The Era of Fragments

Pop culture is dead.

At least pop culture as we had come to know and love/hate it in the recent past, when it dressed, entertained and molded America en masse.

When culture popped in the 1960s, the entire country would tune in to “The Ed Sullivan Show” every Sunday night, forging a vocabulary for the next day’s national dialogue around the water cooler.

Three decades later, such solidarity is unthinkable in the face of a 500-channel future.

“The most interesting part of the story could be the disappearance of pop culture,” said New York trend analyst Edith Weiner. “It has to have a history communicated through some generational mechanism. What we have now are flashes coming and going everywhere. That is not culture. Those are fads. . . . We have become a potpourri of cultures, and we have lost much of what was our culture.”

So if you’re scouting out pop culture, don’t look for, say, a uniform that could brand an entire generation, the way love beads once made a silent hippie declaration. Now culture pops with flashbulb swiftness. Now you see belly button rings and blue bar drinks, now you don’t.

“You take the picture, it’s here and it’s gone, as opposed to a motion picture,” Weiner said. “Then you can say there are a lot of photographs there, and if you put an album together, yours would look different from someone who lives three blocks from you.”

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If you wanted to costume someone in youth drag, you could make her a preppy.

Or a biker.

Or a grunge girl.

“If you look at teen-age culture, there’s a phenomenon of teen-agers with a Chinese-menu approach for their lifestyle,” said Robert Avila, chief economist for the Futures Group of Glastonbury, Conn. “My niece said she used to be a punker, and now she’s a new romantic and she dresses like something out of ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Pick and choose your lifestyle to suit your current mood and fashion.”

In trendspeak, this is the era of fragmentation when it comes to pop culture--or pop cultures . Trend watchers call this a nation of subcultures. With technology getting higher and higher, commerce can cater to smaller and smaller audiences. Fragmentation is linking arms with another late-20th-Century phenomenon--a sharply stepped-up rate of change--to create an explosion of culture pops.

“Imagine a kid today 10 years old never understanding you’d only have a choice of five networks to watch, which is something a child 3 to 5 years older can remember,” Weiner said. “Instead of having a generation defined at the 20-year break, it’s more being defined in two-year breaks in time. We’re experiencing generations of pop culture in one life span.”

And as we peer into the jaws of the millennium, technology is helping to resculpt the bedrock of culture--the economy--moving us out of the Industrial Age and into the Information Age. As we interact with the world via our newly interactive TVs and computers--27 million U.S. households have computers--another cultural phenomenon is unfolding: the trend toward isolation.

“This brings more people back to their home,” said Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y. “A reverse process is taking place. The Industrial Age took people away from homes to work locations. At the end of the Industrial Age, people are moving away from a centralized location to decentralized locations.”

At work, 7.6 million people telecommute and 40 million hold full- or part-time jobs based in the home, trend analysts say.

At school, more work-at-home parents will respond to a declining education system by teaching their children at home, Celente said. He projects that by 2005, the number of home-schooling families will grow to more than half a million from the current 200,000.

At leisure, Americans can shop electronically and socialize in cyberspace without leaving home. The new importance of home base is drawing sharply different responses.

“The streets are so dangerous or perceived to be so dangerous that you would rather be at home where it’s comfortable,” said Neil Feineman, a Los Angeles journalist who develops magazines about youth culture. “I think that’s a terrible thing.

“Live music at a concert is not the same thing as seeing it on pay per view in your house. You are one more step removed and, from a moralistic standpoint, I wonder about the distancing. What happens when you do things in cyberspace as opposed to face to face? If cybersex is so satisfying, why have real sex, which raises so many emotional and health questions these days?”

But some society watchers view the trend toward an empowered home base equipped with modem as a good thing. Celente calls it Techno Tribalism: “People will be drawn back to their communities, and they’ll take more of an activist role to see that their neighborhood develops in accord with their belief systems.”

