1986: The Cultural Singularity
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Presentation I gave at Miami Ad School and at MTV looking at the seminal year of 1986 and how the works of Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, N.W.A. and more changed the trajectory of pop culture.
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1986: The Cultural Singularity
- 1. CULTURAL SINGULAR ITY reated this presentation, which I’ve given ool as well as other places. Several years ago I wrote a blog post entitled, “The Cultural Singularity Paradox.”
- 2. THE CULTURAL SINGULARITY • IT’S ALL HIP HOP’S FAULT • EXOTIC BLITZ SCHEMES • PORN STAR AS CAREER PATH
- 3. So, what do I mean by the “Cultural Singularity?” Well, I don’t mean it in the Ray Kurzweil sense of singularity…
- 4. But a cultural singularity. And if I had to pinpoint a time when this occurred, it would be the year 1986.
- 5. But first, let’s take a step back. This gent, let’s call him Ted, is an ad exec, or maybe a CEO type from the late-60s. If he wanted to keep up to date with what was happening in culture, it wasn’t too difficult. Two or three TV networks, a couple of magazines, the “Paper of Record” and he could feel reasonably comfortable that he knew what was going on. Anything outside of that scope was too weird and/or subversive for him to be too worried about. Culture moved in a pretty orderly fashion. Let’s take a look at music as an example.
- 6. MUSIC TRENDS - BBB You can, especially in hindsight, map out the shifts in taste pretty easily for a good four or five decades BBB (Before Beastie Boys). When Perry Como and company didn’t meet the needs of rebellious youth, rock ‘n roll filled the niche. But eventually rock got full of itself, bloated and self indulgent. Punk stripped it of pretense and disco brought back the beat. As New Wave led to the hair bands and disco begat the over-produced pop sounds of the boy bands, Grunge found its calling. Ok, it’s not perfect, but you get the idea.
- 7. “Hey, wait a minute, you forgot rap/hip hop! That kicked off in the late-70s / early 80s!” Yes, it did, but the year 1986 is when hip hop really changed everything.
- 8. In 1986 Run-DMC teamed up with Aerosmith for the cross-over monster hit Walk This Way. Not only did it open the guys from Hollis, Queens to a new, white audience, it gave Aerosmith a whole new career (but we won’t hold that against Run and D).
- 9. Also in 1986, Will Smith enters culture as the Fresh Prince. This was hip hop that white suburban kids not only liked, but could relate to. The door to mainstream culture opens a little wider.
- 10. Still in 1986 and NWA are Straight Outta Compton. Young, black and dangerous (according to some), Ice Cube, Dr. Dr, Easy E and company become Public Enemy #1. These dudes were terrifying, especially if you were an old white person. Unbelievable! Run-DMC, Will Smith AND NWA all explode in the same year. But you know what’s really crazy? None of that is even the biggest thing to happen in hip hop in 1986. These guys are…
- 13. MUSIC TRENDS - ABB
- 23. IT’S THESE EXOTIC BLITZ SCHEMES, NOT JUST BLIND SIDE HITS, THAT BRANDS NOW MUST DEAL WITH EVERY DAY IN THE FORM OF THE CULTURAL SINGULARITY.
- 28. WHEN PORNSTARS AND PROFANE RAPPERS ARE THE MAINSTREAM, BRANDS CAN NO LONGER IDENTIFY SAFE GROUND TO ESTABLISH THEIR BASE.
- 30. THE MORE WE KNOW, THE LESS WE UNDERTAND.
Editor's Notes
- I’ve given this presentation in slightly various forms to the Insights group at MTV and to the NYC outpost of the Miami Ad School. It’s my take on how culture has taken shape, and the speed at which it moves, from the perspective primarily of popular music.
- Well, maybe not *all* hip hop’s fault exactly, but I do think hip hop has had a greater effect on pop culture in the last 25+ years than just about anything else. Exotic blitz schemes? That’s my riff on Grant McCracken’s ‘blind side hit’ theory for corporations. Porn star as a career path is a result of the speed at which our old assumptions have been crushed by those exotic blitz schemes.
