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hey folks David Stewart here let's talk
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a little bit about cultural Ground Zero
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before I jump into it don't forget you
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can still back King leper on Kickstarter
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and get yourself a hardback or an ebook
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in fact I think I'm going to do a
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special color you might get like the
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blue Edition which will be different
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from the people who buy it on Amazon
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later anyway let's talk about cultural
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Ground Zero what is this I've alluded to
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it many times I talked about it in a
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recent video and I had several people
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ask to do a video specifically on
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cultural Crown zero and I've talked
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about it in my articles especially the
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corporate period in the Arts which is
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dealing with 20th century popular
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culture and popular art which is
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probably the art that you guys most like
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and are most familiar with uh so you can
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read that over on substack now uh I will
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start this by saying cultural Ground
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Zero is not my idea okay I got this from
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Brian NE and JD Cowan uh whom I have
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published a book with called Generation
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Y the new Lost Generation I'll link
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their blogs down below and you can get
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it straight from the horse's mouth
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because they have done uh this sort of
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Investigation into when did the popular
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culture seem to run out of steam because
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we had this expectation for a long time
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that everything was going to get better
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everything was getting better all the
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time movies were getting better special
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effects were getting better games were
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getting better everything was getting
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better until things weren't getting
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better and the year that they landed on
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is 1997 and that's a very important year
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as we've continued to say it seems to be
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1997 you find more and more things that
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are surrounding the Year 1997 and I'll
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talk about some of those things before I
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talk about those things for 1997 I'll
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also mention another year which is 2007
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and I've done a video and articles on
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this that's gaming Ground Zero because
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While most pop art and most pop culture
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stuff you know started to stagnate in in
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1997 if not fall off a cliff in terms of
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the quality of what was popular gaming
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soldiered on and continued to approve
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until the year 2007 at which point it
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peaked and began its stagnation and
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decline now an important thing about
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this is that it's not that everything
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starts to suck after 1997 it's that uh
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there's plenty of great things after
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1997 it's that our fulfillment of
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expectations stops at 1997 is in
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1997 the expectation next year's going
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to be better than last year the next
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movie is going to be better than the
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last one really no longer starts to
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apply so there's a bunch of things that
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line up with that if you want the causes
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like deep issues the first one is the
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rise of the internet 1997 was the last
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year that we didn't have things like
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Napster that were omnipresent right we
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didn't have um an Internet that was
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omnipresent and driving its own culture
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and splitting off its own subcultures we
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still had the popular culture in
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1997 after that we start to have lots of
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splinters lots of uh sub genres start to
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emerg in music um so that's a big one
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right so we you have post big big
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internet and pre- big internet there was
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still internet in 1997 but it was like
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you know let me go home and log on dial
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up my dialup modem and log on to icq and
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maybe chat with someone for my class and
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it wasn't um this like logging into
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Facebook or Myspace or anything like
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that okay there was a bunch of things
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that happened around 97 and building up
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to 97 that caused or allowed the culture
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to enter this um the popular culture at
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least to enter this stagnation
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and the so many it's hard to list them
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all but if you want the big ones it was
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there was a condensation of media
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companies media companies started to buy
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each other out and started to form what
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would what we might think of as olop
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this is definitely the case in the book
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publishing industry the book publishing
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continue to go up but as a lot of people
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have noted quality of books seems to be
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at least like the major published books
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seems to be much worse now especially in
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genre fiction um but probably in
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literary fiction and everything else as
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well just the quality of books is is