In trend analyst Weiner’s view, computerized discourse, far from being alienating, can sow meaning in human affairs. If love is blind, then computers are the ultimate blindfold.

“Pop culture in previous eras was interaction, one-on-one and in person,” she said. “The emerging pop culture’s interaction will be just as meaningful when it’s one-on-one but not in person.

“In the sub-pop culture of being on the (computer) network, very often people don’t know what a person they’re having an intimate relationship with looks like. You don’t know that it’s a female or male or their race or height. It’s just to talk. To the people engaged in it, it’s extremely meaningful.”

Herewith, some upcoming culture pops in the pan.

Changing Success Ethic

Yuppie materialism as it defined the ‘80s will be consigned further into history. More and more, success in life for people of all ages will be defined by their ability to find a deeper purpose.

“Being a yuppie was about having a killer job that provided a sense of accomplishment at work,” said Watts Wacker, a futurist for Yankelovich Partners Inc. of Westport, Conn. “The need for achievement isn’t manifesting itself at the workplace. It’s manifesting itself at home. Status has gone from being external--what impresses you?--to internal--what works for me?”

Celente said that search will involve examining the past.

“This may be the basis of the so-called paradigm shift,” he said. “The paradigm we’re living under now is the Industrial Age, where success is measured in professionalism, accumulation of wealth and status. The ancient philosophies were based on the axiom that human life had a reason for being, much beyond what our culture of professionalism says it is.

“With a new paradigm, we’ll go back to believing that life has a reason for being and we’re not accidental glitches in an unfeeling universe. People are going to look at success as living a better quality of life.” Baby boomers who are also aging hippies will lead the charge, in Celente’s view.

“During the ‘80s and ‘90s they blended into the mainstream,” he said. “They got their jobs and made money. They don’t want to do that anymore. They will try to work less and buy less. It’s the essence of less is more.”

Celente calls that stripped-down existence a move toward Voluntary Simplicity, a trend abetted by the proliferation of such penny-pinching newsletters as the Tightwad Gazette.

“(Boomers) are previewing their mortality in the death and illness of their parents,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘I cannot afford to be in my parents’ condition when I get to be their age. If I’m going to be stressed out, if I’m exhausting myself, I’m going to end up as an inmate in a nursing home. So I’m going to move back to the land.’ ”

At Play

As if the world weren’t Barbied-out, Mattel celebrates Barbie’s 35th birthday with the new--Glitter Barbie--and the old--a reintroduction of the original 1959 doll.

Elsewhere, the main pleasure principle is, if it can be watched, then it can be turned into a toy, as toys continue to take their cues from cartoons and movies.

“It helps perpetuate the toy in the market and allows toy makers to minimize research and development on a new virgin idea,” said Jill Krutick, a leisure analyst for Salomon Bros. in New York.

That means kids will still clamor for action figures inspired by the TV show “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” which Bandai of America produced in limited supply for Christmas ‘93, ensuring vociferous demand this year. Other action figures that will receive a big push include spinoffs from TV’s “Biker Mice From Mars” and the animated film “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.”

Hasbro’s Elvis collector’s dolls will take a bow, and computer games will become more sophisticated. Cars and planes will appear more realistic, Hollywood actors will find a new outlet for their talents in sharper game images and sound, and there will be more games available in 3-D and on CD-ROM.

“I see the trend of (CD-ROM) sales increasing at such a rapid pace that I can see the handwriting on the wall for floppy disc units by 1995,” said Johnny Wilson, editor in chief of Computer Gaming World magazine in Anaheim. “I may be too cautious, because it may be by Christmas time . . . that that’s true.”

Hot computer games will include Lucas Arts’ “Tie Fighter” game, a sequel to last year’s popular Star Wars-inspired “X-Wing Fighter” game; the sequel will enable gamers to fight on Darth Vader’s side for the first time. Also eagerly anticipated is “Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers,” a CD-ROM game by Sierra On-Line that will employ Tim Curry’s voice.

Neo-Punk

Disco is passe.