- So, what do I mean by the “Cultural Singularity?” Well, I don’t mean it in the Ray Kurzweil sense of singularity…
- But a cultural singularity. And if I had to pinpoint a time when this occurred, it would be the year 1986.
- But first, let’s take a step back. This gent him, let’s call him Ted. Ted is an ad exec, or maybe a CEO type from the late-60s. If he wanted to keep up to date with what was happening in culture, it wasn’t too difficult. Two or three TV networks, a couple of magazines, the “Paper of Record” and he could feel reasonably comfortable that he knew what was going on. Anything outside of that scope was too weird and/or subversive for him to be too worried about. Culture moved in a pretty orderly fashion. Let’s take a look at music as an example.
- You can, especially in hindsight, map out the shifts in taste pretty easily for a good four or five decades BBB (Before Beastie Boys). When Perry Como and company didn’t meet the needs of rebellious youth, rock ‘n roll filled the niche. But eventually rock got full of itself, bloated and self indulgent. Punk stripped it of pretense and disco brought back the beat. As New Wave led to the hair bands and disco begat the over-produced pop sounds of the boy bands, Grunge found its calling. Ok, it’s not perfect, but you get the idea.
- “Hey, wait a minute, you forgot rap/hip hop! That kicked off in the late-70s / early 80s!” Yes, it did, but the year 1986 is when hip hop really changed everything.
- In 1986 Run-DMC teamed up with Aerosmith for the cross-over monster hit Walk This Way. Not only did it open the guys from Hollis, Queens to a new, white audience, it gave Aerosmith a whole new career (but we won’t hold that against Run and D).
- Also in 1986, Will Smith enters culture as the Fresh Prince. This was hip hop that white suburban kids not only liked, but could relate to. The door to mainstream culture opens a little wider.
- Still in 1986 and NWA are Straight Outta Compton. Young, black and dangerous (according to some), Ice Cube, Dr. Dr, Easy E and company become Public Enemy #1. These dudes were terrifying, especially if you were an old white person. Unbelievable! Run-DMC, Will Smith AND NWA all explode in the same year. But you know what’s really crazy? None of that is even the biggest thing to happen in hip hop in 1986. These guys are…
- The Beastie Boys. New York rappers, but nice middle class Jewish kids, but lewd, crude and dangerous to young minds! These guys were the grand slam of cultural dissonance. Nobody had any idea what to make of them…
- Certainly not Joan Rivers. Who at the time was adding her own bit of velocity to the Cultural Singularity. The brand new FOX network (also launched in 1986!) was going to flip the TV world upside down. So of course the first thing they did was create a late night talk show, the most predictable trope on television, But instead of mild-mannered middle America friendliness (Heeeere’s Johnny!), they tabbed a caustic female Jewish stand-up comedian. One of her first guests? The Beastie Boys. Commence train wreck. So much going on in this segment. Joan simply has no idea what to do with these guys and quickly loses complete control of the situation. This is Ground Zero for the Cultural Singularity. And look who else was on the show: Traditional Hollywood (Gene Hackman); Daytime talk queen pre-Oprah (SJ Raphael) and proto-Reality star (Giancana). Possibly the greatest single example of the intense pressing forces of culture ever seen on one sound stage.
- So, let’s jump ahead and look at music trends ABB (after Beastie Boys). Beck is a… what exactly? Rage Against the Machine incorporate a hip hop sound and The Avalanches lift sampling to another level. Janelle Monet weaves multiple styles into something new and Girl Talk leads a new generation of digital music makers. PSY, well, who saw that coming? It’s impossible to identify trends and counter-trends because musicians borrow and paste together snippets from a dozen different sounds, old and new. There is no ‘reaction’ because every sound is a co-opting of every other sound. The Cultural Singularity is upon us.
