Archives for "Zeitgeist"

If you’re around 30 years old, I can guarantee that among your peers are plenty of avid Star Wars fans who are so into it you could swear they must have been camped in their sleeping bags in the legendary queues of 1977.

But they weren’t even born yet.

They probably didn’t see it for another 10 years after its release, and then only on VHS on some big old wood panelled telly at their grandparents one Saturday night (after Pizza Hut of course).

They are second generation Star Wars fans clinging desperately, like the illegitimate pop-culture bastards they are, to glories that had already passed them by. It’s shamefully fat assholes like Kevin Smith who I view as the ‘real’ Star Wars fans. There is no distance from the event for them, they sat wide-eyed in the cinema and have ever since dreamed of fellating George Lucas.

The story of 2nd generation Star Wars fans is the story of Generation X tail-enders – people like me, born in the late 70s and early 80s. We straddle the Gen X / Gen Y divide – In reading the characteristics of these groups, we find that we are most definitely creatures of both worlds.

A song currently charting high in NZ is You Got Me by J. Williams. Scribe features in the song and his lyrics totally give him away as a Gen X|Y in betweener – it cracks me up every time! Listen to his rap from 2:30.

At 2:40 Scribe raps:

Baby now you got me
Like Adrian got Rocky
Imma be the champion
cause now that I got you
Nothing can stop me

Artistically, I think ‘Like Adrian got Rocky’ is perfect. But in a marketing sense, J Williams and Scribe are surely trying to ‘connect’ primarily with an audience of around 13-16 year olds – Gen Y and Gen Zers. These kids were born in the mid-90s and later (holy shit).

I would suggest that the majority of people under the age of 30 would only vaguely know who Adrian and Rocky are, let alone people born during the high point of The X-Files.

I dare say that in 2010, the only 15 year olds who have seen Rocky the film are fat emo film club outcasts, the very same sworn enemies of Top 40 music chart hits (except we know they secretly love it).

Okay, I’ll concede that some may be aware in a vague way of some ancient pop culture figure called Rocky. But then, there’s also this other one they’ve heard about called Rocky and Bullwinkle  or something. WTF.

Additionally, the name Adrian is very rarely used of females, so they’re grappling with the fact that either Adrian and Rocky are gays, or a bloke called Adrian hooked up with Rocky, the name suggesting some sort of Rock of Love dropout with tatts and enormous fake tits.

This lyric choice is potentially incredibly confusing for the kiddies.

But this is just another example of the anachronistic sensibilities of Gen X|Yers. Rocky came out in 1976, when myself and Scribe were around -4 years old. Our first experience of Rocky was more likely to be a parody, such as during this Fresh Prince episode:

BTW, besides Rocky, Scribe is evidently also a huge Star Wars fan, recounting owning a stormtrooper figurine as a kid on Rocked the Nation.

Conclusion

Clearly I’m critical of Scribe’s lyric choice. So I’ve decided to embarrass him by coming up with something far better.

I’ve been working on a version for the Boomers. Just the first two lines for now though (turns out it’s not as easy to summon Biggie as I thought it was):

Baby now you got me
Like Popo got John Gotti

or

Baby now you got me
Like cake got Pavarotti

Update, 1 June 2010: I can confirm my theory, anecdotally at least. My mid-20s brother confirmed that he had to wrack his brains to work out who Adrian might be, and thought maybe his coach. Needless to say, it took him out of Scribe’s flow.