Tupac, too late
The Washington Post has an interesting article talking about the latest teenager trend--wearing customized or "bling" dog tags. Some of these things are iconic, having picture of Jesus or Tupac, some are jewel-encrusted, some are high-tech with multi-colored LEDs.
The idea of faddish design elements among teenagers is hardly new. Remember slap bracelets? What's interesting to me is how fads often serve the purpose of propagating an archetype. Take Shakur for instance. Brutally gunned down almost ten years ago, he' s become this generation's Che or Mao--the counter-culture revolutionary killed for his beliefs. Ignoring for a second the fact that this is hardly true, it's interesting that everyone seems to think that he was a victim of something, killed by a conspiracy of someone for some unknown reason. The fact is that gangstas generally killed each other for turf or money reasons that were hardly altruistic.
Each generation has its archetypical symbols and they say a lot about the underlying culture. Howdy Doody, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers turns to John Wayne, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, JFK and Elvis. The Vietnam War takes center stage and then the "Keep Truckin'" Mr. Natural, Che, Mao, and the ubiquitious marijuana leaf.
I wonder how this need for tribal symbology will transfer itself onto the web. The fledgling social sites like Myspace and Facebook may, I suspect, become the new gold standard of culture. Tee shirts are too slow, television is faster, but the Internet is quickest of all.
Posted on April 21, 2006
