My wife, Mrs. M, has a strange illness.
I've tried everything. Home remedies. Books. I've taken her to specialists. Taken advice and recommendations from friends. EVERYTHING.
But nothing helps.
I blame her environment growing up. The manner in which she was raised, her diet, her surroundings-- she was a prime candidate. Almost predestined to turn out this way; it's just such a tragedy.
What illness is it? Why, the saddest one of all, Agents-- Mrs. M is suffering from Pop Culture Deficiency Syndrome.
PCDS is rare in today's society of quick-fix culture and instant internet gratification. When cravings are downloadable and everything is available in the world market bazaar, to actually have a deficiency of the popular culture is debilitating-- mostly to the friends and family around the victim.
Like Alzheimer's disease, PCDS can affect the victim without them even being aware they have it. Instead, their loved ones are left to cope with the PCDS sufferer drifting farther, ever farther away from them while they are powerless to prevent it.
I spotted Mrs. M's symptoms early on: She didn't know movie quotes from such timeless classics as Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice or Star Wars. She was taken aback when myself or a group of friends would burst into song, singing along with the lyrics from a store's sound system, and she would have no idea what song we were singing along to (or that we did not, in fact, share a Hive Mind.)
She watches Classic Star Trek with me and LAUGHS, Agents. "What is that costume made out of, TIN FOIL?" During Amok Time (Where Spock has his Pon Farr and has to go back to Vulcan, for those of you that are LESS than uber-geeky) she snorted out loud at the name of Spock's would-be wife. "T'pring? HA HA HA!"
Then recently she had an attack so severe I could no longer deny it, Agents. Mrs. M was in the course of a full-blown attack of PCDS. We were listening to a Beatles compilation and I heard her say these words:
"I don't like the Beatles. I don't get what's so big about them."
What's so big about the Beatles, she says. THE BEATLES.
Now you may not like the Beatles, and you don't have to. But to not understand what was so big about them is to deny the entire history of our people, our nation, our way of life and our heritage. It's tantamount to saying the sixties never happened.
Pop culture is in a large part fed by music and popular bands. So to deny knowledge of why the Beatles were popular is to deny knowledge of the Sixties as a whole, and if you have Baby Boomer parents that simply should not be possible.
Thus I can come to no other conclusion than that it must be a disease. While it seems incurable (my repeated attempts to shock Mrs. M out of it with bad science fiction, bubblegum pop, the Violent Femmes and comics like Dark Knight and The Watchmen having all failed), it IS preventable.
While your children are young, see to it that they are given an education in popular culture. Let them know the precursors of their modern-day heroes. Show them old cartoons so they can see where the new ones came from.
Allow them comic books. Feed them music from various stations, alternative to top 40's to Golden Oldies. Have them watch TV with YOU-- not just the other way around.
Schools teach History. Well, there's a whole world of history out there that will never make it into the record books, and it can only be passed down from generation to generation if YOU, Agents, are willing to make the effort.
Don't let pop culture dry up and die. We all need to know about the Hippies, Polyester Pantsuit Cop Shows with Wa-Wa Soundtracks and Bad 80's Gowan Hair. The mullet is a proud travesty of our collective historical soul! Laugh WITH your children at these things, at the days when computers still typed and clicked like tickertape machines and when Cell Phones didn't even exist.
Because if you don't, you only increase the chances of Pop Culture Deficiency Syndrome happening to someone you love. And it's a pain no one should have to go through.
Please, give generously. Comment on this blog. For Mrs M.'s sake, and for people like her around the world. The lines are open. Comment now.
Posted by Agent M at September 09, 2003 03:14 PMTruly, Agent M, this is a tragedy of epic proportions. I'm sorry to say, there is NO known cure for PCDS. If Mrs M has it, she'll never get rid of it. The good news is that you are right, simple preventative steps will insure that Agent P never gets it, so start now. Kirin has already been inoculated, and shows no signs of PCDS at all. As far as Mrs M, my advice is that love and understanding can help you through the rough patches as she has PCDS attacks. Explain it all to Agent P as he gets older, so he'll understand why his mom doesn't get his comments about Yu-Gi-Oh! or sing along with him when he starts belting out the Teletubbies Anthem. Good luck, Agent.
