Pop Culture in the Gore Administration Pt. 2: 2004-2008
Pop culture of the mid-2000s, if it had to be defined by one feature, it was the
Exxon-Mobil scandal. While the ordeal itself regarding the company lying to investors and to the public by suppressing information and then spreading misinformation was not entirely surprising (it was viewed as similar to the tobacco industry after all), it was the rammifications and implications that caused it to spire into a colossal cultural force that transformed the American zeitgeist. Major companies knew what they were doing was wrong, that it would be having disasterous effects on peoples' lives yet they disregarded it. Why? For the sake of profit. The later discovery of how the coal industry knew as well just cemeneted it. The Gore Administration fanned these flames and it led to a sense of outrage, but also one of concern. Suddenly, it became more difficult to mock along of the environmentalists with the knowledge that not only were they not lying, but it was on such a level that companies went to lengths to hide it. It was, at the heart of it all, a conspiracy. A cold conspiracy based on profits over people. As such, there was a great sense of urgency to tackle climate change and the optimism and hope brought by the Gore Administration's work helped bring that to an extent. That the system can be fixed. It reinforced the percepton Americans had of him as the America's Dad for the 21st century; responsible, patient and intelligent, possessing foresight and acknowledging past mistakes and complications such as with Hammer's connections to the Gore family. The optimism remained though it carried with it a sense of duty to be more responsible.
Another large change for pop culture was the growing relevancy of the Internet. The release of sites like Youtube, Facebook, Myspace and so on would help begin changing the way people connected and interacted and then Project MAY came along, providing a new model for artists and creators to remain in touch with their fans and help spread awareness of songs along with other bits of news. The tone of the Internet was set up by two prominent figures seperately; one was Fred Rogers. He saw the Internet as a way for people to connect and tried to promote the good behavior and polite tones within people. Even some of the most hardened people or mischevious gadflies would begin toning down their rhetoric or apologizing for past transgressions and behaviors after seeing Fred Rogers' videos or his name being invoked.
Mr. Rogers Online Neighborhood had become a very popular Youtube channel and where the comments were quite civil. Humorously enough, this was contrasting against Hunter S Thompson's show, who encouraged his infamous gonzo journalism out there, and given the recent revelations, capitalized on it. Hunter S Thompson regained prominency and popularity, advocating for the legalization of drugs as well as advocating for gun rights. Regarding the Supreme Court ruling, he noted that the entire thing started from a think tank's attempts to corrupt gun rights with the worst of the free market. He even was noted for being a large supporter of Karl Marx and even began a bit of an environmentalist bent after the Exxon-Mobil scandal, though Thompson went green the way someone like him could go green. He's an ardent supporter of gun rights though he did note how the increasing school shootings showed a failure in handling people who had them or get them, commenting on how someone was arrested on New Years for plans to shoot up his ex-wife and family along with burning the house down, who was only stopped when the new gun control policies led to a delay on getting something and the clerk's suspicions based on the would-be murderer's reaction. Despite this, both men would help shape the culture of the internet and of the youth who was becoming its notable audience.
Additionally, there was the greater call for serious stories. Rather than looking for escapism per say, there was a search for inspiration as well as stories needing to challenge people. It was considered a surprisingly good time for shows to try and push the envelop on storytelling and options, even if not all of them worked as well in execution. In a sense, many have referred to it as a more refined and perhaps more solemn tone than what was being done in the 90s. Yet also a bit more hopeful and more optimistic. However, the issue regarding Russia and Georgia was a reminder of the Cold War and while fiction did not return to Russia being the villain, many would note that more than a few villains would be remiscent of Putin.
