An Extended Forecast
Sharing some of my own predictions and taking a break for the Summer
My late grandmother’s dream was not for me to become a musician. It was for me to become a television weatherman. I’m not quite sure why Nana considered this to be the most coveted job in the entertainment industry, but she did nonetheless. Although she encouraged my musical training as much as she could with her own very limited appreciation of music (rule of thumb: if it wasn’t featured on The Lawrence Welk Show, she didn’t care for it), she made it clear every now and again that I was departing from the career path she had always envisioned for her eldest grandchild. She passed away long before I started Postmodern Jukebox, and I always wondered what she would think about the project. I think that she would have enjoyed it; the music, the costumes, the various personalities, and the “variety show” format were, after all, evocative of The Lawrence Welk Show. However, I doubt that she would have given up on the weatherman thing. Like a stubborn cold front, Nana remained an incredibly strong-willed woman, to the end.
A year before launching Musings From The Middle, I departed from my present career path a bit to write what could be described as an early iteration of a Musings essay: “Rethinking Our Digital Garden Of Eden.” I suppose you could call it a demo tape — to borrow a bit of music industry parlance. I had been out of practice with writing, but it felt good to put some of my thoughts into words and begin to explore some ideas in more detail than I was afforded on the social media platforms that I used most. Writing allowed me to exercise my creativity in a way that was different, yet familiar. Introduce a new theme. Expand upon that idea. Build to bridge to connect those disparate ideas. Try cutting that section; it doesn’t fit. Reintroduce an earlier concept, this time as a new variation. It was familiar, because it’s the same process of composing and revising that I use when writing a new musical arrangement.
Musical arrangements can be stubborn animals. Over the years, I’ve learned that my best work comes not from forcibly pulling an arrangement in any particular direction, but from gently coaxing it towards its natural inclinations. I’ve learned that starting with the finished product already in mind is a fool’s errand, and one that deprives an arrangement of its very soul. While the finished product may be all that the public gets to hear, it is the process itself — the miniature epiphanies, the collaborative energy that comes from working with other artists, the improvised moments — that holds all of the magic. As in music, so it goes with writing. These Musings were originally intended to be short, email-on-a-phone-screen-length essays, but as I started to write, each one invariably felt best in the 2,000-3,000 word range, and I wasn’t about to fence them in to fit my preconceived notions. Doing so would be to skip the part that has brought me the most benefit.
It turns out that cutting out social media and writing weekly essays for the past four or so months was the creative challenge that I’ve dreamed of ever since I published that early demo tape on Medium. Beyond having a tangible — or “digitally tangible,” anyhow — finished product to come from it, the process of writing itself has been one that has greatly improved my ability to concentrate and think clearly. It’s helped me to meditate on the values that I hold most dearly, gain a bit more perspective on the ways that new trends and mediums have reshaped society, and better understand my own contrarian instincts. Most importantly, it’s encouraged me to read more; a lot more. Thanks to my readers, I now have a small library of excellent book recommendations to attend to.
The downside of all this is that for me to properly keep up with publishing regular essays and reading and responding to all the thoughtful responses I receive, I’d need to make this something of a full-time job. However, I already have a full-time job called, “Postmodern Jukebox.” Between directing all of PMJ’s upcoming concert tours and collaborating with talented artists to create new PMJ videos — not to mention running a virtual piano bar, as my schedule allows — I have more than enough work to keep me occupied. So, in order to better focus on my true life’s work — music —I will taking some time off from publishing new essays — although I will still continue using this newsletter as my primary means of “social media” — as it were — to keep in touch with all of you.
These sixteen Musings may have generated exactly zero revenue, but they were still extraordinarily rewarding to write and publish. Not only am I stepping away for a bit with a sense of having authentically expressed the things that I’ve wanted to express as a writer, but in the process of doing so I’ve also gotten to know a lot of very interesting and extremely smart people. If, in your own life, you ever become gripped with a fear that the rest of the world has gone completely mad, let me assure you that that is not actually the case. The reasonable-minded, clear thinkers are all around us; they just tend to be a bit quieter than the rest. I may very well return with a second batch of essays after the Summer, but as we established earlier, I never did become a weatherman, which means I’m not comfortable making forecasts. Right now, the only writing I’m planning on doing is for an especially important piece: a toast for my little sister’s wedding.
