When you think back on the last few years, what comes to mind? The year 2009 may finally be winding down, but I am skeptical that the pop culture trends it buoyed will sink with the proverbial ship. Though sensations like Lady Gaga and Twitter have entered the public consciousness only recently, I think 2009 can mainly be characterized by the resurgence of older trends.
Don't believe me yet? Here are the four fads I see everywhere I go, the cultural fevers no one can seem to sweat out, the furies that haunt me in my sleep:
1) Vampires
2) "Don't Stop Believing"
3) Michael Jackson
4) Leggings
Just to be clear, I don't necessarily hate all of these trends, but I am growing tired of how their popularity seems to be inexhaustible. So, to start off: vampires. I don't need to identify all the media outlets that have jumped on the vampire bandwagon, not to mention the incredibly disturbing vampire paraphernalia that somehow has a market. I understand that Stephenie Meyer rewrote the rules on vampires, causing an upheaval from the purist sector. The vampires of Anne Rice novels and "Buffy" were resurrected as the model of what a true vampire should be, and new shows like "True Blood" and "The Vampire Diaries" added their two cents to the vampire lore (I haven't seen The Vampire Diaries, but True Blood for the most part is awesome and is everything that Twilight should have been). But truth be told, I need to take a break from vampires, y'all. They are so front and center in the public eye that I'm almost beginning to check especially pale boys for sparkles in the sunlight. Almost. It's nice, however, that vampires have somewhat become the base for striking up a conversation with strangers, (Have you read Twilight? What did you think of it? OMG, I hate it too! It's so deliciously awful! Yeah, Lestat could kick Edward's butt any day.) I love vampire lore as much as the next sexually-repressed girl, but I think the craze needs to retreat from the public conscious for a while. Vampires lurk best in the shadows, anyway.
Secondly, "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. Not only was it my friend's ringtone for an eternity, it has recently graced the airwaves in a multitude of contexts--the narration of Elliot's love for a dolphin trainer on Scrubs, the overture during the dramatic conclusion to The Sopranos, and Glee's crowning effort to prove in its pilot episode that a high school glee club can be both campy and inspiring. This anthem makes regular appearances at karaoke nights and in college dorms, when nervous freshmen connect over the sound of their straining vocal chords as they belt out the song that got them all through high school. "Don't Stop Believing" is an undeniably popular song, but does it deserve to be? Structurally, it's one of the most effed-up songs ever conceived by man, but I think this adds to its charm. Song formats and screenplay arcs are so organized and contrived that we are hardly surprised anymore. We know to look for the chorus following a verse or the redemption of the fallen hero, and when things don't play into our expectations, we become uncomfortable. Honestly, I never noticed that "Don't Stop Believing" didn't follow the usual format. I just thought it was a good song. So what is structure worth anyway?
I'm going to combine Michael Jackson and Leggings in this section. Obviously, since Michael Jackson died over the summer, his music has been played more frequently to honor his passing. I'm not going to get into sticky issues here, I mostly just want to note that the King of Pop is, for all intents and purposes, back. Actually, he never really left and is rather immortal in that respect--like vampires. Lastly, leggings: a fashion fad from the late '80s/early '90s in which even I partook. Now, however, leggings seem to be the trademark of the sorority girl, a signifier of the upper echelon of the physically fit.
So what do the resurgences of these old trends mean? It seems to me that in the year 2009 we have affirmed the classical status of all these motifs. And years after their initial popularity, something must have stuck because here we are resurrecting them. We might get tired of them after a while, but they'll never fully go away because they signify our culture and somehow unite us. And I guess that's alright with me.
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