Video Games
Video games continued to change and grow. The advent of the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii would bring about the potential for what video game consoles could become with touch screens and motion-based gameplay. Additionally, games like
Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and other games would be finding success on the Nintendo Wii and showcasing a triumphant score for the ever popular company in their works. For Nintendo, they would be close winners of the seventh generation of video game consoles, following up closely by the Xbox 360. Nintendo expected Microsoft Operations to do well, but no one, not even MicrosoftOpps themselves expected to perform so well and be so close to Nintendo. The various Sonic games, celeberating the 15th anniversary of the SEGA mascot along with other breakout hits on the Xbox like Yakuza, courtesy of SEGA, brought surprising attention and more Japanese homes had Xboxes than people would expect. Additionally, it did bring attention to more "Western" franchises and style of games for Japanese video gamers, as shown how Rare-Ubisoft games were becoming more popular in Japan, a surprisingly delight. It was this trend that led to
Super Smash Bros Brawl having new characters come from RARE. Sony meanwhile was not doing so well in comparison to their rivals in video games or in general. While the PSP was fairing pretty well for the most part, the PS3 was underperforming, especially with the surprise support that the Xbox 360 was getting over and the company has been wondering what could be done to regain the losses. Despite, games such as
Persona 4 were still popular on there and other big Sony games were like
Star Wars Force Unleashed, Mirror's Edge and other games. Meanwhile, MMORPGs are becoming more popular to play and some haven taken to begi recording the sessions of their parties to make mini-adventures on Youtube. Overall, video games continued to grow and change. Western developers were also taking the environmentalist themes into their work, including some shooters who have begun combining the ecodefender themes with the recent growing antagonistic relationship against Russia alongside the declining relations with Saudi Arabia.
Film
Film began entering a new period of cultural relevancy as the rise of works aimed toward young adults began. Harry Potter was slowly going through to finish as a film series while the rise of superhero films was becoming the name of the game thus far. Things like the
Dark Knight and Iron Man were becoming big hits and before that was
Superman Returns and
Batman Begins. There was this sense that there would be big surprises and ideas coming for the future of films. Beyond that, there was also the search for the next big hit and some were looking to see if that hit would be
Twilight. A popular if divisive supernatural romance involving vampires, it was likely that the film would be successful though some wondered if it would be enough given the slowly changing zeitgeist of the youth in part because of climate change, the Gore Administration and various other factors such as Medicare for Kids. Additionally, there was also the rise in indie films and this was noted with the potential rumored partner of Project MAY with OpenFilm, a website devoted to to finding and distributing independent films. While talks were still being had, it did seem it could work and would open up the possibility over perhaps being able to support independent films by being supported through interested patrons and being distributed through a devoted network without the reliance on the standard Hollywood formula. Overall, film had been progressing more and while the trend seemed to be going toward superheroes, there was some new ideas. Meanwhile, traditional animation remained afloat longer than anyone expected and thrived well thanks to Disney adpating the works of Thurber, who's strange, satirical yet whimiscial charm managed to match well with Disney while also providing plenty of freshness to keep audiences interested in to keep going and for showing up more the naysayers who insist traditional hand animation is dead. Despite this and the fair bit of merchandise made, it is clear that CGI will become the main driving force in animation if mainly because of costs with some turning to see if things like Project MAY could assist or the new website such as Indiegogo. Ultimately, it did seem that film would still continue to do and there would be a potential future option for further work.
Television
Television followed in the footsteps of film in the sense of focusing on more mature themes and emphasis on serious matters though also humor remained.
All That, the cultural symbol of the 90s, ended in early 2005 after lower ratings regarding the replacement of the main cast back in 2000. As such, the decade began to further take its own shape and identity.
