[00:00:00] Speaker A: And welcome to the 265th edition of objectively speaking. My name is Jag. I'm CEO of the Atlas Society. We are the leading nonprofit engaging young people with the ideas of Ayn Rand in wildly creative ways. And one of those ideas is about culture and the purpose of art. So I'm very excited to welcome Ross Benny to join us today to talk about his book 1999, the year low culture conquered America and kickstarted our bizarre times.
Thanks for joining us today. I know you've got a full house and two dogs in a, in a small apartment.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot going on here, but glad to be having the conversation.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, our audience is always curious about our guests origin stories and yours is unique.
What was it like growing up in a town of 300 in rural Nebraska?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: It was pretty great, really.
It was peaceful. I, I knew everyone.
There was a real sense of safety and I had a lot of freedom to kind of do whatever I wanted, although there wasn't a lot of options of places you could go. I had a lot of unsupervised time as a kid and I thought that was for. Fantastic. It's much different than now. I live in New York's Hudson Valley. It's. The child rearing is, is a lot different here than what I grew up with, certainly.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: So most of your career as a journalist and author has been spent in the New York area.
Did you experience any dissonance moving from the most rural and conservative region of the country to its most liberal urban center?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah, there, there's definitely some dissonance.
You see people perceiving others in, in strange ways. Like I know people in small towns who think any city is dangerous by default. Especially New York City is such a large and dense city. And they're always like, afraid for my safety. But then like, people in the city are afraid of the rural areas because they're unfamiliar with it and there's a lot of guns and they're like, afraid everyone's going to come at them with a gun, even though I think most people in small towns are quite friendly. So, you know, it's really interesting seeing the perception people have of different areas if they haven't ever lived in one like that.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: So I know you wrote about this in one of your earlier books, Rural Rebellion, How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold.
Did the process of researching and writing that book provide any insights on how to address political tribalism?
[00:02:56] Speaker B: You know, it's tougher to fix a problem than it is to just point at it and know that it's there. So I don't have any, you know, kumbaya solutions or anything, but it did give me a sense of how much our opinions on things are shaped by those who we live around. So I don't think it's coincidence that, you know, if you live in a conservative area, you tend to become more conservative as you're with people who have those same viewpoints and vice versa, when, you know, I'm in the city. I think I became more liberal living in New York City than I would have been if I would have stayed home.
Now, finding out how to fix that problem, getting us to see eye to eye, I unfortunately don't have a great solution to that.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Well, you know, I, I, as somebody who is the only Republican in a family of Democrats and, and Bernie Bros.
You know, I always say there's so much in life to talk about beyond politics and especially with my parents, I know I'm not going to change their mind.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's definitely something I've noticed living in these areas that some of the people I have the most in common with, that I like spending my time with, I may be far away from politically. And I'll, I, you know, I've met hipsters in Brooklyn who may be similar politically to me, at least electorally, who I can't stand, you know, and I have friends who I grew up with in Brainerd, Nebraska, who are far to the right of me who I would love to spend the weekend with. So I don't think that, you know, that partisanship or that party affiliation defines a person whatsoever.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: So let's now turn to Your latest book, 1999, the year low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our bizarre times.
Why did you choose 1999 as your inflection point?
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Well, so I just noticed the late 90s in general would crop up a lot and things I would see in today's politics, you know, certainly I see Jerry Springer type stuff all over the place.
And while I felt like the late 90s were really influential and that pop culture has really resurfaced again, everything from there is getting a reboot or a sequel.
I picked 99 rather than like 97 or 2000 because that was just the most ridiculous year. It was just the zaniest. And part of that's due to Y2K and, and the, the new year and the new millennium causing some pop culture people to try crazy stunts or be a little more outlandish than they were in the other years. Even though the similar trends Were visible then.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: So how do we define or understand low culture in this context? Is it reality tv, Celebrity scandals, pop music? And. And what separates what low culture from just pop culture?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So all those things you suggested, all of those could be low culture. The way I.
It's kind of wishy washy. It varies by person. But what I was shooting for was what's the pop culture that was the most ridiculed in its time?
So it is pop culture, but it's a subset of it. It's the trashy part of pop culture. Like Jerry Springer is the show that a lot of critics came after. It was rated as the worst show of all time by TV Guide. There were people who wanted to censor it. You know, people wouldn't openly admit to being fans of Jerry Springer. I mean, some would, but, like, that was kind of a thing. People were in the closet.
You know how much they like those daytime talk shows back in the day. Same with something like Insane Clown Posse. Blender magazine said they were the worst band of all time.
