Patty has been listening to a long video exposing some kind of cult called “Inner Fire.” They teach radical breath-holding while immersed in ice-water, or something like that. Sometimes people die, doing this stuff. It has an Exalted And Enlightened Leader.
Up until this morning, I’d never heard of it. Not a word.
I’ve begun to notice a rather strange phenomenon in popular culture. Once upon a time, there were huge fads that swept the country (think Davy Crockett, hula hoops, Cabbage Patch dolls, etc.) You couldn’t not know about them. Where would you have had to be in 1965, not to have heard of the Beatles?
To me it looks like fads that would have once been virtually universal now get swallowed whole by the Internet. It all winds up online. No more hula hoops or coonskin hats everywhere you look. Everybody’s head is stuck in the computer.
If you’re just 10-year-old Joe Blow in 1959, you’re going to be subjected to the fads. All of them–there was no escape. Life Magazine. TV specials. You couldn’t avoid this stuff, even if you wanted to.
But today–! Today is different. Today we can pick and choose online: we can specialize. We don’t all participate in the same cultural hiccups at the same time anymore.
That’s a big change! The common culture seems to be falling into fragments. One can only wonder what that will lead to.
Look around you. Am I right?