The Office began taking the place of
Friends of a show that was becoming beloved by many people. New shows like
NUMB3RS, Grey's Anatomy and
Big Bang Theory began making their birth while many people were excited for the triumphant return of
Doctor Who with a brand new 9th Doctor gracing the screen. However, what was the culture-defining moment was the ending of
The Simpsons and the return of
Futurama. However beloved the latter show, many feel it won't be able to replace what
The Simpsons did and with
Family Guy having ended years ago (and Seth McFarlene working on other projects like
MAD TV for the time being), people wondered where else to look for adult animation beyond
South Park, who continued to march to the beat of their own beat. Some shows were able to "fill the void" to an extent such as
King of the Hill though not really enough. Some have noted this likely led to the more serious animated shows that were for all ages, such as Cartoon Network's
Teen Titans, which gained surprising news on the young social media outlets over the 5th Season being its last and fans rushed to try and save the show, especially with the final episode feeling unsatisfactory. The surprise came when fans attemped to raise money after a light-hearted comment made by a writer spread about providing money and while they did not raise enough for a whole season, the effort made and publicity behind the action moved a good deal of the cast and workers and was enough for Warner Bros to greenlight one last season in early 2008. Season 6 was focused on Starfire (as fans and writers noted she lacked a seasonal arc) and her growth along with the Titans' after stopping the Brotherhood of Evil The season became noted for introducing more obscure space heroes in the latter half of the season, such as Captain Comet and more notably, the Omega Men. The season also had a redemption arc for Blackfire in whcih she would join the Omega Men for atonement. A theme of the final season was on change and handling it, which has the Titans note that even if they take seperate paths as adults, they are still Titans. Many note the series was given a more satisfying ending as a whole. Supposedly, a made-for-TV film was to be made taking place in Tokyo, but would not be made as elements (such as Robin and Starfire's romance) were incorporated into the final season. Others wondered what the future may hold though they note that there was a potential growing emphasis for action-based shows and the successful resurrection of shows like
Teen Titans and to a lesser extent
Futurama did mean there was a change for the audience to have a greater voice thanks to the rise of internet celeberities, instant fandom communication through social media and the possibility of crowdfunding.
Other
Music meanwhile was undergoing a large thanks to Project MAY. More Indie groups and singers were using it to connect to their fans and using it as a feedback loop to grow and earn decent success while expanding the viewership on Youtube and the users of Myspace and promoting Artistshare. More crowdfunding websites would appear, though for more general purposes and would serve as an outlet to help grow the economy, especially with the modest increase of the minimum wage prior by the Gore Administration meant young people had a little bit more spending money and thus put it back into the economy through this and the support of other entertainers. Perhaps the big name of Project MAY was a young Canadian singer named Justin Bieber. Discovered and spresd like wildfire, he would become an obvious pick for Project MAY, but his age did mean they would need to be far more careful given he was 14. Ultimately, his rise to stardom would be supervised and guided by Justin Timberlake, who was a prominent stockholder in Myspace and made the argument based on his own past experiences and relability though the rise would be gradual due to age and to prevent issues associated with child stars. Nonetheless, a few were excited to see what Justin's protege would acocmplish when he was ready. Other big names that arose from Project MAY was Tay Zonday with his famous hit of "Chocolate Rain" and expanded to various songs, all centering on the sufferage and liberation of African-Americans in different forms and fashions. Beyond vocals though, more secret successes came as sometimes Project MAY would invite people based on pre-existing work and videos on Youtube, such as the music of Mark Hadley, who composed several 8-bit songs for the webcomic
Kid Radd by Dan Miller. Not only was Mark Hadley offered part into Project MAY, but it did lead to a resurgence of popularity into
Kid Radd and a renewed interest into sprite comics as a venue. The music scene did remain rleatively upbeat and hopeful though grew more serious over time with ecological and green themes slipping into some songs and other works. While Project MAY was the big name of this new movement, they were not the only name in town. Facebook would end up partnering up with Veoh in the hopes of dealing with the powerful juggernaut and beforehand, infamous site
Newgrounds would end up partnering with relative new kid on the block
Reddit to try and both expand and grow each other out to a similar extent. Comics also were changing as Marvel had undergone a massive change after M-Day and after a few years, a new Marvel continuity had been born in the ashes of the old one. Largely in tact, though with elements of the defunct
Ultimate Marvel in it such as the modern setting yet with the classic characters and heroes along with bringing some second-stringers such as Ms Marvel, Captain Mar-Vell, the Inhumans and others back into prominence while Marvel X comics, the new home of the mutants, would be the feeding ground to see if the mutants would be able to survive on their own in a new world and free from the constraints of following the other Marvel rules, letting authors try and do things. DC meanwhile would be preparing to do something with the finishing up of
Final Crisis and looking for a relatively clean slate to start anew and gain old fans and new fans.