You know, it wasn't cool to be a juggalo. That's a fan of the Insane Clown Posse. That's the term they use. So I tried to group, like, what are the items of pop culture from the 90s that people like to laugh at or mock or just really disdained?
And that perception, though, changes over time. Like video games. I think in the 90s. Right. We ridiculed and blamed for society's problems. And then today they're viewed just like any other aspect of mass entertainment.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you really, I think, have hit on something there with how these were aspects of culture that were derided, that were dismissed, that were criticized. Is there a sense in which that derision actually said the solidarity of people who were fans of a particular show? Or in the case of Insane Clown Clown Posse, that. That band.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Oh, definitely. Especially with ICP violent J of the Insane Clown Posse has said that they're notoriety monsters over their success. And it's that projection of us versus them and. And being an outsider that brings together the congregation. So that's a large part of. Of what they're selling. You know, I'd say the same as with, like, pro wrestling, especially in the 90s, when it was very sexual and very violent.
You know, if it was mocked, that didn't really turn away wrestling fans. If anything, it made them develop a bond around this thing that they loved and the rest of the world didn't get. So I think there's something very powerful there around, you know, using Your notoriety or using the rejection of the outside world as something that makes you more popular with your adherence?
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Well, you know, parallel to that is kind of how people who supported Trump, Hillary Clinton called them the basket of deplorables. And that rather than dissuading people, said, you know what, that's fine, actually, I don't like this political figure. And, well, if you are going to have that attitude towards us that, you know, I'll wear your score as a badge of honor. So let's, let's turn to piece of merchandise now. Yeah, let's turn to politics now. Bill Clinton's impeachment, Monica Lewinsky, the Y2K panic, all of this swirled around in 1999. How did the politics of spectacle begin to spill over, starting with that year?
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say the impeachment is a, a big part of that. And that, you know, starts in 98, definitely spills over into 99. I mean, in the late 90s, you know, if you look at Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearing too, you have porn star names getting dropped. But like with the, with the Monica Lewinsky scandal in particular, it was covered in the press like a, like a tabloid story. You know, like the CNN or the Times. The way they covered this type of thing wasn't terribly different from how the National Enquirer would have covered it. And, and the same with like, you know, going back further to O.J. simpson. I think you saw a.
These stories would blow up because they'd have a tabloid nature to them in the mainstream press, would adopt some of the tactics of the, the tabloid press. And it was all being fed as like, entertainment. I mean, I think Jay Leno, over the course of like three years following that scandal, made like, I can't. There's an exact number in a study. I think it's like almost a thousand jokes about Clinton and Lewinsky.
It was part of the, the pop culture at the time. Even though something as serious as a president's affair would have been kept out of the public eye entirely if you would have went back 30 years before that.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: So I'm going to take some audience questions because I find sometimes that I save them till the end and what we were talking about has moved on. So I'm going to try something different today.
Jackson Sinclair asks, I vaguely recall Springer back in the day. How big did that style of show get? Maybe some other examples as well. Like you talk about Geraldo Rivera in your book.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Well, that's. That style of show got really big. So Springer took the classic talk show format and he just made it crazier by appealing to a more youthful audience. And like, everyone kind of copied Springer shtick to a degree after him. I mean, they wouldn't go quite as far. But like Sally Jesse, you know, her show got a little more scandalous. She would, like she got in a pro wrestling ring, for instance. Ricky Lake show, you know, was certainly as schlocky as any of them. And even Donahue became more like tabloid, like, after screener success. He wanted to era live execution in 1996, but was prevented from doing so. And the types of guesty he had on got to be trashier in the 90s than they were in the 80s. And I think at one point, point in the late 90s, there were over a dozen daytime syndicated talk shows at any given moment. And some of those, you know, like, flamed out. Like, there was one by Mark Wahlberg, not the, not the actor, but another guy with that name that only lasted a season. But you had a, you know, a group of them that was producing hundreds of episodes and, and they were highly successful. But the, the 90s was kind of the peak of that.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Steve C. Says Phil Donahue was very trashy. He recalls an episode quote, gay Catholic priests with aids. Next on Donahue.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah, he definitely got trashier in the 90s, more so than he's given credit for.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Iliacin asks, was there ever any pushback to the rise of low culture along the lines of the Christian moral panic in the 1980s?
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah, there was definitely pushback on this stuff. There was always groups that were like, trying to censor whether it was Jerry Springer or whatever.
The controversy of the day was a big one. I'm thinking of is William Bennett.
