How did trends spread prior to the social media?
June 6, 2021 9:32 AM Subscribe
A few weeks ago I read a short article in which the (presumably young) author expressed disdain for trends sparked by social media and influencers. Not just dumb stuff like eating Tide pods but also things like fashion, makeup, decor, food, entertainment etc. And she seemed to think that people in the past were less trendy than today, which I found funny because if you look at pictures from the past, you can almost always tell approximately when they were from by the clothing, hairstyles and decor.
I was born in 1965 so I obviously lived the majority of my life in the pre-internet age. But I can't seem to clearly remember all the previous avenues whereby our tastes and interests were informed. For example: How did we all know that dark green and burgundy were the in colors for decor in the 80s? Why were we all asking "Who shot JR?" Why did the 80s take me on a wild ride from a curly perm to mall bangs to a mullet with the ugly teased poof on top? (I do remember reading in a fashion magazine in the early 90s that big hair was now out, complete with a picture of Joanna Kern's hair "make-under" but in my small town the teased poof was still a thing for quite a while.) How did we know what dances were cool? (And by we, I mean everyone but me?) Why did some vacation destinations become the place where "everyone is going"? Why were we all so impressed by escargot?
And how did niche stuff spread? I can think of a few trends I would have liked to have gotten in on but small-town me never knew they existed. I'd have been an amazing goth but I never even heard of it until I was older and respectably married (back in that time and place I might have gotten away with being "weird" as a teenager but once you were grown with a kid you were expected to be mainstream.) The only music I was aware of is what got played on the local pop and country stations... how did people find out about alternative music? Why was swinging suddenly the "in" thing, in otherwise respectable suburbs in the 70s?
So I've already mentioned one above, women's magazines. (People in my demographic looked to Women's Day and Redbook, rather than Vogue, as the clothes were more down to earth and affordable.) I have no idea how my dad knew what to wear, he's not a GQ kind of guy and I don't remember any "average guy" fashion magazines back in the day.
I'd like to hear as many ways as you can think of that trends got around in the days before social media and influencers became a thing. Specific examples welcome. (Like, which magazines influenced what? What TV shows? Etc.)
I was born in 1965 so I obviously lived the majority of my life in the pre-internet age. But I can't seem to clearly remember all the previous avenues whereby our tastes and interests were informed. For example: How did we all know that dark green and burgundy were the in colors for decor in the 80s? Why were we all asking "Who shot JR?" Why did the 80s take me on a wild ride from a curly perm to mall bangs to a mullet with the ugly teased poof on top? (I do remember reading in a fashion magazine in the early 90s that big hair was now out, complete with a picture of Joanna Kern's hair "make-under" but in my small town the teased poof was still a thing for quite a while.) How did we know what dances were cool? (And by we, I mean everyone but me?) Why did some vacation destinations become the place where "everyone is going"? Why were we all so impressed by escargot?
And how did niche stuff spread? I can think of a few trends I would have liked to have gotten in on but small-town me never knew they existed. I'd have been an amazing goth but I never even heard of it until I was older and respectably married (back in that time and place I might have gotten away with being "weird" as a teenager but once you were grown with a kid you were expected to be mainstream.) The only music I was aware of is what got played on the local pop and country stations... how did people find out about alternative music? Why was swinging suddenly the "in" thing, in otherwise respectable suburbs in the 70s?
So I've already mentioned one above, women's magazines. (People in my demographic looked to Women's Day and Redbook, rather than Vogue, as the clothes were more down to earth and affordable.) I have no idea how my dad knew what to wear, he's not a GQ kind of guy and I don't remember any "average guy" fashion magazines back in the day.
I'd like to hear as many ways as you can think of that trends got around in the days before social media and influencers became a thing. Specific examples welcome. (Like, which magazines influenced what? What TV shows? Etc.)
I remember reading lots of magazines. And we passed our magazines around to all our friends.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:48 AM on June 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:48 AM on June 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
Why were we all asking "Who shot JR?"
Because "we" all watched TV, and talked about Dallas at school and work, and read about it in 'People'. (But some of "us" didn't know until just now that 'dark green and burgundy' were 80s colors -- I thought teal was that decade's color.)
posted by Rash at 9:54 AM on June 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
Because "we" all watched TV, and talked about Dallas at school and work, and read about it in 'People'. (But some of "us" didn't know until just now that 'dark green and burgundy' were 80s colors -- I thought teal was that decade's color.)
posted by Rash at 9:54 AM on June 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
If you lived in a city or a college town, there might be a record store that played cool music
"Might be"? No, was -- those stores were essential.
posted by Rash at 9:58 AM on June 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
"Might be"? No, was -- those stores were essential.
posted by Rash at 9:58 AM on June 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
Like the answers above note, before social media there was mass media, which did a pretty good job with producing trends, but not as quickly as say, TikTok can get millions of people doing some silly dance move.
Outside of mass media, we depended more on the expertise of cultural store owners. People have already mentioned record stores. To add to that, the arty video store was key - I grew up in a mid-sized city with a great video store that has since gone out of business, and their collection was film 101 for me as a teen. And while the employees were usually kinda standoffish, I would go up to them and say "hey, I liked this movie, what else should I watch" and they'd recommend waaaay more interesting stuff than Netflix's algorithm tends to send my way. So too with book stores.
posted by coffeecat at 10:00 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
Outside of mass media, we depended more on the expertise of cultural store owners. People have already mentioned record stores. To add to that, the arty video store was key - I grew up in a mid-sized city with a great video store that has since gone out of business, and their collection was film 101 for me as a teen. And while the employees were usually kinda standoffish, I would go up to them and say "hey, I liked this movie, what else should I watch" and they'd recommend waaaay more interesting stuff than Netflix's algorithm tends to send my way. So too with book stores.
posted by coffeecat at 10:00 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have no idea how my dad knew what to wear,
It's easy for men since mens' fashions haven't changed in over a century (except for the hats).
posted by Rash at 10:01 AM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's easy for men since mens' fashions haven't changed in over a century (except for the hats).
