» HADOUKEN « winter is coming
“Brooks was here.”
What a powerful line. Etched into a ceiling beam at the half-way house occupied by bird enthusiast and convicted murderer Brooks Hatlen moments before hanging himself, these words symbolize a man apart—a man discarded by society and left to fend for himself in an ever-changing world that he could barely remember. One of The Shawshank Redemption’s more remarkable supporting characters in a sea of powerful performances, Brooks achieved “rehabilitation” after 50 years in the clink only to find himself yearning to return. Automobiles?! Supermarket hardware?! In the history of recorded supermarket interaction Brooks’ reaction to midcentury supermarket advancements is rivaled in hilarity only by George H.W. Bush’s campaign stop at a local supermarket during his election bid in 1992.
Having served his time through two world wars, Simple Brooksy simply suffered from sensory overload. Needless to say, if The Shawshank Redemption were rewritten to take place in the 21st century, Brooks’ head would have probably exploded the moment he took one step outside Shawshank State Penetentiary.
As 2016 comes to a close, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate something that we’ve all come to take for granted: through technological advancements over the last decade, our access to information is stunning. Without empirical evidence it’s impossible to state with certainty, however I would posit that, as a result, one 21st century year is the equivalent of five 20th century years. Simply put, technology and the information to which we have access therefrom has enabled us to get five times more…stuff…done on a hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.
Just think, 10 years ago, Amazon only sold books, Blackberry held a death grip on the smart phone market (RIP T9), financial market makers still actually occupied Wall Street (puns!), Twitter did not exist, efficient e-commerce was just becoming a reality, college journalism departments did not offer classes on blogging and AIM had a monopoly on “chat.” Again, I would need to do some real hardcore old school research to state the following with any sense of authority, but I would wager that our technological revolution has brought about more earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting events that fundamentally change the way humans interact and increase our productivity (and simultaneously, procrastination and inertia—thank you, social media) than the totality of previous advancements put forth in the history of the universe before it.
The effects of this technological revolution are particularly pronounced in fashion. Never before have the barriers to entry in manufacturing and selling apparel been so low. One can easily find a factory at home or abroad, sample a few pieces, devise an aesthetically pleasing Instagram, set up a Shopify account and sell his or her wares at an incredibly low cost. The result of this linear equation is a quantitative revolution on par with the invention of the Gutenberg printing press—now just about anyone can spread his or her own personal fashion gospel much the same way Luther did in 1517!
It has taken just about a decade for us to get to this point, but I predict that the quantitative revolution will soon come to a halt. We are entering a period that can be described as nothing less than a “qualitative revolution.” I believe this is a necessary reaction to market forces that enabled such an explosion in production in the first place. Necessarily, the cream must rise and we must whip the fat.
We’ve seen this in other areas of quantitative boom. Take, for instance, the “new media” bubble of the early millennium. With the proliferation of high speed internet came the proliferation of easy and instantaneous self-publishing. This resulted in hockey-stick content growth across the internet’s widest and deepest realms. Alt-news organizations modeled in the image and likeness of the Drudge Report, niche subcultural zines taking cues from Vice, celebrity gossip mills stealing the blueprint from Gawker—you name it—popped up overnight. Traditional media panicked; some snapped up these properties for ungodly valuations, others merged and still more others crumbled into the throes of bankruptcy. Fast-forward 10 years later, and the industry finds itself in a state of right-sizing itself. Many of these new media outlets are long gone, others still very unprofitable, draining their parent companies’ coffers like a parasite that was incorrectly identified as benign not too long ago.
The ironic part is that you, the consumer, are in the driver’s seat here. With unfettered access to (literally) every piece of public (and in many cases private) information ever produced by every citizen who has ever walked this earth on your phone, you have the collective capability of expediting this qualitative revolution. You don’t need to eat shit just because some brand makes it look really pretty on Instagram. It’s still shit.
I believe in the future. My father, a conservative-hardnosed-old-schooler by nature but dreamer by choice, always says “leave it to the kids, they’ll figure it out.” In the case of 21st century fashion consumerism, I am hopeful that our world’s most valuable natural resource, the millions (billions?) of digital natives who were born into a world of screens and privilege known as “Generation Z” will, indeed, figure it out. A generation that deftly maneuvers through the noisy world of retargeted ads, celebrity brands, data mining customer acquisition professionals and fake news, Gen Z deserves the cultural fulfillment many already report for doing so with such efficiency.
Certainly, winter is coming, and with it will be a qualitative revolution; however, you can still take control of your own destiny by stealing a page from the Gen Z playbook of individuality and discerning taste.