You know, he was a former person in the Reagan administration who became like a spokesperson for.
I, I don't know, I want. It was the Moral Majority, but it was a different group where, whether it was like two Life Crew rap lyrics or Jerry Springer or whatever, the thing was that he was being offended by. He was always trying to put pressure on having that thing censored or held out of the public view. And there was a whole group of those. But what was interesting in the 90s is that a lot of those calls, especially on daytime talk shows, also came from the left. I, I do think the Christian Moral Majority type figures were more activist about it. But the, the calls and pushback for censorship were all encompassing sometimes, especially for Jerry Springer.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: All right, here is a great question from lock, stock and barrel. Is low culture mainly a negative phenomena or was There anything liberating or positive about it?
[00:14:16] Speaker B: I. I say that all depends on your viewpoint. I am a fan of all this stuff, and I don't view these things as negative. I. I like pro wrestling and Jerry Springer and Beanie Babies and all this stuff.
And, you know, I'd say an example of something positive is the camaraderie that Insane Clown Posse fans have with each other and finding, you know, meaning in their lives around this music that other people tend to mock.
So, you know, I think there's. There's good and there's bad, and just because this stuff became popular doesn't necessarily mean it's. It's bad at, you know, whatsoever. But clearly, tens of millions of people are huge fans of reality tv, no matter how distasteful that may be to people who abhor it.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: All right, my modern Gault asks, do you think politics today has fully entered a kayfabe era? Now, that was a totally new concept to me, so maybe you can explain that first and how it may have influenced other aspects of our politics or culture.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so. Well, kayfabe, just to start with, is a. Is a pro wrestling term that comes from the carnival. And it's.
It's like when you present something as genuine, when it isn't, you know, you're. You're in on the act. Like in pro wrestling, kayfabe kind of informs everything that happens. Like, the ultimate warrior really isn't from parts unknown, and these guys aren't actually fighting. They're pantomiming with a predetermined outcome, but you go along with what they're presenting because that's part of a show and that's more fun, and that's what you're here to see.
Kayfabe has transferred outside the wrestling ring and is kind of all around us. When politicians say things that on their face, have no chance of being true, but it really excites the side that they're on. You know what I mean? So I think we are in an era of kayfabe for sure. And that sort of kayfabe outside the ring is what inspired me to. Is one of the many things that inspired me to write this book, because I used to work for Deadspin, which was owned by Gawker Media, and it was shut down after they published Hulk Hogan sex tape. And when Hulk Hogan defended himself in court, he said that when he talked about his sex life and Howard Stern in public, it wasn't his sex life, it was his characters that he was talking about. Hulk Hogan, not Terry Belea. And that worked in, in convincing the jury that, like, he could be Hulk Hogan and he could be Terry Belaya and he could play, you know, himself as a real person versus as a character, no matter if he's in the ring or not. And I found that fascinating that people could play characters of themselves in public now and people go along with it and buy into it.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: So the late 90s was also the dawn of the Internet boom. How much did Internet culture contribute to low culture going mainstream?
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Well, yeah, the, the Internet certainly popularized pornography more so and you know, it made some of these fandoms come together, like with Beanie Babies. Part of the reason that their prices soared so much is because online, these price guides were published that said the price is going to keep increasing. And there was a community of resellers online who, who really bought into that, and that's where they did all those transactions. You know, Beanie Babies were more than 10% of eBay's revenue when eBay went public in, in 1998. So I wouldn't say every single one of these things I talk about in the book was helped by the Internet, but the Internet definitely fueled the community around being a fan of some of these groups and, and things and, you know, made them catch popularity in a way that they probably wouldn't have before.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: All right, kingfisher21 asks, do you think there was any similarity between the Beanie Baby craze and the more recent craze about NFT non fungible tokens?
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say that they're.
That there was similarity. You, like, you had a group of people who become believers, like almost zealously driven up by online communities who want people to believe that the stain they're investing in is just going to keep growing exponentially in value, even though it doesn't like, hold any true intrinsic value. It's more of just a collectible. And enough people buy into that hype that for a moment the value does increase exorbitantly. A few people get rich and then the market crashes and most people who spent their money on it lost a lot of it. So I, I did see the, the NFTs as like a more advanced, updated version of the Beanie Baby face probably wasn't quite as crazy though.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: Whatever happened to the guy who invented Beanie Babies?
[00:19:16] Speaker B: So Ty Warner Benner of Beanie Babies, he's, he's still very wealthy and he, he got in trouble for evading taxes, but he got a pretty light sentence. He still owns a lot of properties, including some Very luxurious hotels.