Garething
Posted by: Garething on September 10, 2003 06:19 AMHow sad. How terribly sad.
I think we should tie MrsM down to the couch, force her eyes open with toothpicks, and make her watch all classic Trek episodes, and possibly some A-Team, Battlestar Galactica and CHiPs. 60's 70's AND 80's all in one swoop. Perhaps that will cause a temporary improvement? ;)
ACK!
Posted by: Agent ACK on September 10, 2003 08:11 AMActually I'm here to say that PCDS CAN be beaten.
I inherited the gene from both my parents, and therefore passed through the 80's without taking notice of them in any way. However, SINCE then I've been playing catch-up, and while there are still some fairly noticeable gaps ("Okay, these guys dress as BIRDS to fight evil? The fat one has OWL powers?") I think I can hold my own against anyone when it comes to NINETIES pop-culture.
And in the oughts, I'm a master. (Buffy's a CULT!) All it takes is determination, but with hard work, the heartbreak of PCDS can be overcome.
Unfortunately it is too late for my parents, who have never heard of Harry Potter. I THINK they've heard of Lord of the Rings but I'm not sure.
Posted by: Mike Rieger on September 10, 2003 08:56 AMI can say it's probably difficult for the parents of someone who isn't as "hip" to the new pop culture. My Dad has been into Star Trek since the 60's. Mum listens to the radio (and even discussed "that horrible Superman Song that the Lite Station overplays" with Mike last year). Both parental units love Harry Potter. I thought they would scream at me for buying them a DVD player for X-mas. Nope. They now borrow our DVDs and keep them for extended amounts of time. They watched Roseanne in the 80's, Home Improvement in the 90's, and Dad has admitted to catching the odd episode of Reboot.
Me? I'm plugged into the 'net more than 40 hours per week. I love music. I grew up with Battle Of The Planets (aka G-Force!). I felt cheated in Art College because Sailor Moon started just as I had to leave the house to catch a trolley.
And I still have a hard time wrapping my head around strange pop culture phenomenae such as "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and "All your base are belong to us", and "Radiskull". I judiciously avoided "Beverly Hills 90210 (at least when I got the inkling it would be a popular "evening soap opera" for young people) and Buffy. X-Files lost it's allure somewhere in the last 2 or 3 seasons.
What happened? I remember watching "Ghostbusters" as both a movie and as a cartoon series. I saw "The Transformers Movie" in the theatre. I OWN Spice World on VHS, damnit!
I think it's because pop culture has become too serious these days. In the 70's and 80's, it was Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Weird Science. The Dukes of Hazzard, CHiPs, and Remington Steele. They were shows that were funny particularly FOR the cheese factor. They knew it was bad to the point of being funny, so they didn't even attempt being serious. These days everything is marketed and focus-grouped into creation. Nearly *everything* is billed as the latest and greatest...Seinfeld anyone? It doesn't help that as soon as something is seen as "popular", it appears on all freakin' 150-some-odd channels on the tube. Networks now figure that to get viewers, you have to have the shows that all the other networks are playing. I remember a funny subplot of a movie where a college student is writing his thesis based on the hypothesis that at any and every given time, somewhere in the world, "I Love Lucy" is being played on a TV station. By the end of the movie he proves this theory to be true. It was funny at the time. Now it's standard. CSI is on the major networks...but you can also catch it on Spike (Aka TNN, aka The New TNN), Action Channel, and various others. The Original Law & Order used to be on the major networks, then A&E picked it up, and now it's on channel 32 or 35 every night. Homicide: Life on the Streets and NYPD Blue are shown on Court TV as accurate depictions of the police process. Space has proven that Buffy is just as popular in re-runs as it was when it was actually in production. And yes...somewhere in this world, RIGHT NOW, someone is watching Beverly Hills, 90210. Not so funny now, eh?
Then there are the DVD collections you can rent or buy. Robin & I rented the whole first season of "Six Feet Under" and watched it in two nights. Mike brakes for a sale on Buffy DVD seasons. I got my parents the first DVD collection of CSI for Mum's birthday.