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really bad and it's because there's
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fewer competitors we have a starting in
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around
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1997 I think we we get the big six and
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then that condenses into the big five
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and now I think we're still condensing
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into the big four Publishers you had
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several publishing houses by each other
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I think McMillan got bought um I think
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uh Pearson bought several which owns
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penguin so the penguin group becomes
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this massive publisher um you have lots
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of Publishers buying things up and as
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there's less compet competition there is
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uh less incentive for Quality right and
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it's not just like a oh you get once you
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have monopo you can charge as much as
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you want and have have as crappy product
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as you want is that as there's fewer
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competitors the quality is not so
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important not only that but uh if you
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want to talk about like the Long March
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through the institutions corporations in
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as we approach a hegemony or an
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oligopoly become a Power Center unto
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themselves so it becomes attractive to
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go work at those corporations and then
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use those corporations to affect the
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culture to decide what's going to be
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popular to decide what's not going to be
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popular to by Fiat declare what the the
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culture ought to be now that works for a
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while but consumers are not just
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programmable robots and a lot of them
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will will withdraw so there's always
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this question like why aren't men
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reading books well you stop publishing
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books that they wanted to read they are
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reading books still they're just not
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reading major published books they're
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reading other things okay uh and if you
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wanted them to read the books that you
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published you have to publish books that
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they like well they need to like the
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books that I publish how misogynistic is
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it that they don't like a book that's
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made for women it's like you hear this
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argument right um but that's the
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attitude that starts to um Infuse a lot
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of these corporations is that activists
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become attracted to them because they
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understand that is a way to gain power
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just like getting a position in
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government becoming a government
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bureaucrat is a way to exercise Petty
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power over many people by deciding lots
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of things um for your particular
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political side uh it's the same thing
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with corporations right eventually you
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end up with a thing where the
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corporation no longer serves its core
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purpose but has in fact taken it itself
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as a power base and the employees that
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have been hired start directing that
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power towards whatever their pet
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projects are like um you know furthering
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um transgenderism by sticking a certain
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person on a Bud Light can right this is
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an insane move why would you do that
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well you do that because you can and
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because it's a way to uh hopefully
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affect the culture and and they're
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pretty explicit about things like that
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so that's a big one is the
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conglomeration of many companies another
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really huge one that's often overlooked
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uh but people who are in the music
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business or who were part of the music
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business as I was they understand this
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there was a telom uh Telecommunications
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Act of 1996 and so
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1997 basically by 1997 all the radio
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stations in America or of overwhelming
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majority of them had been purchased by
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one company that company was Clear
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Channel Communications
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and uh Clear Channel Communications by
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establishing a monopoly on the the
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broadcasting industry was able to buy
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fat determine what music would or would
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not be popular and of course the
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programming directors are going to
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determine what music should and should
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not be popular based on not only their
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tastes but what Equity exists either the
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company's Equity or their Equity what
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they own um so if they own Sony records
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if they own some stock in Sony records
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well then you play artists from Sony
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records and basically pay yourself it's
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it's Peola uh you force people to listen
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to what you want to listen to they
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listen to it people buy records based on
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what they hear so they go down to the
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record store they pay $20 for a CD which
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was a real thing and there was even you
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know $20 for a 12 song CD and it's
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basically pure profit um so they figured
