An eyeroll for the wannabeez
Of the eleventy-million email alerts that cross my queue every day, I could not help but notice a piece entitled, "The Holy Grail of Youth Culture." Wilbert Baan, the intrepid young Dutch author, reflects on the phenomena of trends and how corporations breathlessly work to identify them, only to ride them to the ground. (Mssr. Baan is probably what is more commonly referred to as a "blogger," but I tend to reserve the term for peepul hoo kant spel or cApitaLize properly. Thus, I am what is more commonly referred to as a "fossil.")
Baan's observation of cultural trends parallel the theory of evolution set forth by the late Stephen Jay Gould, who demonstrated through the fossil record (actual, not aforementioned) that life forms emerge and wane to make way for new ones. Baan writes, "Street culture grows, blooms and dies and a new street culture is waiting."
And so it is that generally by the time a News Corp. and an NBC, for example, try to fabricate something that YouTube became organically, the trend is already on its way to the bone heap. Take a tip from Bonnie Raitt, gentlemen. You can't make us love you.
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