Culture

In Praise of Rabbit Holes

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

How many times have you heard someone critique people for niche interests?  Politicians and pundits will mock college students for supposed useless degrees.  Obsessive fans are targets of twisted humor.  If you haven’t experienced this kind of insult, you’re either lucky or boring.

I would like to defend this “going down a rabbit hole” intellectually, academically, and personally.  Instead of some highbrow argument, let’s talk my latest musical interest, and how it expanded my mind and made me a better person.

What kind of music?  Well those who know me would assume it’s either electronica, experimental metal, or parody.  Nope, my latest musical obsession is what’s popularly called “exotica” or “space age pop.”  Yes, I got into the kind of music you associate with 50’s and 60’s cocktail lounges and kitschy bars.

This is going to be a ride.

I never thought about this style of music until I heard of a show called The Retro Cocktail Hour at http://www.retrococktail.org/.  As I’m fascinated by musical oddness, I gave this show a listen and realized I liked this style.  It had a relaxing, moody quality that reminded me of another favorite – lo-fi Jazz.  Since I’ve been trying to broaden my musical horizons by trying new things regularly, I decided to dive into exotica – and got surprised.

Exotica is alive and well these days.  There are bands of older folks who’ve done it for ages, and young bands that have taken to the style.  These performers are all over the globe – the younger performers I found were in Europe.  Exotica, which I’d associate purely with America, was global – and sometimes being made by people who could be my kids.

Exotica also wasn’t just jazz infused with a serial-numbers-removed sound-fantasy of Oceana that I thought it was.  There was South American influence.  There was some African influences.  There were also attempts to add even more sounds from all over the globe.  Over the decades exotica was more of an attempt to integrate many influences – albeit one that could be ham-handed and appropriative (more on that later).

As I learned more about the global reach of this style, I found that exotica inspired or blended into other forms of music.  I discovered “space disco” or “cosmic disco” with it’s powerful, far-out sound.  “Acid Funk” and it’s trippy beats came to my attention.  Thanks to a friend, I found exotica intersects with the music from the Tropicália art movement – an influential and at-times attacked movement I’d never heard of and clearly need to learn more about.

Musical styles weren’t the only thing that exposed me to politics and sensitive issues.  Exotica is inevitably associated with Tiki bars and the cultural appropriation they embody.  As Tiki bars have gotten a revival, there are documentaries and articles noting how these bars, and some of the music, doesn’t acknowledge its use/misuse of Polynesian/Hawaiian/Oceanic culture.  Suddenly my newfound musical interest seemed less innocent.

(And I kicked myself for not seeing it earlier.  This musical rabbit hole required me to confront the insensitivity of me and people I know.)

Now I was listening to these documentaries and reading articles on Tiki bars and their history.  First, I learned about the influences and cultural appropriation, its own rabbit hole of wartime experiences, sexual repression, wild cocktails, and repurposed Asian food.  Then I learned about the revival of the culture in America (and apparently around the world).  These cheesy bars and the culture associated with them has a long and continuing history I’d never seen before.

These issues also included serious questions of cultural appropriation, insensitivity, and acknowledgement of history.

At this point, I began noticing how some exotica bands seemed to deal with these issues.  I noticed some removed “Tiki” influence from their later albums.  Others embraced the kitsch in the first place and probably didn’t care.  Some bands seemed to treat it as an aesthetic, a fantasy world like Middle-Earth, and didn’t worry either.  Finally, some used the midcentury modern art style on their album covers, and avoided (most) inappropriate imagery.

Now our story comes to a close with me listening to a style of music that led me to ask hard questions about history, culture, appropriation, and style integration.  I put more effort into evaluating the morals of my musical purchases and stylistic choices.  A single online recording of a radio show sent me down a rabbit hole that wasn’t just fun, wasn’t just history, but required me to think about ethics.

So that’s my story.  I discovered a musical style I’d rarely thought of, found out more about it, learned about new styles, and ended up facing painful issues of cultural appropriation.   I’m still in this rabbit hole, learning about history, food, style, and historical cycles.

All because I decided to go get obsessed for awhile.

Go embrace your rabbit hole.  You don’t know where it’s going to go, but that’s the point.  Take the journey, and if you keep on it, you’ll grow as a person.

Steven Savage

Neurotransmitters And Cash – The Addicts We Follow

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Anyone politically involved has one or more of those stories about how they became politically aware of something and it changed them.  I’d like to share my most recent as it’s relevant to life and to you, my readers.  It all involves New Age charlatans and the realization some of the worst people we know trying to lead us are also addicts.

If you’re any follower of religious/spiritual happenings, you’re aware what we call New Age has had it’s grifters and criminals.  As I’ve followed the community for the last few years – especially in light of alternate health claims and radicalization – I’ve found the grifters to be awful people. Watching them spew out a book of hack spirituality, overcharge people, and blatantly lie is amazing and terrible.

