When people cheered during the eclipse, was it appreciation for the celestial show, or a deeper delight in a return to the forgotten world of shared experience?
The eclipse was awesome. It 'just happened' the same way a rainbow just happens, or a baby gurgles - but way less often and to a whole lot of people all at once. I loved the cheering. We watched from our balcony, but just seeing other people out on their roofs and then hearing the noise made it communal. My take on AI is that we are already 'sick' of content. That we already see it as you say as completely contrived. Does Alex Jones believe what he says? Joe Rogan? It's almost beside the point - what they say gets views and so exists. I think AI in its present stage is almost constitutively just generating generic content - the great re-mashup of all that was. Which is a bit depressing as it shows just how generic so much of human content is. Like why is auto-complete so annoying? Because my next thought IS actually statistically almost inevitable. What I think may happen is that we get so oversaturated that we do turn away from our screens. That anything live, 'en presentiel' which I scream anytime someone wants a zoom meeting because it's 'easier' - will become so much more sought out. Like bad bands in bad bars...bad theatre...because it is human and real. Not to mention the good stuff! Holy shit. We've started going to more stuff and it's shocking how much better it is than streaming.
It’s funny how I get nostalgic for those old TV shows of the monoculture…until I watch them now. Most of them were so awful! Some like Seinfeld have a timeless quality that is still funny today. But I find most TV shows I watched as a kid in the 80’s to be completely unwatchable today.
It is neat seeing what endures from that period. MASH is on Disney and I’m watching the whole thing for the second time in three years. Still amuses me more than most new stuff.
I’ve been thinking that people are greatly overstating and over-romanticizing the collective engagement in the eclipse. Yeah, there were gatherings to watch it. Yes, a lot watched it in some way. But, did it really have some sort of emotional, binding, connective impact on people? I don’t think so. Was it much different than being at a park on a summer day or at a sporting event, where there are also a big collection of people gathering to do or see the same things? No. But, the fact that some people *trying* to romanticize and argue that there was some great mass meaningful connection of people due to the event… does make me wonder if, to your point, it reveals that people miss - or are nostalgic for some of the positive or mythically positive elements of - the monoculture or at least lament the hyper fragmentation of the culture.
On another note, I’m not surprised that hasselhoff couldn’t make it popularity of baywatch translate into an American music career. If it was Pamela Anderson who wanted to launch a music career at that time, it very well could have happened. Hasselhoff though… no one was tuning in to baywatch to see him. The show would have been just as successful without him acting on it. So he wasnt a truly popular star that had a billion-strong fan base to leverage into another career. He wasn’t baywatch. Pam, Yasmine, and the other women on the show were baywatch. That’s who the billion viewers tuned in to see.
I think your point about overstating the engagement is correct, in the following sense: thirty years ago, you wouldn't have needed to remark on the "collective engagement" aspect, it would have just been how we watched the eclipse. People are talking about it for the same reason they romanticize all the other stuff from the era -- it's nostalgia for the present, i.e. an expression of their current discomfort with the times.
The last time I experienced something as communal as the eclipse was the Hip's last show (unless banging pots counts). That was almost 8 years ago. This is a problem!
I was in a small park with about 50 people in PEI for the eclipse. Shortly after the totality in the ensuing group cheer I started thinking about how that cheer must have started in Mexico and continued diagonally across the whole continent into Newfoundland. Kind of like "the wave" at a sports game but linear, thousands of miles long and lasting four and a half hours! ❤️🤯❤️
The cheer was... weird, but somehow fitting. I reckon there is some bidirectionality with the nostalgia: "In the future I will remember this moment as a shared/meaningful experience and therefore this present moment will have future value" (Smartphone picture reminder on the anniversary, for the assist). Either way, the present moment is less salient for what it is than how it can be used.
The "mono-" was more meaningful than the "-culture" (which *was* pretty one dimensional and not terribly diverse).
Cue Grandpa Simpson: "I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn't 'it' anymore and what's 'it' seems weird and scary. It'll happen to you!"
I'm not sure I was ever with "it", but "it" seemed singular and therefore clear. Now everything's atomized.
I remember a social studies teacher rolling a TV into class on an A/V cart (an early mobile screen, singular) to watch the OJ verdict. I don't recall a deep conversation about race, riots or police brutality, but at least we all had the same set of basic facts as it related to the trial. On the eve of another epic US criminal trial, and the atomization of news/information sources, a time with shared facts seem quaint.
We had a long discussion about the “cheer” at work afterward. Brass tacks - I see no romanticism at all. What I did see (and feel) was connectedness. Sharing. Experiencing “a thing that happened” with who-knows-how-many others in a way that we simply don’t anymore. Even sporting events don’t have the same vibe to them - because we choose them. Or theatre. Or concerts.
Standing and staring up at the sky to witness an awe-inspiring event - at the same time as, or in succession to - countless others of innumerable backgrounds, beliefs, lifestyles, you name it, is simply a level of connectedness that we share all-too-rarely these days. And I see precious few other opportunities for that kind of feeling going forward.