posted by Rash at 10:01 AM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
There were so many magazines, but also, local newspapers were way more substantial than the are now. The local newspaper had various supplements that came out on various days: travel on one day and food on another, for instance. My mom read the food section every Wednesday and clipped recipes that looked interesting. The Sunday paper had all these special magazine-shaped supplements: the newspaper had a Sunday magazine, and there was also a copy of Parade magazine bundled with the newspaper, and there was a book review and a TV listing booklet that you took out and saved. (For years, I thought the TV listing booklet was TV Guide, but that was actually a separate magazine that you subscribed to.) So even if you weren't interested enough in fashion, design, food, etc. to subscribe to a magazine about it, you'd see some general coverage in the local newspaper.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:04 AM on June 6, 2021 [27 favorites]
"Might be"? No, was -- those stores were essential.Yeah, but they were also scary, especially if you were a girl. My brother would go to the record store and get all sorts of good recommendations for new albums, and I would go and basically get ignored or condescended to. For me, the mix tape economy was essential, and record stores were just where I went to buy music once I'd been exposed to it elsewhere. The big exception was the folk music record store, where the people were incredibly nice and helpful and just seemed genuinely pleased that I was interested in learning about folk music. But that place was a national treasure, and I'm not sure there were a lot of other stores like it.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:04 AM on June 6, 2021 [27 favorites]
Advertising, media (all media), pop culture, celebrities. For example, Madonna wearing jelly bracelets, legwarmers as per Jane Fonda and Flashdance - Flashdance, also home of the cut neck sweatshirt. Celebrities were the influencers of the time.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:04 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 10:04 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Best answer: For a deep, nuanced dive into home design trends, this is a long and fascinating article in how furniture, appliance, and color trends developed, often in response to cultural events, and spread, through mass media and consumerism. This quote is talking about the pastoral, autumnal ‘grandma’ sofa of the ‘70s:
“Why were these trends so universal? “My sense is that back in the day, the color and fashion trends lasted longer,” Kueber says. “Again, it goes back to ‘Gunsmoke’ and ‘Bonanza.’ Even though families were starting to get cable in the 1980s, up until 1990-something, three major TV networks still dominated American TV. Before the ’80s and ’90s, we all watched the same mass media. We all watched the same major motion pictures. There were seven ladies’ magazines, meaning millions and millions of people were looking at the same ads for the same stuff. The internet didn’t even really work until 2010—not really. So there was a common culture, and true mass market you could sell to. We all bought the same colors and trends.”
posted by stellaluna at 10:08 AM on June 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
“Why were these trends so universal? “My sense is that back in the day, the color and fashion trends lasted longer,” Kueber says. “Again, it goes back to ‘Gunsmoke’ and ‘Bonanza.’ Even though families were starting to get cable in the 1980s, up until 1990-something, three major TV networks still dominated American TV. Before the ’80s and ’90s, we all watched the same mass media. We all watched the same major motion pictures. There were seven ladies’ magazines, meaning millions and millions of people were looking at the same ads for the same stuff. The internet didn’t even really work until 2010—not really. So there was a common culture, and true mass market you could sell to. We all bought the same colors and trends.”
posted by stellaluna at 10:08 AM on June 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
Social media and influencers have always been a thing.
Joan of Arc (d.1431) influenced two seperate waves of short female haircuts, once in 1909 when the hairdresser Antoine based the modern bob on period portrayals of her with a pageboy haircut, and once through Jean Seberg's portrayal of her in 1957. Seberg kept her hair short for the film Breathless in 1960, which popularised the pixie haircut.
posted by mani at 10:12 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Joan of Arc (d.1431) influenced two seperate waves of short female haircuts, once in 1909 when the hairdresser Antoine based the modern bob on period portrayals of her with a pageboy haircut, and once through Jean Seberg's portrayal of her in 1957. Seberg kept her hair short for the film Breathless in 1960, which popularised the pixie haircut.
posted by mani at 10:12 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Also radio, so important; and especially reading the newspaper -- forgotten now, how important that Sunday ritual was. And then there were the alternate weeklies, like the City Paper, <your city> Weekly and the Village Voice. Where the Alt-Weeklies Went.
posted by Rash at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Rash at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
Response by poster: It's easy for men since mens' fashions haven't changed in over a century (except for the hats).
I know that men's fashions don't change as much as women's, but I can remember trends. After my parents divorced in the 70s I remember my dad started wearing a gold neck chain and bracelet, and velour v-neck shirts, and he'd comb his chest hair up out of the "v" ... I don't recall seeing any of those things done in quite a while (at least not in my dad's demographic.) Ditto the cut-off denim shorts he wore in the early 70s (not in tandem with the velour shirts... lol.) Also he wore a big mustache for most of the 70s and one day, it was just... gone.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
I know that men's fashions don't change as much as women's, but I can remember trends. After my parents divorced in the 70s I remember my dad started wearing a gold neck chain and bracelet, and velour v-neck shirts, and he'd comb his chest hair up out of the "v" ... I don't recall seeing any of those things done in quite a while (at least not in my dad's demographic.) Ditto the cut-off denim shorts he wore in the early 70s (not in tandem with the velour shirts... lol.) Also he wore a big mustache for most of the 70s and one day, it was just... gone.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:15 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: I did forget about the Sunday paper! I do remember the supplements, although I was mostly only interested in the comics section.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:19 AM on June 6, 2021
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:19 AM on June 6, 2021
I was born in 1958, and magazines were a huge deal - the women's magazines as well as Time and Life, which had articles about trends. I was very interested in what the older teenagers were doing. There were also TV commercials telling us what exciting things we should want to buy and what foods were the latest thing (Shake-a-Pudd'n, anyone?)
Magazines have affected culture for a long time. In the 1800s, Godey's Lady's Book was a hugely influential magazine that is credited with making the white wedding dress a "tradition" for Americans after Queen Victoria wore one - apparently the editor was an admirer of Queen Victoria. According to the Wikipedia article, Godey's also did a lot to create American Christmas tree traditions and Thanksgiving meals. I remember reading some historical novel as a child in which the characters were excited about getting a copy of Godey's Lady's Book to find out about new styles. I also remember in the Little House books when the girls started wearing bangs, which their father referred to as "the lunatic fringe."
