Here’s a trend that wasn’t mentioned in Callie Holtermann’s New York Times trend article last week: newspapers and magazines that still have print editions give away the store online before a story’s included in your physical copy. Holtermann’s lengthy examination of Gen Z’s disenchantment with TikTok was posted digitally on March 7th and then was on the Times’ front page on March 9th. Isn’t that kind of a gyp to print subscribers? I suppose it doesn’t matter much, but it strikes me a disincentive to stay print/digital.
The emphasis on TikTok and social media “influencers” isn’t over my head, just not of much interest. Holtermann writes: “We tend to think of trends as a means of demonstrating that we know what’s cool and new, or as a way to take part in a bigger collective ‘moment.’ For decades, critics have rightly pointed out that following trends facilitates a consumer capitalist culture—wake up, sheeple!—but it can also be experimental, playful, even fun.”
That America “facilitates a consumer capitalist culture” is a stupid auto-pilot five words from the Times trend/youth reporter—does she identify as one of the “sheeple”?—but she’s correct in the tacit admission that “What’s In, What’s Out” stories are a newspaper/magazine evergreen. Since the story was in the Times it must be true that today trends flourish and vanish quicker than the time it takes Donald Trump to announces/rescind a new tariff, but there are “collective moments” that I took part in, mostly because I was alive. Like The Beatles performing for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964. My brothers and I watched, raptly, like millions, and then bought the band’s first two LPs the next day. I scowled at the immediate proliferation of Beatles wigs, boots, trading cards and figurines. (Although it was very funny when Mrs. Jubenville, my third-grade teacher, donned a Mop Top wig one seasonable March afternoon that year. Might’ve been the only time I ever saw her smile.)
As for fads, our family had several hoola-hoops, troll dolls—a girlfriend of a brother gave him a pair, and I let our cat Harry rip them apart—and I bought a Rat-Fink ring and wore it for a week. I wore clam diggers (summer wear that crossed shorts and long pants) as a seven-year-old but have no idea if they were trendy. And there weren’t many young boys who didn’t have a Davy Crockett coonskin cap. I didn’t pick out my own clothes until I was around 11 and always, but always, looked boss even on a tiny budget. It bugged me in sixth grade that paisley and polka-dot shirts were out of my price range—semi-rich kid Andy Eastwood was the class’ Mr. Mod—but you make do.
In 1970, I was one of the “sheeple” that celebrated the first Earth Day, but only because it was an opportunity to get out of school early, listen to bands (but not the environmental alarmists), smoke cigarettes and pot and make time with ninth-grade chicks, who at least theoretically believed in “free love.” Maybe that was a personal “collective moment.” A decade later, in ’74, I didn’t participate in “streaking” around campus—two of my friends did, and they landed on the front page, black bars shielding their dicks, of The Baltimore Sun, much to their parents’ distress—and in ’76 ignored the traveling Tall Ships (and merchandising) that was part of the Bicentennial.
As a young adult, after achieving a modicum of financial stability—Yuppie!—I had a snappy wardrobe, head-to-toe, but preferred the doesn’t-out-of-style duds from Paul Stuart in Manhattan and Harvie & Hudson on London’s Jermyn Street. One exception: in May of ’86 I flew to Los Angeles for a wedding, and was decked out in a “big suit” from the trendy haberdasher Bernard Hill, and it drew raves from guests. Less than six months later it looked like a Halloween costume.
The picture this week is from Mother’s Day in the mid-20th century, on Long Island, featuring my Uncles Joe and Pete, Aunts Winnie and Peggy, and three young Duncan boys. Joe, in the center, is wearing a sports shirt that for all I know is now selling on eBay, but I’ve no idea if it was trendy or not.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath meet in Cambridge, England; 19-year-old Hunter S. Thompson is arrested as an accessory to robbery; James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite and Rex Stout’s Better Off Dead are published; Nat King Cole is the first black performer to host a major network (NBC) variety show; Gene Vincent’s Bluejean Bop! Is released; Mel Parnell throws a no-hitter, the Red Sox’s first since 1923; Undefeated champ Rocky Marciano retires; Czechoslovakia wins the Men’s World Volleyball Championship; Mel Gibson is born and Bela Lugosi dies; the Dow Jones index closes above 500 for the first time; NBC’s “Peacock” logo is introduced; and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together at the Copacabana.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023