" fact. With the internet it became much easier to find obscure facts. 

Growth in technology also allowed for a move from a populist culture to more niches. Blockbuster and video rental stores allowed for even the most obscure foreign movies to be watched in small towns. Compact discs helped enable independent music to have a more widespread footprint. Online music stores made it easy to find almost any music. Then Napster came around and made it easy to get a desired song for free,

Decades don't necessarily fit into their chronological time period. The 90s pretty much started with Nirvana's Nevermind, and ended with the twin towers. Nevermind was not the most popular album (Many other albums by artists such as Shania Twain, Metallica and Backstreet Boys sold more copies.) However, it espoused the ethos of the 1990s. Being "real" was important. You could be famous as long as you didn't want to be famous. The pop culture mentality of the 90s took on personal responsibility for your condition but didn't do anything about it. The world is falling apart and you are miserable. Oh well. You will not do anything about it. Even the best-selling artist of the decade, Garth Brooks, expressed this "authenticity". He was himself and made music that he liked - it just happened to be very popular.

The books is a series of interrelated essays about the 90s and the "Generation-X" that inhabited them. (Included is a discussion of the book Generation-X and how it came to signify an entire group.) The generation is smaller than the one before and after it. There are many parts of the "mythos" of the 90s that don't match the lived experience. That is all part of how our "remembrance" of things in the past is colored by our future experiences.

Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

Viral popularity is rarely achieved by small-scale word-of-mouth propagation. Most commonly, there are a few "superspreaders" that broadcast something to their fan base. A video is much more likely to become popular if Justin Bieber gushes about it to his fanbase than if 20 average Joe's like it.

Popularity is often based on luck and popularity rather than quality. An example was given of a "hit ranking" algorithm. It looks at just the musical nature of a song to rank its hit potential. Most actual hits have acceptable scores, but not necessarily near the top. A song must not be awful. Beyond that, other factors come into play. Some songs may be more heavily promoted. Others may be liked by influences with large audiences. A song by a popular artist is more likely to be a hit than one by an unknown artist. Simply being popular can lead to more popularity.

A hit relied on both familiarity and novelty. People like things that they are familiar with. However, they also tire of the same thing. Having just enough novelty with the familiarity helps to create a hit. An artist with past success can afford to take significant artistic risks because they already have an audience that will listen to them. A new artist will often need to be more familiar to be able to gain an audience.

With the ease of producing media today, gatekeepers have become more important. People tend to like things that other people like. Having charts or other sources tell them what media to consume is helpful, especially with all the media out there.

Taste and fashion changes over time. Laugh tracks went in and out of fashion in comedies. Rock around the Clock flopped at first, but became a mega-hit after being included in Blackboard Jungle. Star Wars was made because Lucas couldn't get the rights to make a Flash Gordon movie. Flash Gordon was made because they couldn't get the rights to John Carter. Yet recently, John Carter was one of the biggest hollywood flops. 

The right thing and the right time can become a hit. Trying to identify the key elements of a hit from the item itself can be a fool's errand. Everything around it plays a role.

Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation

[August 2009] This is easily one of the most entertaining audiobooks I have listened to in a long time. The book is filled with quotes from the Simpson, and the narrator does great Simpson impersonations. The narrative has a seemingly endless number of anecdotes from Simpson's episodes (all referenced by episode number.) To a fan of the show, these references bring back fond memories. The book excels when it operates as a Simpsons fan companion.

Unfortunately, it falls flat when it tries to dig deeper. The arguments come across as those from a serious fan of the show trying to justify it's importance by placing it in external paradigms. Many of the arguments could easily be applied to just about any other aspect of pop culture. (The Fruit Loops Generation?) The insight that pop culture has become a strong identifying factor in a fragmenting society is interesting, but by no means original. The strange irony is that a corporate entity is needed to provide a unifying force for a youth culture rebelling against the corporatism of society. For a Simpsons fan like the author, Simpsons serves as that force, and the thesis of this book will apply. However, for others, including those that have a shared interest in the Simpsons and other things, the argument falls flat.

JPod

I loved the style of Generation X, but never did get around to finishing it. JPod is written in Coupland's bouncing-around, pop-culture obsessed, stream-of-conscious style. However, take away all of this, and there is not a whole lot.

It is set in the suburbs of Vancouver, B.C., with the main character (Ethan) being a relatively sane person in an insane world. He works at a video game company where management always manages to get in the way, and he spends most time socializing with the other coworkers in his "J-Pod" His parents behave like overgrown teenagers. His brother introduces him to a Chinese "businessman" that seems to be able to get just about anything "done".

Coupland also inserts himself in the novel (as sometimes nice jerk.) He demands Ethan's computer as a prerequisite for joining a business venture. (And thus we are given the reason for the 'origination' of this book.)

This book also much better on paper than an audiobook. It gets painful hearing the narrator read out some of the random lists of words and acronyms. It is much better read as a web-surfing brain dump.