As I was rifling through the megabytes that make up my music collection, I came across a newish T.I. track, Live Your Life. Like most of you, I still rely on good ol’ torrents to fulfill most of my digital needs and thus I tend to download songs by the dozen — hundreds even — at any given point. Casting such a wide net over the Interwebs is a surefire way to discover obscure sonic gems. But alas, trash also gets hauled in with the treasure. Case in point: the aforementioned T.I. track.
Given that a handful of blogs had already referenced Live Your Life — a collab between the rapper with 236 kids and the ubiquitous Rihanna — I stupidly assumed that it was worth listening to and maybe even liking. Wrong. The track opens with some unnecessary yodeling over which our boy T.I. layers words of cracked-out wisdom about “being thankful for what you’ve got,” etc., etc. Then — and I write this with heavy fingertips — at exactly 0:12, Ribot yelps in, effectively prompting WTFs from all over the universe. Things get more idiotic when I realize that the yodeling is familiar because it samples the Numa Numa song. I repeat: the Numa Numa song. Maybe this ditty will make sense in the future but right now, I can’t help but wonder what the eff is going on.
So while my soul died a little, my right eye wept for the days back when the world wasn’t so obviously retarded. Haven’t you noticed? It’s all Katy Perry fake electro-lesbos, JoBros rawk, and Soulja Boy nonsense from here on out. Why even bother with pop music if all we get in return is Demi Effing Lovato? We might as well call it a day. All this made me miss how things were not so long ago. That said, I’ll put it out there: I want it to be 2003-2004 again.
Pop Culture Chunks
It’s not that I have a death grip on the past, but it seems like the last golden age of youth culture took place four or five years ago. That was when I last felt blown away by all the pop culture chunks hurled my way. In 2003, I still watched TV on a TV and Josh Schwartz confirmed his kingmaker status with The O.C. To wit: I find myself hanging on hard to the time Ryan Atwood cradled a lifeless Marissa Cooper in his arms as Imogen Heap’s Hallelujah soundtracked the tragedy. And when Seth Cohen introduced all of us to the awesome bi-religious holiday known as Chrismukkah. And when Summer Roberts dressed herself as Wonder Woman for Seth. Blah, blah, blah. Sigh.
Though we have 90210 and Gossip Girl today, it’s just not the same. It seems that webloid culture has stripped whatever little wonder we get from trashy teen soaps. Now, we know exactly where a show is filming a particular scene. We’re even aware of what the characters are wearing weeks before the episode is on Surfthechannel. My personal OMGometer hasn’t been impressed lately and the most memorable tube moment for me has thus far been Chuck Bass saying “I’m Chuck Bass.” Very slim pickings indeed.
‘You go, Glenn Coco’
If primetime television feels like a picked-over landscape, there seems to be a similar dearth of milestones in youth-led films. Save for last year’s Superbad, I really can’t think of any 00’s teen movie that has achieved both cult status and commercial success like 2004’s Mean Girls.
A pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan plus a pre-The Notebook Rachel McAdams plus a pre-Sarah Palin Tina Fey proved to be gold. Four years after they were first uttered, lines from Mean Girls — like “Oh, my God, Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white”; “You go, Glenn Coco” and “Boo, you whore” — have defied logic by staying as fresh and snarky as ever. Word is out that Mean Girls 2 is set for production in 2009, but only time can tell if it will be as evocative of its era as its predecessor.
Overriding The Present
Of course, paying tribute to a decade while we’re still in it is silly because, duh, historical perspective takes time. If the average number of years before older pop cultural references become ripe for the repicking is 12 years, we are in 1996, trend-wise. (Though technically, the noughties is a mash-up of the ‘80s and ‘90s. For proof, see all the boyfriend jeans; pleated, tapered pants; and acidwash jackets terrorizing the population.)
Then again, as the world teeters on the brink of global financial collapse, is it so wrong to override our harsh present with thoughts of a carefree past? Can you blame me for rewinding to a period before Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez Disneyfied us against our will? Whatever. I’m sure there’s still amazingness to be had right this minute. Thing is, I don’t want to work this hard to find it.
In a somewhat twisted way, VH1 has aired the millennium version of its “I Love” series in June this year. With two episodes a night, the decade of Harry Potter, Crocs, American Idol and color-coded terrorism alerts was brought back, stopping at 2007 for obvious reasons. Such a microwave-speed retrospective is hard to believe but apparently, I’m not alone in trafficking the ‘00s nostalgia.
Although I think that 2003 was a long time ago — the Killers, Modest Mouse, and Death Cab For Cutie are now considered mainstream — I’m also concerned that the boundaries for acceptable nostalgia creep noticeably closer every year. Vague melancholy aside, it’s got me thinking. At the rate we’re going, compressing our pop cultural mental views into short-term memory trips, what will be left for us to look back on in 2010?