There are also stories that when Dickens was publishing The Old Curiosity Shop as a serial, Americans stood on the docks in New York waiting for the next installment from England and shouting, "Is Little Nell dead?"
Men probably found out about fashion from TV, but it was also a matter of what was available in stores. It wasn't like today when there are a million online options for shopping. One of our local department stores had a sort of hip section for young people, where of course, we all wanted to shop. I remember with great shame that we laughed at my father when he came home with a slightly colorful mod coat. He never wore it after that.
posted by FencingGal at 10:29 AM on June 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
Magazines have affected culture for a long time. In the 1800s, Godey's Lady's Book was a hugely influential magazine that is credited with making the white wedding dress a "tradition" for Americans after Queen Victoria wore one - apparently the editor was an admirer of Queen Victoria. According to the Wikipedia article, Godey's also did a lot to create American Christmas tree traditions and Thanksgiving meals. I remember reading some historical novel as a child in which the characters were excited about getting a copy of Godey's Lady's Book to find out about new styles. I also remember in the Little House books when the girls started wearing bangs, which their father referred to as "the lunatic fringe."
There are also stories that when Dickens was publishing The Old Curiosity Shop as a serial, Americans stood on the docks in New York waiting for the next installment from England and shouting, "Is Little Nell dead?"
Men probably found out about fashion from TV, but it was also a matter of what was available in stores. It wasn't like today when there are a million online options for shopping. One of our local department stores had a sort of hip section for young people, where of course, we all wanted to shop. I remember with great shame that we laughed at my father when he came home with a slightly colorful mod coat. He never wore it after that.
posted by FencingGal at 10:29 AM on June 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
I think in the pre-internet days some trends and fashions were spread broadly via mass media, but many were regional and local. My wife grew up in small town Midwest and I grew up in the Boston area, both in the 70s to 80s. There were music, fashion and other cultural trends that were part of everyday life for me in the early- to mid-80s that were entirely unknown to her at that time.
posted by slkinsey at 10:33 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 10:33 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
My path to alternative music was that I liked British pop music, like Wham! and Duran Duran. The American pop magazines like Teen Beat or whatever didn't have much info on these groups - maybe one photo per issue and a "what's your favorite color" type of article. Eventually I went to a newsstand with international magazines and found Smash Hits magazine, which was from England and had in depth articles and more news about the music I was interested in. They also covered alternative music like the Cure and Jesus & Mary Chain. I didn't have the budget to buy this music (though I did find a Cure album at a secondhand shop), so I started to seek out penpals advertised in the back of the magazine that liked this music. They'd send letters with mix tapes and clippings. I started dressing in the alternative style by choosing items from thrift shops that matched the aesthetic. Then, when I walked around, I would make friends who also had that style, and we'd exchange more music.
posted by xo at 10:35 AM on June 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by xo at 10:35 AM on June 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
I'm in about your demographic and I think the big thing was that trends moved more slowly. So you'd have a thing that happened on TV and your weekly magazine (Time, Newswee) would talk about it. Or your monthly humor magazine (Mad, Cracked). A lot more people watched the same channels, so you'd see people dressed on shows and dressed i commercials and that was a thing I lived in a rural area, and when I'd visit friends in the big city I'd get ideas and some of those would filter down. I assume it was like this for other people, getting ideas from people more cosmopolitan and then the trickle down. Same with radio, there were only so many stations and there would be a culture that built up around each one which might include shows they promoted (you'd go, you'd see other people) and maybe local events or stuff around them.
posted by jessamyn at 10:37 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 10:37 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
I remember taping hours of radio broadcasts and then editing those tapes down into mix tapes.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:37 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:37 AM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
once through Jean Seberg's portrayal of her in 1957. Seberg kept her hair short for the film Breathless in 1960, which popularised the pixie haircut.
Speaking of movie influences, Veronica Lake changed her hairstyle during World War II because of concern that women who copied it would get injured if their hair got caught in machinery while they were working in factories.
Movie stars were a huge deal before TV. Even Anne Frank put up pictures of movie stars in the Secret Annex.
posted by FencingGal at 10:40 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Speaking of movie influences, Veronica Lake changed her hairstyle during World War II because of concern that women who copied it would get injured if their hair got caught in machinery while they were working in factories.
Movie stars were a huge deal before TV. Even Anne Frank put up pictures of movie stars in the Secret Annex.
posted by FencingGal at 10:40 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
One of the things I think (and remember!) being a significant part of trend-setting that seems really different now is literal "trend-setters" as in the coolest people in your local area. Like yeah, definitely people in TV/movies/news* and magazines/print media were mostly showing up first with the hottest trends, but it spread on the ground by normal people.
You definitely ended up with regional variations on fashion and trends that way, as well. I lived in a part of the country pretty deeply divided between redneck/conservative and hippie/intellectual (with a similarish division also distinctly mirrored between two very different types of Vietnam veterans) but both of those groups and their subcultures (including the various phases of 70s "single and ready to mingle" men's fashion) wore a very watered-down version of those looks as we saw them in national media. And you might definitely know about a trend from national media for a year or more before the fanciest people in your town finally adopted them and unofficially opened the season for other people to be willing to make the change.
*I think we underestimate how much seeing people on the news mattered then, especially national news and "news magazine" shows like 60 Minutes, but from my small Texas town that was mostly the only glimpses we got of real people on the streets of New York City or Miami.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:44 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
You definitely ended up with regional variations on fashion and trends that way, as well. I lived in a part of the country pretty deeply divided between redneck/conservative and hippie/intellectual (with a similarish division also distinctly mirrored between two very different types of Vietnam veterans) but both of those groups and their subcultures (including the various phases of 70s "single and ready to mingle" men's fashion) wore a very watered-down version of those looks as we saw them in national media. And you might definitely know about a trend from national media for a year or more before the fanciest people in your town finally adopted them and unofficially opened the season for other people to be willing to make the change.