It's pop culture overload. We're told what to like, and told to lump it when the "focus group" isn't so hip to it. Fan groups now populate the internet, telling you to bring back "Forever Knight", "Firefly" and various other TV Shows (as if there wasn't enough on the tube already to saturate your grey matter). Spyware on your computer now tells companies at the click of a button what kind of software you prefer, what websites you visit, even what kind of advertising you prefer. It's like the Neilson system, only in stealth mode.
Kids today are bombarded with pop culture. It's going to be hard keeping up with them...and all the things THEY grow up with. Cell phones, computers, PDAs, Plasma TVs, the latest & greatest Home Theatre Experiences. To get some TV shows you now need an HDTV and HDTV converter and a cable system that shows HDTV shows. It's expensive and getting more & more out of hand every month. When I was a kid it was Atari, Commodore Vic 20, the Original Nintendo, and you were lucky if your TV was in colour. Telephones had rotary dials. Only the rich kids in school had a VCR.
Just this season, Motorola developed 2 new Digital Cable Terminals so you can now get your Playboy and Hustler channels in digital stereo. One of them includes a built-in DVD player.
I'm beginning to think I'm developing PCDS as a defense against all that. Seriously.
Posted by: Maire on September 10, 2003 01:44 PMA similar problem I have is with people, both young and old, is the utter lack of knowledge of the past when it comes to music and entertainment. I was at an X-mas party playing a board game called 'Cranium' in which I was required to do and impersonation of Marlon Brando, and the others had to guess who it was. Easy right? Not only did they not know the quotes "I should have been a contender", "make you an offer you can't refuse", they had no idea who Marlon Brando was! 5 people, ages 22-30! Seriously, people! I can understand saying, I don't like westerns or war movies so I don't know John Wayne's work, but to stare at me blankly when I mention the Duke... come on!
Posted by: Agent Brucie on September 10, 2003 05:05 PMA few observations:
1) A few years ago I had the misfortune to be at a party with a bunch of drunken volunteer firemen. At one point, they started quoting Backdraft with all the intensity that Agent M and Agent ACK get when Beetlejuice comes on.
2) There is a scene in one of the Jean Auel books where some of the characters discusses flint knapping. aside from the technological differences, it sounds like a bunch of geek/hobbiests discussing computers - or 50's teens discussing cars.
"The past is another country. They do things differently there" (L. P. Hartley). Yes I'm going somewhere with this.
Pop culture is, by it's own definition, about what's popular, and that changes with time, location and culture. It is not universal - that would be things that all humans (who weren't raised by wild animals) know. Being truisms these sorts of references can sound a little ridiculous when referered too.
"You have a mother, what a coincidence - I have a mother too".
I think that Agent M is failing to see that what is ingrained for him is not universally applicable, even for someone who grew up in (allegedly) the same culture. Because North America does not have a monoculture.
You can see this in TV. 50 years ago, there were three networks, and they each had (by modern standards) identical programming. As the technology to produce, distribute and watch shows became cheaper, more people got into it and the variety increased (and incidentally engulfed what came before - anyone watch M*A*S*H, Taxi or Golden Girls on Prime recently?).
Pop culture has always acted to change the new generation so that it differs from their elders. Maire alludes to this in her comments and suggests that she is developing PCDS as a defense. This is not new. I myself have a hard time relating to what kids watch and listen too. I worry about how bad their educations are and the clothes they wear - like our parents did about us (we'll, not me - I was a nerd growing up). Eventually I'll just sit on a rocking chair on my front porch shooing the young'uns off my lawn. I'll mutter "kids these days" while I do it.
The danger, I think is not that each generation creates it's own pop culture, but that a generation of kids is seeing such a barrage or choices now that there will be no pop culture - just many many cliques who don't have to deal with each other thanks to the instant communication of the internet. Why deal with other peoples foibles when you can shut the world out and get all your socialization from the other folks on alt.fan.starwars.bobafett.
Actually, I think variety is good - Sturgeon's law dictates that 90 percent of everything is crap. The corellary is that 10 percent of everything isn't crap. And if that means I get more good movies, songs and TV shows along with all the dross, so be it.
Wow, did I ever get serious there. Excuse me while I dunk my head in the toilet.
[sploosh]
Ah, that's better. Agent M, you and the missus have plenty in common. If she doesn't "get" Star Trek, just blame it on the fact that she was raised by god-fearing refugees from the fifties and you were raised by the demons that possessed your parent's television.
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