The eclipse was awesome. It 'just happened' the same way a rainbow just happens, or a baby gurgles - but way less often and to a whole lot of people all at once. I loved the cheering. We watched from our balcony, but just seeing other people out on their roofs and then hearing the noise made it communal. My take on AI is that we are already 'sick' of content. That we already see it as you say as completely contrived. Does Alex Jones believe what he says? Joe Rogan? It's almost beside the point - what they say gets views and so exists. I think AI in its present stage is almost constitutively just generating generic content - the great re-mashup of all that was. Which is a bit depressing as it shows just how generic so much of human content is. Like why is auto-complete so annoying? Because my next thought IS actually statistically almost inevitable. What I think may happen is that we get so oversaturated that we do turn away from our screens. That anything live, 'en presentiel' which I scream anytime someone wants a zoom meeting because it's 'easier' - will become so much more sought out. Like bad bands in bad bars...bad theatre...because it is human and real. Not to mention the good stuff! Holy shit. We've started going to more stuff and it's shocking how much better it is than streaming.
Dude my next post is basically on your point about AI and autocomplete.
It’s funny how I get nostalgic for those old TV shows of the monoculture…until I watch them now. Most of them were so awful! Some like Seinfeld have a timeless quality that is still funny today. But I find most TV shows I watched as a kid in the 80’s to be completely unwatchable today.
It is neat seeing what endures from that period. MASH is on Disney and I’m watching the whole thing for the second time in three years. Still amuses me more than most new stuff.
I’ve been thinking that people are greatly overstating and over-romanticizing the collective engagement in the eclipse. Yeah, there were gatherings to watch it. Yes, a lot watched it in some way. But, did it really have some sort of emotional, binding, connective impact on people? I don’t think so. Was it much different than being at a park on a summer day or at a sporting event, where there are also a big collection of people gathering to do or see the same things? No. But, the fact that some people *trying* to romanticize and argue that there was some great mass meaningful connection of people due to the event… does make me wonder if, to your point, it reveals that people miss - or are nostalgic for some of the positive or mythically positive elements of - the monoculture or at least lament the hyper fragmentation of the culture.
On another note, I’m not surprised that hasselhoff couldn’t make it popularity of baywatch translate into an American music career. If it was Pamela Anderson who wanted to launch a music career at that time, it very well could have happened. Hasselhoff though… no one was tuning in to baywatch to see him. The show would have been just as successful without him acting on it. So he wasnt a truly popular star that had a billion-strong fan base to leverage into another career. He wasn’t baywatch. Pam, Yasmine, and the other women on the show were baywatch. That’s who the billion viewers tuned in to see.
I think your point about overstating the engagement is correct, in the following sense: thirty years ago, you wouldn't have needed to remark on the "collective engagement" aspect, it would have just been how we watched the eclipse. People are talking about it for the same reason they romanticize all the other stuff from the era -- it's nostalgia for the present, i.e. an expression of their current discomfort with the times.
Good point. Had not thought of that - that we wouldn’t have remarked on it in the past. And now we do…. In a rather try-too-hard way. 😃
You are absolutely right about hasselhoff and baywatch.
The last time I experienced something as communal as the eclipse was the Hip's last show (unless banging pots counts). That was almost 8 years ago. This is a problem!
It used to be pretty common. It was called being in the world.
I was in a small park with about 50 people in PEI for the eclipse. Shortly after the totality in the ensuing group cheer I started thinking about how that cheer must have started in Mexico and continued diagonally across the whole continent into Newfoundland. Kind of like "the wave" at a sports game but linear, thousands of miles long and lasting four and a half hours! ❤️🤯❤️
That is a very cool thought.
These are the comments I am here for.
The cheer was... weird, but somehow fitting. I reckon there is some bidirectionality with the nostalgia: "In the future I will remember this moment as a shared/meaningful experience and therefore this present moment will have future value" (Smartphone picture reminder on the anniversary, for the assist). Either way, the present moment is less salient for what it is than how it can be used.
The "mono-" was more meaningful than the "-culture" (which *was* pretty one dimensional and not terribly diverse).
Cue Grandpa Simpson: "I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn't 'it' anymore and what's 'it' seems weird and scary. It'll happen to you!"
I'm not sure I was ever with "it", but "it" seemed singular and therefore clear. Now everything's atomized.
I remember a social studies teacher rolling a TV into class on an A/V cart (an early mobile screen, singular) to watch the OJ verdict. I don't recall a deep conversation about race, riots or police brutality, but at least we all had the same set of basic facts as it related to the trial. On the eve of another epic US criminal trial, and the atomization of news/information sources, a time with shared facts seem quaint.
We had a long discussion about the “cheer” at work afterward. Brass tacks - I see no romanticism at all. What I did see (and feel) was connectedness. Sharing. Experiencing “a thing that happened” with who-knows-how-many others in a way that we simply don’t anymore. Even sporting events don’t have the same vibe to them - because we choose them. Or theatre. Or concerts.
Standing and staring up at the sky to witness an awe-inspiring event - at the same time as, or in succession to - countless others of innumerable backgrounds, beliefs, lifestyles, you name it, is simply a level of connectedness that we share all-too-rarely these days. And I see precious few other opportunities for that kind of feeling going forward.
Good to have you back.