*I think we underestimate how much seeing people on the news mattered then, especially national news and "news magazine" shows like 60 Minutes, but from my small Texas town that was mostly the only glimpses we got of real people on the streets of New York City or Miami.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:44 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think social media is more about an acceleration in the spread of trends, as well as an increase in the scope of their spread, than the absence of trend-spreading before. Prior to Facebook/etc, people talked to one another, in person. Well, duh, but what I mean is they had no choice... it was talk to each other or not, no phone to turn on and disappear in. Media wasn't "social" as we mean it today, but it was still... media. That, and people did what people do - watched the "in" person or people among them and often copied/followed along. Based on my memories of summer camp, trends spread there practically in minutes, sans phones or the internet. Some of this had to do with most of the campers originating in the same hometown. They all just... knew... what was "in" (based on all knowing each other, they decided what that was, in turn based on movies, TV shows, etc) and good luck if you weren't from their town. People set trends, and others follow, or try to follow - whether through gossip and magazines and MTV, or through social media. All that's changed is the speed in which trends get set, and the size of the area that they reach.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 10:54 AM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 10:54 AM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
A lot more people watched the same channels
Since there was only a few channels, that's all people could watch. It was a golden age for what Noam Chomsky calls the Agenda-Setters; the media is so much more diverse, now.
posted by Rash at 10:58 AM on June 6, 2021
Since there was only a few channels, that's all people could watch. It was a golden age for what Noam Chomsky calls the Agenda-Setters; the media is so much more diverse, now.
posted by Rash at 10:58 AM on June 6, 2021
In response to the comment about 70's dad, Nobody has mentioned Playboy, but it was a big influence on men's style and taste. Not many men read GQ, but Playboy was hugely popular. Another influence on men has always been sports figures. Lots of big mustaches and gold chains in the NFL and NBA.
posted by irisclara at 11:07 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by irisclara at 11:07 AM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
I was born early 1970’s in a town just outside of Toronto. Our tiny local paper had a hefty music/fashion section, larger than what the Toronto Star currently publishes. I also read zines, magazines from overseas (UK because I am goth), but the biggest part was seeing other people in my town. Even though we had several high schools the goths all found each other. Compared to the teens and early twenties people I am friends with today, back then we were OUT all the time. Going for walks, going to teashops, at basement parties, going into Toronto to walk along Queen West etc. There were a lot more indie clothing shops with reasonable prices so non-mainstream fashion was accessible beyond the watered down Le Chateau dresses (kinda our version of Hot Topic). Lots of thrift shops too. We would see what other people were wearing and next weekend we would have a similar outfit. A lot of fashion was DIY. Muchmusic (our version of MTV) and the local radio station also had a lot of alternative music due to CanCon rules. With the Internet, CanCon isn’t really a thing.
posted by saucysault at 11:13 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by saucysault at 11:13 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
The Sears Catalogue was big.
Things showed up first in fashionable cities and then spread to other cities. Often they spread by way of the TV shows. First you would see the cool kids on the sit com wearing some kind of outfit, which apparently was how they dressed in New York or California. Then versions of those outfits showed up in the Sears Catalogue and the kids were were status conscious wore them to school, causing all the other kids to imitate them.
TV and Radio had music programs based on Top of the Pop. (Did you know that Pop is short for Popular?) The shows were informative and often had guest musicians or played music from related genres - thus the Ed Sullivan show, which was a program for American music directed at adults invited a British boy band to play on their stage. The Ed Sullivan show invited them because the ratings were high after the CBS news played a clip of them performing that was submitted by the CBS London Bureau.
Ratings were all important for the TV programs. If a show had high ratings then they could charge more for advertising than if they had low ratings, and consistently low ratings meant a show would get pulled. Ratings was a measure of how many people were tuned in, and if they expressed enthusiasm for what they watched. There were two ways that they got ratings data. One was calling numbers in the phone book and asking whoever answered if they had watched any of these shows, the other was to get bored housebound people to watch the shows and fill in a questionnaire as to what they thought of it.
So many people watched the same shows that they penetrated deeply into the cultural consciousness. They didn't always take the same things away as each other. I heard one story about how Richard Nixon would use the phrase, "And I say to you, my fellow Americans..." which irked the young boomer revolutionaries, and they agreed that they would flush their toilets every time he said that on TV. Ultimately during one heavily watched speech, the water pressure across New York City kept repeatedly dropping to a level where it became impossible to flush at all.
TV networks were in competition. People would meet at work and school and church and discuss the TV. If clever and successful Mrs. Jones talked about the shows she watched, then other people would watch that show so they would be able to discuss it with her. My father mentioned how when the first English Language TV network went on the air in his city there was immediately a division between the few people who had TV and those that didn't. The ones who did monopolized all the conversation. There was a rush to by TVs and soon there was only a minority that sat silent and could not participate. TV and the programs they watch was the only thing discussed. Not having a TV relegated you to the bottom of the social heap.
Many people watched TV to be informed and many programs pushed this. There was a time when half of America watched the six o'clock news every night. Commercials in that block of time dictated what everyone valued. This was during a time when income and purchasing power was going up, so commercials and magazine ads had no shortage of people who would see the advertisement and act on it. It's different now when people are mostly experiencing reduced expectations and have a lot of choice. But since the previous generations had often grown up without even having radio, the daily paper and the news was a cornerstone to many people. If you watched TV you really watched it. The whole family might be sitting in front of the black and white TV for an hour, from the five year old to the grandparents. It probably wasn't until the seventies that the kids drifted away and many of the adults started to skip it or have the TV on in the background instead of giving it their undivided attention.
There were almost always some cool kids who were tougher and not as tightly constrained as the rest of the kids, and while many of the kids did not try to emulate them, the kids who felt alienated did. These kids sought out different things to make their own. If you wanted to listen to early techno like Kraftwerk, or follow the punk scene, you looked for those kids who wore a different "careless" style and got them to mentor you.
The playground disseminated child culture. The younger kids copied the older kids. Traditions that were hundreds of years old were passed down as well as the latest fads. When the Davy Crockett show came out in 1954 not that many people saw it. But the kids who saw it went to school and sang "Daavy Crockett! King of the Wild Frontier!" and the kids who had not seen it learned the lyrics and sang it too. A couple of folklorists named Iona and David Opie recorded in real time how the jingle spread from the part of the States where the show was televised, through out the States and crossed the Atlantic to be sung by children in Scotland and England.
