"One of the cultural shifts that happened in the last 30 years cause I think of access and the internet is back then you understood certain art wasn’t for you and those in that community safeguarded who got in for better or worst like I didn’t listen to punk rock and if a girl like seinfield or punk rock I thought she ain’t for me if you watched martin or in livin color we was rocking my stepdad would say rap music isn’t for him they liked 1960s 70s calypso music some I liked but it wasn’t for me some underground rappers wasn’t for me even we still respect each other art form cause it wasn’t for everybody you got to you I got to be me
I think today people think every art has to be for them even if they are a tourist and I think that means we are demanding everyone to be uniform because all our cultural expressions have to uniform"
A friend shared this writing by someone she follows to her story, and I read it in the middle of conducting image research on subcultures. Serendipity, perhaps? Cause it got me thinking— it’s like a flood gate had opened. It’s also because I had to produce a brand deck for one of the famous sportswear companies a few days ago and one of the objectives was to ‘drive reach, likes, shares and views’. It does make me cringe every time I’m presented with such a request, or when I’m reminded that this is the state of brand culture today and that this is their only focus.
A different famous sportswear brand used to have a superhero mascot called Swooshman.
Swooshman was created in 1996, at a significant time in American sporting history. Designed by a costume artist from Hollywood who had created one of the Batman suits, he was originally part of a wider experimental project called Nike Sports Entertainment, where they were set to stage sports-themed shows with the most talented and famous athletes in the world. Including people like Tiger Woods, Carl Lewis and Charles Barklay.
They also had another superhero called Reflectoman. He was portrayed as an almost absurd superhero who had the power to "reflect" light, making him an ideal mascot for a product that was all about visibility and safety. He was the mascot for what looks like a pair of Nike Cortez shoes that came in two colours. Described as 'the ‘defender of youth, justice and the American way’, it was basically a way to market road safety to children without compromising their image (lol).
Putting the imperial symbolism to the side for a moment (we ultimately live under empire, so this is hard to get away from, even (especially) in product marketing), this is all reminiscent of a time when marketing was cinematic and playful. Much of their campaigns over this time period were funny and hyperbolic to a degree that made it feel theatrical, and helped you forget that at the end of the day this is just a company that’s trying to sell you something. Fast forward to now, the desperation from the client to drive sales, likes, shares or whatever, is at the forefront of consumerism, I believe. Or maybe because the curtain came down a long time ago for me, and cause I now work at Disneyland and go behind the scenes; I now see all of the animatronics and the man sitting in the dressing room who is the face behind the giant Mickey Mouse mask. He’s slouched over his dressing table, hair wet from the sweat, back aching from the weight of the Michael the Mouse suit, with a bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor and his mother on the end of the phone saying “just think, it’s not forever. It’s a stepping stone for you to get to where you want to be.” The stench of Newports brings a tear to your eye.
I say this all in jest, though I have had that phone call with my mother over the years after telling her the details of the fight I had with my team leader on the shop floor. She was called Sylwia.
Brands are at a crossroads, wondering how to reconnect with their audiences. Are they down on sales, or are they just greedy and looking to expand and drive even more sales? I haven’t looked at the numbers. I’m just hired to share pretty pictures and random bits of information that not many people are interested in. Thinking about things without contextual data is useless. We don’t exist in a vacuum. Swooshman was created in 1996. This period saw the intersection of cultural, political, and social movements through sporting events, as sports was at the forefront. Of course a sports superhero to drive shoe sales and build brand following is going to work.
Humans have a deep-seated need for meaning and direction, and worshiping deities or adhering to religious practices helped give a sense of structure, purpose, and community. I’m watching a docu-series right now about the Inca Civilisation in Q’enqo, Peru and there are these colossal ancient stone structures that lie there. It’s unknown who built them, when they were built, and how they managed to move tonnes of stone without modern technology. Likely built around 1400-1500 CE as a space for religious ceremonies to be performed. Ancient civilisations prove to us that our compulsion to worship something is innate to the human experience. Me and my boyfriend often debate if this is ultimately what makes us human and sets us apart from other species. He believes that humans are the only ones with the capacity to love, I’m unsure, but I know from basic understanding of some mammals like elephants that they have been known to mourn the loss of a member of their herd.
Through the secularisation of human societies, worship has receded to the background. Or, perhaps, something else my boyfriend and I discuss, capitalism is the new religion, and people now worship money rather than a god/gods. It’s cliche I know, so I’ll stop there with that line of thought. But I do think that our capacity to worship remains, but the thing we worship has shifted. To what exactly, I’m unsure. I do think it’s multiple things, and because it’s all so scattered and superficial, it gives understanding to why we are in such a mess as a species. Academic Cas Mudde says that we are still very early on into a relatively new century, which inevitably comes with it’s problems. It may be why we’re currently living through way too many historical moments and crises at one given moment, or in the space of a few years. I do try to remove myself from my bubble for a second, step off the space-time continuum momentarily and consider that perhaps the Inca people or people of the Ming Dynasty may have thought the same as I, that us as a species are cooked. We’ll never know.