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out how to buy Fiat not only have
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legalized Peola but by Fiat determined
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what should or should not be popular now
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if you're wondering why didn't anybody
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open some Compu radio stations it's
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actually illegal so this was the other
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thing is that they deregulated the
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broadcasting industry so you could own
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as many radio stations as you wanted but
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they didn't deregulate how the FCC
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grants licenses to broadcasting stations
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so let's say and actually I remember
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this is that there was a station in
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Fresno um it was called krzr the wild
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hair and it played kind of like rock
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music and metal right uh the wild hair
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was kind of a reference to hair metal
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cuz the'80s but even though this is the
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'90s anyway uh their programming changed
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overnight when they got bought by Clear
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Channel I remember hearing Dream Theater
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hearing Dream Theater on the radio that
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radio station and I never heard it again
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after 1997 not a single time that I hear
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there was Dream Theater songs played
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there was Strat of various songs on the
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radio right like you heard things that
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would by 1999 be considered obscure like
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the internet would talk about them like
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have you heard about Strat of arus and
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it's like Strat of arious was a band
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people listen to in 1994 uh but it was a
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band that people was was sort of an
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outsider band in America because no one
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heard it on the radio what people heard
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was corn and Nickelback and that kind of
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stuff by 1999 so that destroyed the
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American um culture as far as the
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American pop music culture got destroyed
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by this Telecommunications Act
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everything got leveled to the ground
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there was no regionalism anymore there
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was no way for a regional station to
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play a regionally popular band there was
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no such thing that you were either
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nationally Popular by Fiat or you were
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nobody so all the midlist acts went Into
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Obscurity became unprofitable uh I think
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the only exception was probably in the
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Realms of like jazz or metal which had
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always been a little bit Outsider by
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that point right especially the more
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Extreme Styles Cannibal Corpse had never
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had much radio play but they did have a
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lot of cultural penetration because of
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their um you know their intense fan base
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and stuff so anyway that's what happened
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with that that destroyed that at the
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same time after 1997 you get the rise of
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Napster in music sharing and once
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consumers especially the target consumer
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base were young
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people who didn't have a lot of money
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once they had the option to not pay for
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music they just took it so by the time
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that I was in a university in the early
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2000s I didn't know anyone who bought
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music and I was a music Major so fellow
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musicians would not pay for music that's
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where we were by the early 2000s um and
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you know the record company took a took
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a dive off a cliff it was partly their
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own huus but that's what established it
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was this Telecommunications Act so '90s
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music was really diverse there were
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still a lot of '90s music you were able
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to hear uh really uh sometimes there
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were Outsider hits like I could never be
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your woman like things that are just
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really weird that would would kind of
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take have a cultural Force for a while
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that stopped in 1997 because of the
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Telecommunications Act of 1996 there was
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also the bankruptcy of Marvel Comics I
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believe DC also had a bankruptcy around
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that time so Marvel Comics the biggest
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American comic uh Comics publisher went
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bakup in
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1997 that would be surprising if you
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were to look at any of their sales
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numbers in the 1980s where they were
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moving over well over a million books a
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month uh to have them go into bankruptcy
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in 1997 and after that they ceased to be
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a cultural force from then on now people
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the MCU is very big right but are Marvel
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Comics a PO a popular Force I don't know
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anyone who reads Marvel Comics that
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wasn't reading them in 199 5 so by the
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time 1997 rolls around comics have
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become a a niche a niche uh industry
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that sold out of specialty shops uh no
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longer at the news stand no longer by
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the counter at lucky drugstore and stuff
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like that so 1997 we had that uh that
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whole element in America disappear as a
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cultural force and it's been stagnant