But since then the transmission of culture by children to other children has slowed down to a stilted trickle, as children stopped being at liberty to go out and play. That has created a huge block to historical culture. All the naughty rhymes and traditions and superstitions and rituals are only being transmitted with adult supervision, and the adults have their own agenda, so only the bowdlerised sweet little nursery rhymes are surviving.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:21 AM on June 6, 2021 [14 favorites]
Things showed up first in fashionable cities and then spread to other cities. Often they spread by way of the TV shows. First you would see the cool kids on the sit com wearing some kind of outfit, which apparently was how they dressed in New York or California. Then versions of those outfits showed up in the Sears Catalogue and the kids were were status conscious wore them to school, causing all the other kids to imitate them.
TV and Radio had music programs based on Top of the Pop. (Did you know that Pop is short for Popular?) The shows were informative and often had guest musicians or played music from related genres - thus the Ed Sullivan show, which was a program for American music directed at adults invited a British boy band to play on their stage. The Ed Sullivan show invited them because the ratings were high after the CBS news played a clip of them performing that was submitted by the CBS London Bureau.
Ratings were all important for the TV programs. If a show had high ratings then they could charge more for advertising than if they had low ratings, and consistently low ratings meant a show would get pulled. Ratings was a measure of how many people were tuned in, and if they expressed enthusiasm for what they watched. There were two ways that they got ratings data. One was calling numbers in the phone book and asking whoever answered if they had watched any of these shows, the other was to get bored housebound people to watch the shows and fill in a questionnaire as to what they thought of it.
So many people watched the same shows that they penetrated deeply into the cultural consciousness. They didn't always take the same things away as each other. I heard one story about how Richard Nixon would use the phrase, "And I say to you, my fellow Americans..." which irked the young boomer revolutionaries, and they agreed that they would flush their toilets every time he said that on TV. Ultimately during one heavily watched speech, the water pressure across New York City kept repeatedly dropping to a level where it became impossible to flush at all.
TV networks were in competition. People would meet at work and school and church and discuss the TV. If clever and successful Mrs. Jones talked about the shows she watched, then other people would watch that show so they would be able to discuss it with her. My father mentioned how when the first English Language TV network went on the air in his city there was immediately a division between the few people who had TV and those that didn't. The ones who did monopolized all the conversation. There was a rush to by TVs and soon there was only a minority that sat silent and could not participate. TV and the programs they watch was the only thing discussed. Not having a TV relegated you to the bottom of the social heap.
Many people watched TV to be informed and many programs pushed this. There was a time when half of America watched the six o'clock news every night. Commercials in that block of time dictated what everyone valued. This was during a time when income and purchasing power was going up, so commercials and magazine ads had no shortage of people who would see the advertisement and act on it. It's different now when people are mostly experiencing reduced expectations and have a lot of choice. But since the previous generations had often grown up without even having radio, the daily paper and the news was a cornerstone to many people. If you watched TV you really watched it. The whole family might be sitting in front of the black and white TV for an hour, from the five year old to the grandparents. It probably wasn't until the seventies that the kids drifted away and many of the adults started to skip it or have the TV on in the background instead of giving it their undivided attention.
There were almost always some cool kids who were tougher and not as tightly constrained as the rest of the kids, and while many of the kids did not try to emulate them, the kids who felt alienated did. These kids sought out different things to make their own. If you wanted to listen to early techno like Kraftwerk, or follow the punk scene, you looked for those kids who wore a different "careless" style and got them to mentor you.
The playground disseminated child culture. The younger kids copied the older kids. Traditions that were hundreds of years old were passed down as well as the latest fads. When the Davy Crockett show came out in 1954 not that many people saw it. But the kids who saw it went to school and sang "Daavy Crockett! King of the Wild Frontier!" and the kids who had not seen it learned the lyrics and sang it too. A couple of folklorists named Iona and David Opie recorded in real time how the jingle spread from the part of the States where the show was televised, through out the States and crossed the Atlantic to be sung by children in Scotland and England.
But since then the transmission of culture by children to other children has slowed down to a stilted trickle, as children stopped being at liberty to go out and play. That has created a huge block to historical culture. All the naughty rhymes and traditions and superstitions and rituals are only being transmitted with adult supervision, and the adults have their own agenda, so only the bowdlerised sweet little nursery rhymes are surviving.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:21 AM on June 6, 2021 [14 favorites]
I agree that magazines were huge, especially (for me) for music. I had a guitar, so I read guitar magazines, of which there were several, and they covered pretty much all kinds of guitar music, which in the early 90s was kind of a majority of music. So as a 15 year old in small town Ohio, I knew a lot about King Crimson, Bad Brains, Nuggets, Yo La Tengo, Pat Metheny, Dream Theatre, Death, etc. Then I’d go to the public library, which was really well-stocked, somehow, and check out any albums that sounded interesting. A lot of times (King Crimson), they weren’t nearly as interesting as the magazines made them sound. There were a lot of of-the-moment label-PR bands featured (does anyone else remember Wax as fondly as I do?), but it also had the opposite effect as well, keeping older stuff like Hendrix and Zeppelin current.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:22 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 11:22 AM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
John Molloy's 1975 Dress for Success book was also very influential. Molloy based his book on research on how people reacted to others wearing certain styles of clothes. I remember he was on the Phil Donahue Show, where he said that people thought men wearing yellow shirts didn't want to work. The book had a section for women on how they should dress if they wanted to marry men in certain professions (I remember him saying the way to attract a doctor was to wear a pink angora sweater to play football). Molloy then wrote a separate book for women, which was the reason that a whole bunch of business women in the late 70s, early 80s wore nearly identical navy blue suits with blouses and scarves.
posted by FencingGal at 11:23 AM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 11:23 AM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Before widespread broadcast TV, since that’s well covered above -
There were little magazines about lots of interests or hobbies, with reader-supplied content and incredibly dense, social, letter sections. That started as soon as cheap postage did, in the 19th c. And any social group will start innovating with its subject and developing quirks and signals that turn into styles that might get picked up as fashions.