Again.

But as you pack away your bell-bottoms, fear not that the fashion world is running out of past to plunder. Yesterday’s punk is today’s neo-punk.

“After the ‘70s there was punk, and that’s why punk is back,” says Los Angeles clothing designer Maggie Barry, whose label is VanBuren. “Everyone is trying to figure out what to do. It’s another scene to follow. It makes sense because these are confused times.”

Unlike the angry rebels of the ‘70s, the new punks are only into wearing safety pins, not wielding them. Neo-punk is fashion and nostalgia, not class warfare.

“Fashion is always a statement of the times, and what better statement to make than punk, when everyone is running out of funds,” says Luis Baraja, fashion director of Detour magazine.

Of course, that doesn’t stop such pricey designers as Gianni Versace and Chanel from leaping into the neo-punk fray with slitted and slashed pink leather from Italy and a harness bra from Paris.

Late at night, neo-punks are turning up at a new club called the Sham Lounge, named after the late ‘70s English punk rock group Sham 69. The club happens Thursday nights at the C ‘n’ C Club on Sunset Boulevard, spins hard-core to pop punk and early ‘80s hip-hop--”from Circle Jerks to Blondie” and beyond--in the words of club promoter Ben Yang. He said the club attracts nostalgic neo-punkers under 30.

“We’re in a marked transition period,” said journalist Feineman, “and looking backward for pop culture is a more reassuring way of staying viable in the marketplace until newer trends become more understandable.”

Cybersocializing

More people will be hanging out with friends in cyberspace.

Twenty million people around the world are hooked up to electronic bulletin boards, and their ranks are growing by an estimated 10% a month.

“This rate of growth won’t continue for long,” said Howard Rheingold, editor of the Whole Earth Review and author of “The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.” “We’ll run out of people on Earth.”

Rheingold sees computers as a healing tool in our increasingly fragmented society. Computers are bridges to a “virtual community” of computer users next door or across the country--”ordinary people helping each other in concrete Middle American real community ways, when your kid is sick, getting advice or raising the money to have an operation.”

Cybersocializing on a more intimate plane is also expected to grow. People with specialized tastes are finding each other in adult bulletin boards, such as Maryland’s Throbnet, where the computer version of phone sex thrives.

And on-line dating is expected to leap from the fringe to a mainstream meeting ground. “A lot of people out there would never dare go into a bar,” Rheingold said. “What a weird way to meet people, and (yet) nobody thinks that’s weird. Here, at least you get to know people. It’s a real opportunity.”

High-tech dating will also take a turn in the next few years with the introduction of interactive video-dating TV channels. The lovelorn will punch in their requirements, view clips of appropriate candidates and flag desirable parties, who would then run their videos. Eventually, phone numbers would be exchanged.

Says Steven Dworman, publisher of the Los Angeles-based Infomercial Marketing Report: “The love of your life could be on your TV tonight.”

Woodstock

Trend-tracker Celente, writing in the Trends Journal, predicts that the 25th anniversary hullabaloo this year around Woodstock will be “the top entertainment trend of the year . . . the biggest cross-promotional/marketing tie-in extravaganza of the year and possibly the decade.”

The ‘90s incarnation of 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Fair will be big business. Two of Woodstock’s original backers have linked up with Time Warner to mount a massive reprise of the defining megaconcert of the ‘60s. Their plan is to produce an Aug. 13 and 14 concert at the original Woodstock site with some of Woodstock I’s rock ‘n’ rollers.

The scope could be massive. Promoters expect as many as 250,000 people to spend $100 each to attend--and the rest of the world could tune in via global satellite links and virtual reality technology. Organizers hope for a total audience of 1 billion.

Somehow through all those zeros, Celente sees a spiritual spinoff from the Woodstock refrain.

“It has the probability of setting a tone for the nation, if it recaptures even a part of what the original Woodstock was about,” he said in an interview, “and that’s the peace and love message, the symbol of the bird on the guitar.”