Actually — let me walk that one back. I am a bit comfortable making forecasts — not because they’re correct, but because it’s fun to do so —and sometimes, useful. After all, there is an element of forecasting inherent in the music industry. Predicting the success of any one specific thing seems to be unlikely; I’ve been producing music videos consistently for over a decade, and I still never know which ones will go “viral” and experience runaway success. However, I do think it is at least somewhat possible to forecast upcoming trends based on cultural currents— just perhaps not to the same degree of accuracy that Nana’s Meteorologist Idols can forecast the next week of local weather.
Today, it quite tangibly feels as though a change in our cultural weather patterns — or a “vibe shift,” to borrow a bit of Gen Z parlance — is underway, so in honor of Nana, I’ll close this series of essays out by trying my hand at an extended forecast on a few of the topics that we’ve previously discussed. Keep in mind that, in addition to not being a weatherman, I’m not a statistician, research analyst, or a psychic, either; I’m a ragtime pianist, and my prognostication skills are thereby commensurate with what one might expect from a ragtime pianist. These are but one ragtime pianist’s best guesses as of Monday, May 23, 2022, and you shouldn’t view them as anything but a time capsule to return to in the future — if only to see how far off I was about everything. With that said, here is my extended forecast:
The New ‘Twenties will not be of the “Roaring” variety. Instead, they’ll be the “Real” ‘Twenties — or, as I’ve recently heard it referred to, the Tangible ‘Twenties. The potential end to globalization comes with serious ramifications in everything from energy and food production to monetary policy, and if it does indeed come to bear, the relative excess of the “I’ll just order it online / They can just ‘print’ it” attitude will quickly become a thing of the past. The “real” — or “old” — economy will regain its lost significance, as transitory disruptions to global supply chains become permanent, and all of us will gain a much better understanding of just how all the stuff we buy gets made, shipped, and paid for. Energy will become a fundamental concern that will require clear, sober analysis and real, attainable solutions, rather than pie-in-the-sky fantasies.
The tech app space will lose its appeal somewhat, as commerce becomes more local and the era of easy money and booming stock prices comes to an end. VC capital will dry up, and with it, the idea of a Silicon Valley startup disrupting an industry at scale without fully understanding the comings and goings of individual local economies. Small, local businesses will have their day once more, as their unmatched understanding of their products and local markets will lead to greater efficiency and consumer loyalty, when compared to the slick, technology-based disruptors of the early ‘Aughts. Marketing won’t be nearly as important as having a great product and building great customer relationships. A lot of the more frivolous companies will fold. People will go out more, but remote work is here to stay. Neighborhood bars will make a comeback; maybe even record shops, too (albeit in a more customer-friendly form than is depicted in the movie, High Fidelity).
The media will continue to fracture along its fault lines, and the public will essentially choose the variety of news that they wish to hear, in much of the same manner that Spotify allows us to listen only to the songs that we wish to hear. The “legacy” media will continue to lose views to independent journalists that appear to be more intellectually honest and less influenced by corporate money, but this will change a bit once major news outlets start hiring those same journalists, in an effort to repair their flagging ratings. Misinformation and sensationalism will continue to be problems, but the public will become more adept at recognizing both. There will start to be a nostalgic demand for boring, less biased reporting.
Our most popular politicians will continue to be fame-obsessed individuals that often prioritize their own career and image over the needs of the country. Sadly, this trend doesn’t seem likely to reverse in the near future. The most visible politicians will continue to point fingers at anyone and anything besides themselves, as new challenges pile up. The public will see through the posturing and pandering and sour on politicians in general, which may have a beneficial side effect of helping the country heal from its political polarization somewhat. A new crop of candidates that are lighter on charisma but heavier on pragmatic solutions will be a refreshing change of pace.
Celebrity culture will continue its slow demise, as “fame” becomes more democratized and less coddle-worthy. Narcissism and blatant attention-seeking behavior by celebrities will be seen as wholly inappropriate and discouraged by the general public. The hardest-working and most gifted actors and entertainers will begin to find themselves at a comparative advantage, as fame alone will no longer be enough to guarantee an audience. Many celebrities will struggle with this change, but there won’t be another video of them singing “Imagine” to us. Ever.
Reboot Culture will come to end — partly because audiences grow tired of uninspired remakes, and partly because literally every hit franchise that is open to the idea of a reboot will have done one. The Xerox machine will simply run dry. In its place, studios will find success by abandoning the big-budget blockbuster and investing in creative individuals with fresh ideas for new content that challenges the conventional parameters of movies and television. Quibi might simply have been ahead of its time.