A little smaller than magazines were the newsletters of hobby clubs. Same letter sections, plus the social interactions of local meetings and club self-governance.
Smaller then that, zines. Less organization, more variation.
People could get styles out of novels as well as movies, either from illustrations or just imagining. Lots more people sewed and wore some homemade clothes, and lots of towns had a seamstress whose job was to translate women’s fashion into what was locally wearable. IIRC men’s clothing was acceptably mass produced earlier than women’s was, but at the same time men’s brotherhood societies with enormous complicated shopping catalogs for clothing and bling came in, so we know there were groups of men hanging around looking at each other on the reg and that will lead to variation.
posted by clew at 11:27 AM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
There were little magazines about lots of interests or hobbies, with reader-supplied content and incredibly dense, social, letter sections. That started as soon as cheap postage did, in the 19th c. And any social group will start innovating with its subject and developing quirks and signals that turn into styles that might get picked up as fashions.
A little smaller than magazines were the newsletters of hobby clubs. Same letter sections, plus the social interactions of local meetings and club self-governance.
Smaller then that, zines. Less organization, more variation.
People could get styles out of novels as well as movies, either from illustrations or just imagining. Lots more people sewed and wore some homemade clothes, and lots of towns had a seamstress whose job was to translate women’s fashion into what was locally wearable. IIRC men’s clothing was acceptably mass produced earlier than women’s was, but at the same time men’s brotherhood societies with enormous complicated shopping catalogs for clothing and bling came in, so we know there were groups of men hanging around looking at each other on the reg and that will lead to variation.
posted by clew at 11:27 AM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I am a born in the early 60s guy. The way I see it is that there used to be a small group of self appointed people who controlled fashion and trends. The advent of social media democratized influence. The Anna Wintors of the world just are much fewer.
I think movies had a large influence on trends. Little things like James Dean wearing a plain white t-shirt rather than a short sleeve button down influenced fashion towards much more casual. The Vietnam War changed attitudes about letting older folks (those over 30) dictate to the generation that was going overseas to kill and be killed.
As for music, agree that it was older siblings, college radio stations, etc. Actually, Rolling Stone magazine was a big read and helped spread FM music to the youth.
posted by AugustWest at 11:36 AM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think movies had a large influence on trends. Little things like James Dean wearing a plain white t-shirt rather than a short sleeve button down influenced fashion towards much more casual. The Vietnam War changed attitudes about letting older folks (those over 30) dictate to the generation that was going overseas to kill and be killed.
As for music, agree that it was older siblings, college radio stations, etc. Actually, Rolling Stone magazine was a big read and helped spread FM music to the youth.
posted by AugustWest at 11:36 AM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Often men did not buy most of their own clothing. If you were working class - and most men were working class, your clothing was probably bought by your wife. You might buy a suit as it would be made to measure, but chances are you asked a buddy, "Where do I buy a suit?" or you already knew because there wasn't any choice, in your town you went to the one shop that sold suits and took the advice of the clerk who measured you.
Keep in mind that shopping around was a new phenomena. Before cars were common you shopped very close to home and you didn't have a mall to go to, let alone a choice of them. You had a Main Street in the States or a High Street in Britain. If you really wanted things they didn't sell then a shopping trip to the city was a major expedition. You quite likely took a train up to the city for the day's shopping.
Main Street got their stock from traveling salesmen - who were so common that jokes about traveling salesmen were ubiquitous, and the salesman would make sales by assuring the owner of store or the buyer for the department store, that THIS is what they were wearing in < Big City > this season. Savvy people double checked if this were true or not before buying by looking at magazines.
Clothing was often bought seasonally - people did not used to have a big budget and they spent not when things wore out or started to look shabby as they would be mended, but when there was money in the budget. Often you got one outfit per season, so if you were fashion conscious it mattered a lot that you were on trend. "My spring outfit" was liked just that, perhaps a dress and a bolero jacket for cooler nights and a pair of shoes. Of course lots of people didn't even get an outfit for every season. They would instead look at what the people who had bought a new outfit were wearing and make alternations to the item they already had. "How long are we wearing our skirts this season?" was a repeated question that would result in dropping a hem, or taking one in, as opposed to getting a new dress. If you took in a hem you didn't cut it because if you did, sure as eggs were eggs, next year they would be wearing them long and you'd be the only one going around with too much leg showing.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:39 AM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Keep in mind that shopping around was a new phenomena. Before cars were common you shopped very close to home and you didn't have a mall to go to, let alone a choice of them. You had a Main Street in the States or a High Street in Britain. If you really wanted things they didn't sell then a shopping trip to the city was a major expedition. You quite likely took a train up to the city for the day's shopping.
Main Street got their stock from traveling salesmen - who were so common that jokes about traveling salesmen were ubiquitous, and the salesman would make sales by assuring the owner of store or the buyer for the department store, that THIS is what they were wearing in < Big City > this season. Savvy people double checked if this were true or not before buying by looking at magazines.
Clothing was often bought seasonally - people did not used to have a big budget and they spent not when things wore out or started to look shabby as they would be mended, but when there was money in the budget. Often you got one outfit per season, so if you were fashion conscious it mattered a lot that you were on trend. "My spring outfit" was liked just that, perhaps a dress and a bolero jacket for cooler nights and a pair of shoes. Of course lots of people didn't even get an outfit for every season. They would instead look at what the people who had bought a new outfit were wearing and make alternations to the item they already had. "How long are we wearing our skirts this season?" was a repeated question that would result in dropping a hem, or taking one in, as opposed to getting a new dress. If you took in a hem you didn't cut it because if you did, sure as eggs were eggs, next year they would be wearing them long and you'd be the only one going around with too much leg showing.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:39 AM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
My brother was always plugged in to whatever was interesting. Whole Earth Catalogs, 'zines, R Crumb comics, etc. Magazines like Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and others had some entry into what was cool and interesting. Trends didn't spread fast, and many trends only spread if you went to the right New York City nightclubs.
