The National Campfire, Now Embers

Have you noticed?  Very few cultural icons unite us these days.  In the 50's and 60's the tribal drum of the Baby Boom generation was Top 40 radio.  Those of us who came of age at that time toted our transistor radios everywhere we went.  It was the soundtrack of our lives.  From coast to coast the same hits, blasted just loud enough to piss off our parents, bore testament to our sincere belief that we would always be hip and never grow old. (Hey, we were idiots.) 

TV too united us in a much broader sense.  Most families watched the same popular shows and embraced the moral and cultural norms they represented.  Father really did know best, Davy Crockett was the "King of the Wild Frontier" and Superman fought for "truth, justice and the American way".  We saw Elvis and the Beatles for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show, a man who single handed proved that even your dad could host a TV show.  We talked about it on Monday at school or around the water cooler at work and came together in our shared experience.

I was reminded of how much we've changed as a nation while looking over the latest Nielsen Total Audience Report that was released yesterday.  Our national campfires, radio and TV,  where we once gathered to warm ourselves in shared cultural experiences are rapidly going the way of the Pony Express.  Radio began its death spiral with the advent of streamed music and the solitary experience of listening through earbuds and headphones.  You can walk miles of packed summertime beaches and not see a single radio but you will see plenty of heads bobbing to sounds only they can hear.  Traditional television watching is also rapidly declining.  Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or Hulu now have subscribers in 40 percent of American homes.  If we watch network television at all it is mostly recorded and viewed at our convenience as we fast forward through the commercials.  After years of domination, broadcast and cable networks find themselves in an entirely new competitive situation.  Cable nets fell 9 percent in total audience in 2014 and there is panic in the executive suites.

We have eliminated most gatekeepers and become our own entertainment program directors.  In many ways that's good.  We want what we want, and we want it NOW.  However, something is lost in all of this.  Today we are a nation of multiple languages, races, religions and cultural traditions but very little unites us as a country.  Maybe that's what makes us such a desirable destination for the rest of the world, but I wonder.  I question our ability to come together as our parents and grandparents did to defeat the pure evil of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan.  If necessary, will we be able to snap out of our self induced isolation, remove the buds from our ears and focus on major threats that seem near our doorstep?  Or, will we march in lockstep off the cliff of history grooving to our very own music mix as we contemplate what movie to watch tonight on Amazon Instant Video?

Sorry to go all serious on you, but this has been on my mind as I watch winter turn to spring on a glorious Friday afternoon in North Idaho.  I think I'll head out for a walk, but I'm not taking my Ipod.