These grifters also keep reinventing themselves and keep coming back – sometimes a re-invention is where they become a spiritual grifter.  Your failed documentary career can become an “expose” on how aliens are using vaccines to enslave us via 5G.  You can spend one decade fighting Satan and the next channeling Starseeds.  Sometimes I have to check to make sure two separate spiritual conpeople aren’t the same person a few years apart.

It’s no wonder New Age stuff has merged into conspiracy lore and extreme politics.  It’s the exact same thing you’ll see play out again and again in political personalities. The politician leaping from the latest media-made panic to next is no different than internet coemmenter going from libertarian techbro to religious right fundamentalist.  There’s no difference between the newly minded anti-vaxx New Ager and the failed entertainer who pivots to coded racism to get on podcasts.

Grifter of one kind or another, grift is grift.

Now some of these people – perhaps all of them – are awful people.  But there’s something of an addict’s desperation and shamelessness about them.  It’s obvious that some of them can’t stop as otherwise the gravy train ends, but watching pathetic-if-effective-displays of piety or spirituality it feels different.  It feels like there’s a compulsion that reminds me of drug addiction.

First of all, we’ve all looked at a hack writer, posing preacher, or craven politician and known in our heart of hearts we could probably do that con too.  Let me extend that to ask what happens to those that do this and get rewarded for it?  When the cash starts coming in, imagine the rush you get from seeing “I can make money at this.”

It’s probably very easy for even relatively moral people to see a sudden cash infusion and get some kind of high from it.  Remember that great new job you got, and how that higher paycheck felt for the first time?  Imagine that, but with more money and all you had to do was claim aliens are turning our kids gay via video games.

But beyond the high of money, let’s not discount emotional high these grifter-criminals get.

People will agree with the stupidest thing you say.  People will praise your heroism for fighting woke vaccine with effusive internet praise.  You’ll be told you’re a hero for taking Superpac money while making people’s lives worse.  You’ll be courted on podcast and even television.

All other benefits aside, your brain is awash in dopamine and serotonin all because you’re a lying asshole. Want to keep that high? Just keep lying.

Some of the worst people we know, from arrogant hack authors to spiritual quacks to politicians are addicts.  I mean they’re also terrible people, yes there is the desire for power, etc.  But the craven behavior, the rage, the willingness to say anything, the need reminds me of a junkie.

Which even more means that you’ve got to work hard to stop them.  They can’t be shamed, they know they hurt others, and they’re getting a buzz off of it.  Even if you think you can help them, you have to stop them before they hurt others.  They don’t just want the money and power, they want the rush.

Shun them, sue them, vote them out, etc.  Even if they somehow know what they’re doing is wrong, it won’t stop them as they’re addicts and we can’t hope they get better. We have to stop damage then we can see about healing.

Steven Savage

Down The Audience Hole

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

As my regular readers are aware, I’ve been finding myself dissatisfied with a lot of media today.  There’s something unsatisfying about too much of it, at least to my mental palate.  It seems samey, it seems to lack depth, it seems so manufactured.

It’s not necessarily bad, I just feel there’s so much that’s machining and adjustment something is lost, that weirdness and wildness that’s so vital for a work to catch on your soul.  I enjoy weird challenge shows, but they seem to be everywhere and at times oddly specific.  I am glad to see great adaptions out there, but I’d like some more original and new stuff.  I enjoy many a youtube program, but there’s a lot of shouty angry people cluttering my recommendations.

I’ve wanted to understand how creativity can get so channeled into sameness without much of an edge.  Originally I wrote it off as large media conglomerates and feedback loops.  Recently, I encountered something that made see what I’d missed.

I listen to a podcast on conspiracy theories today, the snarky-but-heartfelt QAnonAnonymous.  They’ve started covering weird Influencers that focus on men, and one caught my attention.  In fact, I’m not mentioning the person by name as their story is dismal.

The podcasters and guest charted this Influencer’s gradual evolution from fitness guru to bizarre sexist religious extremist.  The hosts’ usual humor was tempered with pity as they played videos from different eras of the man’s career.  His current – perhaps – final form is a man so obviously unhappy with himself  the hosts felt sad for him despite his radicalization.

One thing the podcasters explored was the idea of Audience Capture.  One tells the audience what they want to hear and they get rewarded.  If audiences have any extreme demands, the Influencer may feed them – and become captured by them.  Charting the degeneration of their subject, it was clear that he’d been an Influencer most of his life, and thus very vulnerable.

I’m thinking Audience Capture is part of my dissatisfaction.  Now I wonder how many repetitive Isekai, samey crime shows, angry Influencers, and good-but-too-manufactured movies and books are due to Audience Capture.  Hell, maybe some failed media is books or shows or whatever that tried to appeal to an audience that moved on.

I’m guessing Audience Capture is something the captured don’t notice.

Now that I have a new tool to understand my experiences and disatisfication, I’m curious as to what I’ll learn.  In fact, ask yourself how many Influencers or authors or films you know that went off the rails went because of Audience Capture.

I’d love to hear your experiences, even if it might depress both of us.

Steven Savage