We grew up in the listening area of WDAO(Dayton, OH), one of the country's best soul music stations, and they also had a fair bit of Black news. also WYSO(Antioch College/ Yellow Springs) which had the finest alternative and folk music and news. Alternative community radio was an amazing resource. WYSO is still alt-radio, but WDAO got bought out and is boring white pop and stuff now.
posted by theora55 at 12:01 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
We grew up in the listening area of WDAO(Dayton, OH), one of the country's best soul music stations, and they also had a fair bit of Black news. also WYSO(Antioch College/ Yellow Springs) which had the finest alternative and folk music and news. Alternative community radio was an amazing resource. WYSO is still alt-radio, but WDAO got bought out and is boring white pop and stuff now.
posted by theora55 at 12:01 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I remember my Mom taking in and letting out my Dad’s ties when fashions went narrower or wider.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:02 PM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:02 PM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
My great grandparents owned a department store in rural Virgina in the early/mid 1900s. Great-grandma would go on frequent buying trips to NYC to scope out what was going on, fashion-wise, and order stock for the store. She also kept in regular contact with relatives up there who were also in the clothing business. We found a quote from her in the local paper stating that because of that the ladies in her town were just as fashionable as the ones in the big cities, thank you very much.
So, yeah. If you were in that town or the surrounding areas, you kept up with the trends based on what was stocked in the stores which was based on someone else going out and seeing what was going on in other places.
posted by damayanti at 12:23 PM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
So, yeah. If you were in that town or the surrounding areas, you kept up with the trends based on what was stocked in the stores which was based on someone else going out and seeing what was going on in other places.
posted by damayanti at 12:23 PM on June 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
- Cool kids moving from other parts of the country to my rapidly-growing Minneapolis suburb were a vector for fashion trends in particular.
- Older siblings would see shows at local venues, interact with others in the audience as well as the bands themselves and people traveling with them, and then bring those influences back to their friends and younger siblings.
- A handful of shops played important roles spreading culture. Music stores were hangout spots where music was discovered and ideas mixed. There was also a chain of magazine stands/shops called Shinders that had all kinds of hard-to-find zines, graphic novels, and other stuff.
- Alternative radio stations and college radio had a big reach even out into the small towns and countryside.
posted by theory at 12:39 PM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
- Older siblings would see shows at local venues, interact with others in the audience as well as the bands themselves and people traveling with them, and then bring those influences back to their friends and younger siblings.
- A handful of shops played important roles spreading culture. Music stores were hangout spots where music was discovered and ideas mixed. There was also a chain of magazine stands/shops called Shinders that had all kinds of hard-to-find zines, graphic novels, and other stuff.
- Alternative radio stations and college radio had a big reach even out into the small towns and countryside.
posted by theory at 12:39 PM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
In Pride & Prejudice, there is a comment, I think by Mrs. Bennet, that she just got word of that the new fashion in London is for short sleeves. So, word of mouth, going back to the dawn of time.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:56 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by SemiSalt at 12:56 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Whole Earth Catalogs, 'zines, R Crumb comics, etc.
Reminds me of a late-60s to 1980s store where culture was disseminated, which hasn't yet been mentioned -- the head shop. Source not only for rolling papers and bongs, but also Zap and other underground comix, posters depicting the latest fashions, alt.political stuff, T-shirts, jewelry and even bootleg records.
posted by Rash at 1:14 PM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Reminds me of a late-60s to 1980s store where culture was disseminated, which hasn't yet been mentioned -- the head shop. Source not only for rolling papers and bongs, but also Zap and other underground comix, posters depicting the latest fashions, alt.political stuff, T-shirts, jewelry and even bootleg records.
posted by Rash at 1:14 PM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
I was born in 1981 and yeah TV and magazines were huge influences--just slower than social media today. MTV (especially the late-night stuff) and Sassy magazine drove a lot of my own personal "If only I could just dress in those clothes / wear my hair like that / have hot pink lipstick / get that perfume in the rad bottle / do that dance I would be so much cooler" longings.
I learned about less-mainstream and more cutting-edge things from college radio, weirdo public access TV, people from trendier cities visiting or moving to my town, my friends' more-well-traveled older siblings, seeking out counter-culture radio and zines, and seeking out foreign zines and books.
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:26 PM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
I learned about less-mainstream and more cutting-edge things from college radio, weirdo public access TV, people from trendier cities visiting or moving to my town, my friends' more-well-traveled older siblings, seeking out counter-culture radio and zines, and seeking out foreign zines and books.
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:26 PM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
Now I want a history of the inflection points in the dissemination of trends! Does it always lag new communication, or does it sometimes drive it, patterns in centralization or decentralization, patterns across languages.
(Engravings, fashion plates, fashion magazines around the plates, penny mail and press, newspapers with engravings, cabinet photos, magazines with photos, newspapers with photos, movies, radio, rare TV, common TV, omnipresent TV, cable, netnews, photos uploaded to the internet, video uploaded to the internet, ??)
Also, every time this sort of thing comes up, I'm struck by how simultaneously people remember more things being accessible! or local things getting wiped out! Both can be true at once: the ecological terminology is alpha, beta and gamma diversity, describing species-richness at distinct local levels or in a whole region or planet -- and they don't have to go up and down together.
posted by clew at 2:08 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
(Engravings, fashion plates, fashion magazines around the plates, penny mail and press, newspapers with engravings, cabinet photos, magazines with photos, newspapers with photos, movies, radio, rare TV, common TV, omnipresent TV, cable, netnews, photos uploaded to the internet, video uploaded to the internet, ??)
Also, every time this sort of thing comes up, I'm struck by how simultaneously people remember more things being accessible! or local things getting wiped out! Both can be true at once: the ecological terminology is alpha, beta and gamma diversity, describing species-richness at distinct local levels or in a whole region or planet -- and they don't have to go up and down together.
posted by clew at 2:08 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Publisher’s catalogs! You’d find one odd book, maybe not what you were really interested in, but it would have a list in the back of similar books or everything else from that publisher with formats and prices and an address for mail-order. Eventually something would mention a magazine and unless it was a single publisher’s front you could find references to all the publishers who operated in that field.