There will be a return to earlier creative practices in the music industry, in place of the current data-driven financial model, which merely used capital to amplify artists that were already succeeding on their own. No one will get a meaningful record deal based solely on their Instagram follower count or their viral appearance on a daytime talk show; instead, scaled-down major labels run by musicians and tastemakers will stay competitive by identifying a relatively small pool of up-and-coming standouts and molding them into iconic superstars by tried-and-true A&R methods. Great songwriting will be prioritized; great singing, too, as heavy amounts of autotune will begin to sound dated. A growing number of independent artists will utilize the “1000 True Fans” model in place of pursuing record contracts, and a strong “middle class” of artist-entrepreneurs with relatively stable and consistent income levels will emerge. Rising fixed costs of touring will mean that many artists will choose to leave the music industry altogether. Those that remain will be prepared to work harder and more creatively than ever before.
Vanity will go out of fashion among younger folks, and Millennials — having already been extensively critiqued by Boomers in the past for their avocado toast habits — will now take a lot of heat from Gen Z, who views them as a generation of image-conscious Instagram-grid curators. Millennials will find in Boomers an unlikely ally, as Gen Z continues to perplex their employers and radically “vibe shift” social norms. Gen X will continue to be ignored, despite being most equipped to handle the practical challenges of the time. They’ll take it in stride; by now, they’re used to it.
Big Tech’s “Walled Garden” will start to crack, as users seek alternatives to algorithmic hegemony and comment culture. The internet won’t be “Weird” again, but it will become a more diverse landscape of Discords, Substacks, and other micro-communities that allow for better conversation and nurture more authentic online friendships. We will all get much better at managing our screen time — and with it, our personal relationships with one another.
The best way to advance your career will no longer be to “build your brand.” The best way to advance your career will be to do what you say you will do. Honesty will become the new currency.
No one outside of academia will use the term “Latinx,” and efforts to mainstream it will quietly be dropped.
There will be more chatter about UFOs, and none of it will prove conclusive, in any way. Unfortunately. I want to believe. *Sigh*
Again, I don’t know how much of this — if any — will prove to be correct down the road, but there is something to be said about our human propensity to make predictions. It is certainly true that doing so often seems to be an utterly useless endeavor, not least because humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future. But, maybe that’s because we tend to focus on the accuracy of the finished product, instead of on the process itself. There are countless examples of forecasting being used to confer pragmatic benefits, outside of any middling predictive power. In mixed martial arts, sparring with fighters that share attributes and specializations with upcoming opponents can help fighters prepare for a fight — even if it can’t help them read their opponent’s mind in the heat of combat. In politics, polling can help a campaign staff identify regions that are worth additional attention — even if it can’t definitively predict election day results. In law, a mock trial can help litigators evaluate cases and workshop compelling arguments — even if it can’t predict the way the actual jury might react on the day of the trial. The act of forecasting brings together two of our most useful faculties: imagination and reason. Our innate ability to envision a possible future is an actual superpower — even when our accuracy is well off the mark.
If nothing else, forecasting possible futures from time to time might just help us to be less surprised when life throws us curveballs — as it will inevitably continue to do. That’s part of the process of life — and in this case, the process is all that we get to experience. The best we can do is to accept this burden of unpredictability with open arms, clear eyes, and full hearts. Having gotten to know many of the recipients of this newsletter, I am quite confident in my prediction that you, the reader, already have, and beyond exploring various topics, these past Musings are also meant to celebrate you. After all, the middle is the part that holds everything together; the part that returns everything to homeostasis, when systems are stretched to their limits. The superficial may be the only part that is readily visible to outside observers, but the middle is where all the substance lies.
In the spirit of enjoying the process — wherever it may lead — I’ll give the last word to the wisest weatherman of them all, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius:
“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.”
-SB
5/22/22 - I received some great emails from readers about last week’s piece, “The Great Deactivation.” A friend of mine shared their own frustration with social media’s wasted potential as an artistic space, as apps incentivize users to become social media marketers, rather than artists.
Many readers shared their own custom approaches for improving their social media experience, mostly through curating their feeds and eliminating excess notifications and superfluous Facebook “friends.” A few also shared the positive experiences they’ve had on social media, such as finding new friends and groups formed around common interests (music being a popular one). The general consensus was that curation is key. I would be interested in understanding how Dunbar’s Number applies to social media; my guess would be that real friend is a friend — whether online or IRL — and even if Facebook says we can have up to 5,000 of them, the real limit remains at about 150. So, choose wisely.
Enjoy your Summer! Feel free to keep in touch and send me your own extended forecast,
Scott