- Ok, let’s move on to Section 2 and meet Grant McCracken. For those who don’t know Grant, you should. Cultural Anthropologist and really smart guy. Go buy his books, read his blog and go hear him speak, he’s amazing. Why am I introducing you go him…
- Because he wrote this really great book, Chief Culture Officer. It’s about the need for corporations to understand culture or ignore it at their peril. That peril comes in the form of a blind side hit according to McCracken. If you’re not paying attention, a competitor is going to eat your lunch. Or your consumer is going to revolt on you. Understanding culture is key to avoiding these blindside hits. Some examples…
- You probably saw the movie The Blind Side. Typically Hollywood fare in which the white person saves the African-American and learns something about themselves in the process (but that’s anther story). But you may not have read the book by Michael Lewis. As the subtitle suggests, it’s about football, and specifically how teams started paying certain lineman a lot of money because they were the only thing standing between the star quarterback (and the team’s greatest financial liability) and 265 pounds of speeding violence otherwise known as the blindside hit. Corporations, like football teams, must protect themselves from the blindside hit. If they don’t…
- They could face consumer backlash for making unnecessary logo changes. Of course the greatest example for this sort of thing is New Coke, but you all know that story. Brands can also be blindsided by competitors…
- Nike is a great example that has been on both sides of this.
- First, Nike blindsided adidas. The German shoe brand figured they had everything under control and some little American company from Oregon was no threat. Oops. But Nike eventually forgot the lesson themselves and while they ignored the fitness/aerobics boom Reebok ate their lunch. And so it went. Nike watched Reebok, Coke watched Pepsi and NBC kept their eyes on ABC and CBS. Pretty easy stuff, just get yourself a great left tackle and protect your blindside.
- But once the Cultural Singularity hit things changed. Now, as cultured pulled more and more things and people towards the center, everything became more complicated. The Internet and satellite TV and the flattening of the world meant things were not only coming at your from multiple directions, they were now coming a whole lot faster. Now it wasn’t just an outside linebacker or defensive end. Now, to continue the metaphor, it looked a lot more like the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. Who’s rushing and from where? Why is it different on every play? They’re coming too fast!
- Now Skechers(!) makes a shoe with fitness technology. And they’re using a big name sports legend. That’s Nike’s turf. Where’d these guys come from?
- Under Armour took it a step further and just straight up out-Nike’d Nike. Tough, in your face, aggressive sports gear for serious athletes with really compelling ads.
- Know who that is? It’s Sasha Grey. She’s a brand, a media company and a mogul. She’s also a porn star. Remember at the beginning, our late-60s friend Ted? In his day, this wasn’t something you discussed. Now Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Pamela Anderson aren’t shunned and ostracized for their sexual escapades, they’re given endorsement deals. It’s all pulled into the mainstream now thanks to the Cultural Singularity. So, what’s still taboo? Surely there is still stuff too weird to be seen by us normal folks. Like, I don’t know, people who are aroused by seeing others submerged in water while fully clothed. That’s pretty weird right? Not something you’d find outside some dark weird place. Search “wetlook” on YouTube and you’ll find more than 11,000 results. It all keeps getting pulled into the middle.
- Remember this guy? That’s our friend Ice Cube from NWA. He was going to do horrible things to civil American society. He and his cronies needed to be locked up. Yeah, now he stars in family movies and hosts the Kid’s Choice Awards.
- Dr. Dre, another member of NWA. Now he sells Dr. Pepper and the headphones your kid is wearing.
- Dr. Dre’s protoge, Eminem, had a run as the “scariest man in America” for awhile. Then he started selling cans of ice tea.
- So, where does this leave us? We live in a world of complexity and uncertainty at best, chaos at worst. Challenges come at brands from every direction, and consumers have the means – and the will – to bring a brand to its knees. Technology has allowed us to have an awareness of all this, we have infinitely more data at our fingertips than we did 30 years ago. Yet things aren’t easier, they’ve become harder! Brand stewardship is a like herding cats while juggling flaming swords atop a unicycle.
- And that is the Cultural Singularity Paradox. As more and more gets pulled out of darkness and into the light of the cultural mainstream, it hasn’t gotten easier. New trends can come from anywhere and so we must look everywhere. As a result, those that make it into mainstream culture aren’t identified until they are right on top of us. So, what’s the answer? The only possible answer is to be as fluid as possible. Be ready to move quickly, to make fast decisions, but also to course-correct when the inevitable mistakes are made. Make several small bets, rather than one large one. By the time you get the Titanic up to full speed, things will have changed. Go on, lean into it.