There was a slow gradient-climbing process to get from the nearest mention of weird to your own kind of weird.
posted by clew at 3:31 PM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
There was a slow gradient-climbing process to get from the nearest mention of weird to your own kind of weird.
posted by clew at 3:31 PM on June 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
For those who want to read more about style gatekeepers, I recommend Seabrook's Nobrow.
The classic work on innovation diffusion by Everett Rogers also covers some of these topics.
posted by ec2y at 4:42 PM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
The classic work on innovation diffusion by Everett Rogers also covers some of these topics.
posted by ec2y at 4:42 PM on June 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
There used to be a book in the library called The Catalog of Catalogs. It was full off addresses to send away for free catalogs for everything under the sun. One of those catalogs is where I was introduced to my first gaming dice and tarot cards. There was also one catalog of super-cheap, decent quality wigs.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:56 PM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:56 PM on June 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
SPIN magazine hipped tons of people such as myself to edgier sounds courtesy of Byron Coley and John Leland's monthly columns.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:51 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by porn in the woods at 5:51 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Seconding rhiannonstone that women of a specific age (baby X or elder millennial) who were aspirationally punk rock definitely read Sassy to find out what was cool. I’m trying to remember how I knew things were cool in the window between Sassy and the World Wide Web as it was called and I think the answer is that I had friends in the dc hardcore scene and they sent me mix tapes. Sigh.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:59 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:59 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
And how did niche stuff spread?
There were niche publications for what I cared about (writing, SF & music) like magazines (and fanzines) and low print run books and newsletters you'd get snail-mailed to you. I actually didn't do much directly with these, though I'd occasionally read about SF conventions long since over in back issues of Analog or something. I had a couple friends who seemed insanely plugged into all sorts of stuff. Of course they talked to a million to know what they should subscribe to in the first place, but that energetic extrovert vibe is why I knew them too.
For another example (before my time): Sherlock Holmes "fandom" was as obsessive as an wikipedia editors in the day. There were a few newsletters for the obsessives, but as one editors put it when looking at the overlap between contributors and subscribers: "Never has so much been written by so many for so few." Their work would occasionally bubble up into the pseudo-mainstream. The "Annotated Sherlock Holmes" by Baring-Gould collected the best/craziest theories and notes alongside the stories, and Nicolas Meyer's "The Seven Percent Solution" owes a lot to these people too. They both thank the "community" in the books too, so that's another entry point if you didn't realize this was even going on.
posted by mark k at 9:58 PM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
There were niche publications for what I cared about (writing, SF & music) like magazines (and fanzines) and low print run books and newsletters you'd get snail-mailed to you. I actually didn't do much directly with these, though I'd occasionally read about SF conventions long since over in back issues of Analog or something. I had a couple friends who seemed insanely plugged into all sorts of stuff. Of course they talked to a million to know what they should subscribe to in the first place, but that energetic extrovert vibe is why I knew them too.
For another example (before my time): Sherlock Holmes "fandom" was as obsessive as an wikipedia editors in the day. There were a few newsletters for the obsessives, but as one editors put it when looking at the overlap between contributors and subscribers: "Never has so much been written by so many for so few." Their work would occasionally bubble up into the pseudo-mainstream. The "Annotated Sherlock Holmes" by Baring-Gould collected the best/craziest theories and notes alongside the stories, and Nicolas Meyer's "The Seven Percent Solution" owes a lot to these people too. They both thank the "community" in the books too, so that's another entry point if you didn't realize this was even going on.
posted by mark k at 9:58 PM on June 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Countdown and Rage in Australia.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 10:04 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 10:04 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
there's a great book about how ideas spread through history called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I recommend it!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:45 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:45 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I came to recommend Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers but ec2y beat me to it. This is the one to read. The Wikipedia page on the topic looks pretty good too.
There’s also Malcolm Gladwell’s 1997 New Yorker article The Coolhunt which is about people who spotted trends before they became big and, given the date, is pre-mass-internet.
Then there’s also Richard Dawkins’ ideas about “memes” from 1976, long before “meme” meant a funny captioned picture (and before he was a cranky Tweeter).
posted by fabius at 6:04 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
There’s also Malcolm Gladwell’s 1997 New Yorker article The Coolhunt which is about people who spotted trends before they became big and, given the date, is pre-mass-internet.
Then there’s also Richard Dawkins’ ideas about “memes” from 1976, long before “meme” meant a funny captioned picture (and before he was a cranky Tweeter).
posted by fabius at 6:04 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was born in 1981 and yeah TV and magazines were huge influences--just slower than social media today
I agree. You can see this in the tv ratings. For example, the "who shot JR" episode of Dallas had a Neilsen rating of 53.3 and a 76% share, and per wikipedia 83 million viewers, more people watched than voted in the 1980 (I think) presidential election.
By contrast the most popular show this year was Sunday Night Football, with a 4.7 with 16.5 million viewers. All other popular tv shows are (way) below that.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:53 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I agree. You can see this in the tv ratings. For example, the "who shot JR" episode of Dallas had a Neilsen rating of 53.3 and a 76% share, and per wikipedia 83 million viewers, more people watched than voted in the 1980 (I think) presidential election.
By contrast the most popular show this year was Sunday Night Football, with a 4.7 with 16.5 million viewers. All other popular tv shows are (way) below that.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:53 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
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1. If you lived in a town with a college, you could find out about it by listening to the college radio station.
2. If not, you might have an older sibling or cousin (or a friend with an older sibling or cousin) who went to college and found out about that stuff via college radio stations. Your more-savvy cousins, siblings, and friends might make you mix tapes, which would introduce you to stuff.
3. If your parents were willing to pay for cable (which is to say, not my parents), you could watch 120 Minutes (or Headbangers Ball or Yo! MTV Raps).
4. If you lived in a city or a college town, there might be a record store that played cool music or even that had a listening post where you could listen to albums with headphones.
5. If you had a job and had some money, you could subscribe to a magazine like Spin and then take a chance and buy an album just because the description sounded like something you might like.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:42 AM on June 6, 2021 [14 favorites]