coining a popular identity

i admit that i enjoy listening to this american life on npr. they had a rerun this past weekend during the horrid pledge-athon that included stories about people who had assumed the absurd for far too long, and what happened when they realized their mistake. this included a man who thought “quesadilla” was spanish for “whats the deal?” and a college student who asked her friends if unicorns were endangered or extinct. less funny was the guy who assumed that tv ratings were determined by “the nielsens,” i.e. that you had to have the last name “nielsen" in order to participate.

in my opinion, the truth is about as absurd, and it suggests how lame and outdated madison ave. is when it comes to assessing how consumers consume information and products. its well known that advertisers are always slow to see demographic shifts, and always make culturally-stupid blunders that any asshole could avoid.

a couple of years back i went to a big marketing conference in chicago, and manned a booth that pitched the idea of an american mixed race demographic that blurred existing lines between groups while it was starting to draw its own. even with recent census 2000 data, and the way mixed people had entered the realm of pop culture cool (a la vin diesel, halle berry, the rock, keanu reeves, etc.), we were met almost exclusively with confused stares by “leading” ad execs who, thanks to ricky martin and the grammys, had just been introduced to the hot hot hot “hispanic" market.

similarly, pop culture has always seemed a bit behind whats truly cool, kinda like mariah carey (bless and praise her heart). i spose that inherent to garnering such wide appeal is something losing its freshness, risk and exclusivity.

so its no surprise to me that the concept of pop culture seems somewhat endangered these days. much of pop culture seems concerned with drawing generalizations about groups of people and what they want. it seems like even with the lure of having a posse, what human beings truly want is to be recognized as individuals. for those of us who were never fully willing to give up some of our independence in order to join a group, this site is in part dedicated to you, my kittens. this site is dedicated to the exploration of popular identity, the idea prospect that the pendulum is moving away from the group towards the individual.

time, my lassies will tell us for certain, but i hope that this site will achieve at least these two objectives:

1) provide shameless proof of the depths of my narcissism under the guise of polishing the efficiency and quality of my prose so i can accomplish perhaps the greatest act of public masturbation: write a book.

2) to coin the concept of a popular identity by profiling one contemporary composite identity that responds to our day’s values and issues. who better than a recently unemployed mixed homo guy who occasionally feigns latinness?

your camaraderie on this epic voyage is appreciated.