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ever since then they generally don't
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publish Comics that are outside of the
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the superhero genre call it the mono
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genre and and they don't sell a lot of
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copies and the stories that they publish
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are not good so that's what you've
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gotten since 1997 with the collapse of
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Marvel eventually being bought by by
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Disney and such um which allows them to
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make a lot of movies that were popular
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but did any of the people who watch
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those popular movies the last Refuge of
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like popular culture go and by the comic
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books not really okay so all of these
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things conspired to get to this point
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and it was the same thing in movies
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right where things reached Peak and then
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they didn't get better now the reason
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this is a disappointment is that uh now
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we're used to just being disappointed
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all the time but in the 1990s every
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summer I could go to a movie theater
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watch a random movie and enjoy it right
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and slowly that started to decrease
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right I remember these Jerry brookheimer
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movies around 1999 like Coyote Ugly and
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stuff um that were just or like Gone in
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60 Seconds that were like this is not as
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good as the movies I watched last year
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it's just not as good um you know it's
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like last year I watched Heat this year
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I watched Gone in 60 Seconds like okay
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uh probably not a fair comparison but
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you get the idea right the movie
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industry starts to get into this mode
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where it's like Blockbuster season and
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the Blockbusters just aren't as exciting
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compared to how they were in the 90s
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like things are not getting better than
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they were um TV doesn't really get like
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Simpsons falls off a cliff like all of
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these things happen around the Year 1997
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and you can see them lining up now
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gaming is an example of something that's
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different gaming persists until 2007 but
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you have some of the same patterns
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emerge that causes gaming to stagnate
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and then Decline and that is
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conglomeration right uh big gaming
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companies buying up the smaller
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Publishers and making these monolithic
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AAA Studios the idea of a AAA game was
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not it was not in the Lexicon in
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2004 um it really only came into the
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Lexicon following 2007 to notate games
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that had like high graphical Fidelity
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high production cost high production
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value that were for serious Gamers and
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weren't for just having fun so the
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reason the PS2 uh Generations look back
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so fondly even by people who pick up
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those games later like if my son goes
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and plays a game from like 2005 he's
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like wow this game is really fun um you
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know he likes playing marwin uh that
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kind of stuff
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so why were these games better well they
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were made by small smaller companies
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more dedicated programmers they were
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simpler and therefore could be part of
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smaller teams so in the '90s you had all
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tours who were making games on small
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teams and then it developed into large
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movie like production companies making
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big cinematic games and there was a peak
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for this that was 2007 so if you look at
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most of your big franchises that you
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would talk about in 2025 they all
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started in 2007 the first Assassin's
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Creed game came out in 2007 uh Modern
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Warfare the it was actually Call of Duty
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4 but the previous Call of Duty games
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had been like World War II games so this
00:15:05
was Modern Warfare so Modern Warfare 1
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came out in 2007 and that established
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the mode for all of the Call of Duty
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games going forward you were going to in
00:15:16
the fall you're going to release this
00:15:18
game you're going to release maybe a Mac
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Pack or something like in the spring
00:15:21
right um and uh it's going to be this
00:15:26
format it's going to play this way it's
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going to have these controls it's going
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to have this kind of campaign it's going
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to have this kind of multiplayer and
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then it's just a bunch of variations
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each year you get a different setting a
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different story different weapons
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different Maps different variations on
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that gameplay uh but you know that's an
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example even though it's Call of Duty 4
00:15:43
it was Modern Warfare 1 you can look a
00:15:45
year before you have Oblivion come out
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in 2006 Oblivion is the game that
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created the uh gameplay standard and the
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used the engine for uh all of the
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Bethesda games that followed it okay so
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Oblivion Fallout 3 is oblivion with a
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Fallout skin right it's really similar
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gamepl it's the same engine same
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interactivity with the the environment