Home Shopping

It’s only going to get easier to spend money without crossing a store’s threshold as more media and retail companies leap into the lucrative home shopping fray.

Time Warner Entertainment has linked up with Spiegel Inc. to launch two shopping channels next year: The 24-hour Catalog Channel will hawk goods from Spiegel’s catalogues, as well as its Eddie Bauer merchandise. The other channel will be interactive--subscribers to Time Warner Cable’s Full Service Network in Orlando, Fla., will be able to shop in catalogue “stores.”

Office workers far from their living-room TVs will be able to let their fingers do the shopping at catalogue kiosks tested in Chicago office buildings last year. A mere touch of the MicroMall Inc. screen enables passers-by to peruse catalogues and order by credit card.

Even the television networks are gearing up for an interactive shopping future. NBC plans to coordinate some of its programming with the Interactive Network system, a digital broadcast network based in Mountain View, Calif., that will be unveiled this year. Viewers will be able to shop at home and participate in game shows.

And the mainstays of home shopping--the $3-billion cable and infomercial industries--will get glitzier. “Can We Shop?” a talk-and-spend show hosted by Joan Rivers, will make its debut this month on QVC. The network is also launching Q2, an upscale channel that will hawk trendy labels--”an attitude, not a demographic,” as its new chief, ex-Fox executive Stephen Chao, told New York magazine.

“The one thing that has been proven in the infomercial industry is it takes a specialized creative talent to create programming capable of selling, but also entertaining and worth watching,” said Dworman of the Infomercial Marketing Report. “Very few people have accomplished that. That’s why literally only one out of 15 infomercials are successful. As the channels proliferate, you’ll run into the same problem.”

Snowboarding

The unruly adolescent of winter sports is experiencing sharp growth spurts--and pains--as it schusses its way toward the front of the line at ski resorts.

The fledgling in-your-face pastime of Generation Xers and their younger siblings is growing by 30% a year. One in 10 of those on ski slopes are shredders, slang for fans of the snowboard, essentially a skateboard for snow.

“It’s a new sport with lots of money and lifestyle identification,” says L.A. journalist Feineman.

That lifestyle is a blend of skateboarding, hip-hop fashion and raucous youth, a combination that can be nerve-racking for typically older skiers, who often reluctantly share the slopes with snowboarders. Indeed, ski resort owner Alpine Meadows Inc. found that 87% of the Lake Tahoe-area and Utah skiers surveyed didn’t want the daredevil shredders on their mountain.

“It’s the most important test of rebellion versus the status quo in the youth culture that I know of because it’s set up so diametrically opposed to skiing,” Feineman said.

Some resorts, mindful of the coming snowboarding boom, are catering to the shredders. Big Air Green Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains turned its slopes entirely over to snowboards this season. And Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe is luring them with a six-foot-high volcano for fancy footwork.

The Wild West

The Wild West will continue to rope in a broad spectrum of American dogies.

Country music is Tush Pushing its way into our leisure time. In the ‘90s, it has more than doubled its share of the album market to 16.5%, said trend-tracker Celente. More than 500 full-time country music dance clubs operate nationwide, with a dozen opening every month. And a dozen Western films--TV and feature--are in the works.

Country is even cutting a swath in that previously un-country-like country--the book industry. In a reprise of Barbara Mandrell’s great success with her 1990 “Get to the Heart: My Story,” Naomi Judd’s “Love Can Build a Bridge” is a literary hit, having quickly climbed the bestseller lists after its November debut. More autobiographies are due from a line-dance of country stars: Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire have signed seven-figure contracts, and this year’s autobiographers will include Charley Pride, Roy Clark, Glen Campbell and Travis Tritt.

One of L.A.’s hottest restaurants, Jackson’s on Beverly Boulevard, serves roasted chicken under wagon-wheel chandeliers. And Celente noted that America’s romance with the Wild West is reflected in the popularity of such utility vehicles as Ford Broncos and Jeep Cherokees.