Hot List: Looking at the Future While an Era Fades Away
“I have a genuine love affair with my audience. When I'm on stage they're not privileged to see me. It's a privilege for me to see them” - Ozzy Osbourne
Sometimes to see where we are now, it helps to think of where we were just a few decades ago.
Back in the 1980’s, a cold-war America was creating new media that would reshape our collective psyche for generations to come.
The Cosby Show gave us the Huxtables, a family we all “knew” and weekly stories we could all discuss the next day. On it’s back, first Cheers, then, as decade later, Seinfeld and Friends, would make Thursday nights arguably the most culturally relevant stint in TV comedy history.
Professional sports melted into an entertainment-first experience where the real competition was for hearts, minds and ratings. Color commentary character announcers would carry dull football games.
Next, Hulkamania ran wild, as scripted sports took hold as a guy named Terry ripped his shirt and got TV audiences and arenas simultaneously fired up. WWF, then WWE would generate legions of characters (like the Rock) for young ones to scream about IRL and on TV.
Even music went the extra distance into fantasy, with rock and roll turning out heavy metal, led by a bat-head eating rocker named Ozzy who pioned a new sound and a new cultural identity for headbangers (before ending up on reality TV).
This week as we mourn the pending loss of late night, and two enigmatic figures in American culture, I can’t help but look for analogies to today.
Are podcasters the new TV hosts? Creators the new characters that shape our youth? Politicians the new professional wrestlers? And in today’s fragmented “feudal media” landscape, will America ever have the same collection of central characters impact us as much as the generations we are losing now?
Only time will tell.
Meantime, don’t miss the collection of timely and thought provoking collection of originals we have for you this week.