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um you know it's a different game in
00:16:11
that sense right like you there's a lot
00:16:13
enough lot of stuff different about it
00:16:15
but Oblivion is the base explore the map
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look around find things do quests talk
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to NPCs that's oblivian you could say
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that marind and Daggerfall were before
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that they come before that but the the
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the engine and the gameplay of marwin is
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so distinct from Oblivion I really put
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that in another category uh marwin is
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more of like a true RPG oblivion's
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closer to an action RPG still a lot of
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RPG elements um Fallout New Vegas right
00:16:43
even though that was made by obsidian
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same gameplay same
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engine Skyrim everyone loves Skyrim it's
00:16:50
just an upgraded Oblivion in terms of
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its Graphics its gameplay its approach
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to the way things work right and all the
00:16:57
mods that go with that you know so
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Oblivion was huge and it came out in
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2006 Final Fantasy X came out in 2006
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that was sort of the Capstone of of
00:17:05
squares PS2 generations and then uh a
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lot of people were disappointed by Final
00:17:10
Fantasy 13 though I think it's a really
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great game I understand why people were
00:17:14
disappointed by it um so you have this
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kind of peak with something like Final
00:17:17
Fantasy X where you you have this
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aesthetic Peak that's reached and then
00:17:22
things are going to start to stagnate I
00:17:23
would actually put Final Fantasy 13 kind
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of in this Ground Zero category even
00:17:26
though it came out quite a bit later
00:17:28
same thing with drag Age Origins last
00:17:30
good BioWare game that they really came
00:17:31
out with was in 2009 um Mass Effect came
00:17:34
out in 2007 uh there's a whole list of
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games I think crisis came out in
00:17:40
2007 um gosh there's so many there's so
00:17:44
many to list maybe Fallout 3 did I'm not
00:17:46
sure uh but anyway think of whatever
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your favorite game franchise is you know
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chances are there was an installment
00:17:53
that came out in 2007 I think Far Cry 2
00:17:57
or something like that right so so take
00:17:59
a look at it um that's the point where
00:18:00
it really peaked and the reason that we
00:18:03
had a decline was you had a shift oh the
00:18:06
MMO space you had burning Crusade came
00:18:08
out in 2007 the the rating peak of World
00:18:11
of Warcraft was 2007 um and the build up
00:18:15
to that was classic World of Warcraft
00:18:16
which was the gameplay and the world
00:18:18
peak of MMO design up to that point uh
00:18:21
and afterwards everybody was copying
00:18:23
that so after this it becomes you get
00:18:25
mud genre stuff uh you get things that
00:18:28
are more streamlined and less fun you
00:18:31
have repetitions of the same theme going
00:18:33
forward after
00:18:35
2007 and you have a focus on what what
00:18:38
we call now live service games which is
00:18:41
uh selling things over and over again
00:18:43
that you used to just buy once and half
00:18:46
DLC um started to proliferate after 2007
00:18:50
the infamous horse armor was the was
00:18:52
kind of patient zero but it goes on from
00:18:54
there um on and on and on again so all
00:18:56
of those practices start to take hold of
00:18:58
the industry after 2007 and that's
00:19:00
because the wiii and the PS3 and the
00:19:02
Xbox 360 shipped as physical consoles so
00:19:06
when they shipped people were still
00:19:08
buying physical games but halfway
00:19:11
through their life cycle actually a
00:19:12
little earlier about 2007 they really
00:19:15
started to transition into digital
00:19:17
digital consoles primarily digital
00:19:19
consoles
00:19:21
after the initial run of these consoles
00:19:23
most people that I knew were just buying
00:19:25
things digitally uh off the store you
00:19:27
know they're uh the PlayStation had all
00:19:29
the PS1 games that you could buy on
00:19:31
their store and just download to your
00:19:33
PS3 and play it was great all that stuff
00:19:35
was great and people consumers really
00:19:37
liked it but it actually created the
00:19:39
environment that we have today where
00:19:40
things ended up stagnating and there
00:19:41
ends up not being a whole lot of
00:19:43
innovation so it came as the you know
00:19:45
after this long buildup with all tours
00:19:47
big
00:19:48
budgets you know now we get things like
00:19:50
Concord anyway so that's my my stick on
00:19:54
cultural Ground Zero we're talking about
00:19:56
the popular culture if we're talking
00:19:58
about High culture cultural Ground Zero
00:20:00
is probably
00:20:01
1897 which is going to be the transition
00:20:03
instead of 1997 it'll be the transition
00:20:05
from the post-romantic into the modern
00:20:09
and uh I don't want to get too deep into
00:20:11
this because that's a whole another
00:20:12
video but you can just compare post
00:20:14
romantic painters to the painters of the
00:20:17
modern period and see the decline in
00:20:19
skill quality and effect on the on the
00:20:22
viewer uh it's it's less beautiful it's
00:20:25
just not beautiful and that's because
00:20:27
modernism was the first point where you
00:20:29
had a rebellion against Art itself
00:20:31
meanwhile what most people think of as
00:20:33
good art moved into the popular sphere
00:20:37
illustration you know the book covers of
00:20:39
the 20th century are better paintings
00:20:41
than the the stuff people hang in
00:20:42
museums for Modern Art right it's just
00:20:46
that's where the skill was the skill
00:20:47
moved into that area same thing
00:20:48
literature became about selling books to
00:20:51
Consumers who wanted to to buy books
00:20:54
after 1997 it becomes about you know
00:20:56
determining by Fiat what books people
00:20:58
have to read by making sure that they're
00:20:59
in the bookstore and they're on the
00:21:00
bookshelf and people pick them up and
00:21:01
read them and buy them and that still
00:21:03
works you know I've made this point
00:21:04
before it's like if you really want to
00:21:06
have Market penetration for normies it
00:21:08
has to be in Barnes & Noble if it's not
00:21:10
in Barnes & Noble it doesn't exist right
00:21:11
so my books don't exist because they're
00:21:13
not in Barnes & Noble actually they are
00:21:14
like on the website but uh you're not
00:21:16
likely to find them sitting on a on a
00:21:18
table at Barnes & Noble is my point okay
00:21:20
so anyway back King leper uh you the
00:21:22
kickstarters link down below and get
00:21:24
yourself a limited edition copy of the
00:21:26
book um I really appreciate everybody
00:21:29
watching leave me your thoughts down
00:21:30
below about cultural Ground Zero and
00:21:32
what you think about it uh is 1997 a
00:21:34
good year would you put it later
00:21:36
everybody has a little bit different
00:21:37
opinion and I'm not trying to to say
00:21:38
like your opinion is wrong one of the
00:21:41
things that I'm keenly aware of in terms
00:21:42
of bias is that I was a teenager in 1997
00:21:46
so that means I'm going to be more
00:21:47
attached to things from 1997 but I still
00:21:50
will talk to people that are older and
00:21:51
like oh yeah you know that's about the
00:21:53
time when I feel like things started to
00:21:55
disappoint me um Phantom Min came out in
00:21:58
199 9 and for a lot of us older Star
00:22:01
Wars fans that was a big disappointment
00:22:03
the CGI didn't look good the whole movie
00:22:05
felt like a a mess as far as plot with
00:22:08
the child actor and stuff so that was a
00:22:09
big disappointment but there were still
00:22:11
good movies that came out after 1997
00:22:13
that everybody generally likes um The
00:22:15
Matrix came out in 1999 but then there
00:22:18
were two more Matrix movies and you may
00:22:20
have an opinion about those and I would
00:22:22
love to hear that opinion or read that
00:22:23
opinion um so leave me your opinions
00:22:25
down below about when you feel like it
00:22:27
started to fall off the rail if I were
00:22:28
to actually pick a decade that was the
00:22:30
peak of popular culture it's actually
00:22:33
the 1980s but things continued to scale
00:22:36
up and get bigger and better through the
00:22:39
90s 1997 is when things started
00:22:43
to and then you know especially in in
00:22:46
the music area so let me your thoughts
00:22:48
down below and I'll be happy to read
00:22:49
them have a great great
00:22:57
day for