Now, Beanie Babies aren't anything like they used to be, but they still exist. You can still find them, like in Walgreens or cvs, and they're usually like a licensed thing now. Like, it'll be like a little Beanie Baby of a Spider man or something like that or. Or a Star wars figure.
So he's still around, still very wealthy, but he's been a recluse for a long time. I don't think he's given an interview for probably almost 30 years to the public.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Wow.
All right, let's talk about kind of demographic shifts. Did a shift towards youth consumerism and. And marketing to juvenile tastes contribute to the rise of blow culture?
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say so. A lot of this stuff was marketed towards young adults. And in general, you know, the pop culture that's like young adult, teen pop culture at that moment is viewed as being dangerous or trashy at that time. Like, comic books in the 50s were kind of viewed as being low culture. And there's congressional hearings about regulating comic books and the danger they pose to youth. You know, same thing happened with television and movies at different points. But like Jerry Springer's show, it's when they decided to go for young viewers that it got really trashy. If you look at Viacom, which is the largest media corporation at the time, you know, a lot of the stuff that they were pushing was toward young guys specifically. You know, like, I think that's kind of what made Howard Stern really pop at that time.
You know, trying to get the. The youth market. Because at. At 1999, there were more teens than there were during the baby boom. So, like, if you look at the cinema of 1999, like, there was probably over 10 movies aimed at teens, like she's all that, Can't Hardly Wait, American Pie, Jawbreaker, it was really a heavy time of entertainment companies trying to reach a teen audience because the teen audience had become so big and had so much, so much of their parents disposable income to spend.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: All right, Alan Turner asks, is there any specific cultural trend or phenomena that stands out to you as quintessentially 1990s?
[00:21:57] Speaker B: We've talked about it a little bit. But those daytime talk shows feel really quintessentially 90s, because even though they're still around today, you know, like Drew Barrymore has a show, they're not as ridiculous or over the top as they were, and then they're not nearly as popular as they were in the 90s. So that era of having Donahue Oprah, Geraldo, Springer, Ricky Lake, Montel on at the same time during the middle of the day feels extremely 90s. And then the other one, I would say it's not so much in my book, but the, the boy bands were, were so big there for a moment. And I know boy bands have been around, you know, before. There's certainly new kids on the block. And you could even argue going back to the 60s that some of those British groups are boy bands. But NSync and Backstreet Boys, the, the number of records they sold was just absolutely mind boggling in the 90s. And they really had a specific look and feel to them that captured the era.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: So we talked about demographic changes in the 1990s. There were more kids than other older demographics. What about shifts in, let's say, media regulation?
The regulatory landscape?
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So there was a series of deregulations that helped make some of this low culture more popular and I don't think it was fully appreciated at the time, so.
Well, one of them is there was these rules called the Financial Interest and Syndication rules, which used to prevent broadcast TV networks from owning and producing most of their primetime programming. So they would, they would have to license it out and they couldn't have monopoly on their own shows. When those rules were eliminated, eventually the networks like figured out, well, we can start, you know, making our, our own shows at a cheaper cost. We're going to produce more reality tv. So it's within a few years of the elimination of those rules that the number of reality shows really skyrockets. And I, I think it's a pretty direct contributor. And then, you know, other regulations like the Telecommunications act in 96 and a series of others that eliminated ownership restrictions, allowed the media corporations to get bigger and bigger. You know, you had like ABC and Disney merging Time Warner and aol.
There's several other, these big deals. And as those companies got bigger, they tended to cut like Current affairs and educational and Standards and Practices programming and they tried to get like the cheapest hit they could. And, and a lot of that was these shows aimed at teens that I've been talking about in the book. And a lot of those were, were pretty, you know, low production value deals.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: All right, here's a great question from Candice Morena, which I should probably always ask our guests, and she wants to know, did you have to cut any content that you wish you could have kept in your book?