With this knowledge about our desire to worship in mind, in 1996 it makes sense that sportsmen were seen as gods, and Nike stores the place of worship. It was genius for the brand to create a superhero, not to mention the obvious links of superheroes with deities (good vs evil, sacrifice). Sports meant something to consumers in 1996 and before and after that year. That meaning has been lost, which explains why sports brands are struggling to stay relevant. Kids don’t want to be athletes, they want to make money online. And big emphasis on ‘make money’—I wonder if young people even care about what they do now, if they have true hopes, desires and dreams, or if they just want to make money? If it is the latter, then I don’t blame children. We exist at a time where money means everything. It is the new God after all.
I did also want to touch on subcultures though, from the perspective of audiences and consumption patterns. In the same task of creating a brand deck for that famous sports brand, I had to ensure I was speaking to a ‘Gen-Z and beyond’ audience. Yawn. To break that down, Gen-Z, I hypothesise, are one of the most profitable groups in Western society currently. We exist primarily online, sharing everything, which is a dream to brands and companies cause they just see dollar signs when they see us coming. Sharing things online, with the purpose of generating cultural capital associated with self (sharing a product or brand to show that you are in the know which therefore makes you cool), in turn you are generating capital for the company. This is called user generator content (UGC). I go to a brand party, share pictures of the event with the step and repeat logo plastered on the walls, my followers see I’m at said brand’s event. Free advertising. Significant gain with little to no loss. Gen-Z I suspect are also high consumers, because of how important trends are, trends change all the time, meaning one must keep up, and the only way to keep us is by continuing to consume. It’s genius from a business standpoint, this game of infinity, but it’s one of the causes and symptoms (perpetual) of a lot of issues we face today. Lack of fulfilment (which is also a cause and a symptom), excess waste etc.
So if someone wants to sell something and make a lot of money, they will have to target the biggest audience possible. Of course, again, this makes sense form a business stand point. I look at it like a really simple, but effective, formula. So it wouldn’t make sense to make something that speaks to a small group of people. Cause then it limits your potential of sales and therefore profit. Why would a corporation want to make something that only speaks to the Black community, or emos, or hip-hop heads if profit is the ultimate goal? Because then only Black people, emos, or hip-hop heads are going to want the product, and that leaves out a significant chunk of potential consumers. Instead, let’s make something that speaks to everyone. Now, we’re in a weird time, where people have read this universalism as a positive step in the right direction. Like they think it’s some sort of unification of the human race or something. That before society was flawed because we existed in pockets, and now we have come together and ‘no one is being left out’. That’s called capitalism sweetie. They aren’t making this accessible to everyone cause they care about everyone and want everyone to feel seen, they want your dinero. Como se dice, cash or card?
What does art look like that’s for everyone? And I guess not just art, but anything to do with creative expression, so this can mean clothes and decoration too. I guess it makes sense why everything is starting to look so sterile. Have you heard of New London Vernacular? It’s a utilitarian concept of streamlined architectural design, for it to be effective because it’s functional. Big emphasis on ‘effective’ as opposed to ‘affective’. The design language has a ‘modern, clean, and forward-thinking aesthetic’, supposedly. Any new development project in London utilises the style, for example the Olympic Park in Stratford and Elephant Park in Elephant and Castle. They are blocks of bricks, almost lego-like, with some being colourful (like the ones in Canning Town) and others usually neutral tones. When you compare these buildings to Victorian, Georgian or Post War housing, you realise we are descending into a time that is barren and void or any sort of creative expression. If minimalism is a tool of capitalism, the Kardashians are agents. Kim’s Calabasas mansion (designed in collaboration with architect Axel Vervoordt) is a prime example of minimalist style. The interior is characterised by ‘clean lines, neutral tones, and open spaces’, with a focus on simplicity and ‘understated luxury’. I went to a talk at the London School of Architecture last year, and this architect said that open-plan homes are not good design for ethnic minority families. I’m paraphrasing, but she shared that she’s Nigerian, and it doesn’t make sense for her kitchen to be connected to the rest of the house. The smell of oxtail stew really sticks, it tastes and smells yummy, but it’s not ideal for furnishings. So if open plan is the new trend, and isn’t functional for food that has strong smells, which makes up a lot of food from global majority communities, who is this designed to be convenient for? Which poses the question, who’s imagination are we in?
Homogeneity was always going to be one of the drawbacks of globalisation. With the integrating of cultures and overlapping of systems, one was always going to reign champion. I speak as someone that has very little colour in her wardrobe, mostly to streamline the decision process when dressing in the morning. Which I’m blaming society for, because I don’t like being in a world where I’ve always got to be in a rush. I’m going to blame capitalism for that too. But to go back to the abstract I introduced this piece with, my view is that audiences and artists shouldn’t be to blame. The professional artist lost their agency years ago. The second you have to depend on making money to maintain your creative career, true artistry and expression starts to become diluted. The gallerist, the collector, the manager, the label or the funders are now the artists. Not in the sense that they have the capacity to make art, but they are the ones calling the shots and contorting the moodboard or the idea. What’s going to sell? What are your audience looking for? In this sense, the audience is calling the shots too (or so they think), but then this opens up the discussion of ‘does society dictate culture, or does culture dictate society?’ There is an answer, I’m not sure if I have it right now.