[00:25:10] Speaker B: So I, I had debated doing a section on infomercials because the infomercial industry was so profitable in the 90s, and that's something that's actually due to deregulation. Reagan deregulates advertising time in the 80s and allows TV networks to air as much commercials as they want. And that leads to program length commercials like Ninja Turtles and GI Joe, but also straight up infomercials. And in the 90s, cable TV is getting more viewers, there's more channels of cable appearing, so there's more airspace to just fill. There's way more infomercials. And so like Ms. Cleo and Kevin Trudeau and Girls Gone Wild, Billy Mays. I was thinking of doing something about that and I put a fair amount of time researching it, but I, I couldn't come up with anything super interesting to say, so I, I cut that out. But, you know, if there's ever a, a second edition, I'd probably come back to infomercials and see what I could do with that.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Okay. So recently I interviewed Martin Gury. He is the author of the Revolt of the Public, in which he described how the digital revolution empowered ordinary people with unprecedented access to information, leading to a loss of control of the narrative by traditional elites. And the ensuing kind of public anger against those institutions led to an almost nihilistic desire to negate, to sweep them away. Do you see that as a potentially competing or complementary explanation of the kind of political upheavals that we have been seeing, or do you find tracing them back to low culture more compelling?
[00:27:05] Speaker B: I would say it's complementary. And I don't mean to give the impression that although my book subtitle may, I don't mean to give the impression that like, low culture is the sole rise of our discontent or anything like that. So I would say there's something definitely to that, to the, you know, the declining faith in institutions and the declining competence of institutions.
It's been a. Had a huge effect in our society that goes beyond the scope of my book, but definitely, I would say, offers a complimentary look at how we got where we are.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Yes, yes, that's a good point too. It wasn't just like by accident that some of these institutions lost credibility. It was things like, you know, the climate gate, the scandals about those emails coming out and finding out that they were purposefully trying to marginalize anyone who had a competing view.
So I think that certainly led to less trust in the elites in these institutions, which has good consequences and bad consequences, because on one hand, we actually do need expertise when it comes to things like health.
And then when that trust is undercut and, you know, People might be at a loss for finding reliable information.
Now, just going back to Guri's book, for example, in my interview, he talked about Donald Trump and Javier Millay, the stage antics, the all caps, the hair, the over the top communication style. And, and he argued, Guri argued, that those are part of an intentional signaling that I am not those guys, I am not the establishment, I am something different. Do you buy that? Or again, do you feel like kind of the, the low culture and the need to really be outsized and exaggerated to grab attention? It's a better explanation, huh?
[00:29:19] Speaker B: That's a good question.
I, I would say among, you know, my family and friends who are huge Trump supporters, the fact that he is different and outlandish is actually appealing to, to many of them. I, that's, I think, hard for people on the other side to get that. So I could see where he's coming from. I think just signaling that you're giving hell to those who your constituents feel like they're coming at, that they're coming against you, that you're fighting back against some sort of order that your constituents feel put down by is uplifting to them, even if it's gold plated or, you know, with ridiculous hair or whatever.
But if I had to put the two next to each other, the coarsening of culture, I feel like it has been probably a larger effect, but I don't, I don't mind necessarily the coarsening of culture. I'm fine with dropping pretense. I'd say the, the bigger issue is if that you're being coarse to disguise the fact that, like, you don't have a point to make or what you're saying is untrue. But if what you're saying is true, I, I don't mind, you know, however, I don't mind it being in a, you know, ridiculous style. And, you know, we're well beyond the point where we were in the 90s, where we had like, respectability in how these things were presented.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting.
Gavin Newsom, our governor here in California, is now kind of aping this style of communication with the all caps, and we'll see if it, if it works out for him.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Yeah, he's kind of adopted that like, online troll sort of thing.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we'll, we'll see.
So, you know, you spent, you talked about spending your childhood consuming low culture, enjoying it.
Is there, do you have a concern that when you participate and you consume this kind of content that, number one, you're not learning anything, and number two, you might be normalizing behavior that is, is not going to be very productive and get you very far in the world.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Well, what I would spend time watching TV or just, you know, going down a pop culture rabbit hole of whatever I like. I, I kind of come in with the assumption that I'm not going to learn much anyways.
You know, I wasn't like going in with the attention of like I'm, you know, 12 years old. I'm gonna watch this talk show, hope I get as much out of it as I do a Ken Burns documentary or a non fiction book or something. I'm just trying to get dopamine rolling and have fun with my friends. So I didn't even have a thought process about that.
Now as far as normalizing this stuff, I think viewers have a better conception of what's real and what's fantasy than what they get credit for. And if something's already really popular, it's probably more normalized, you know, whether you're watching it or not. Then like people may want it to be like if you look at porn, that's might, might be degrading. But you know, the statistics would show that's pretty normalized.
Now, whether you personally consume to what, look at it or not, I don't know if that's contributing to any additional normalization. It might have more of an effect on your personal psyche. Would probably be the, the bigger issue.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Jackson Sinclair asks, do you think Y2K had a lasting impact and maybe talk about how the fear and the outsized panic leading up to that might have been fed by.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Well, Y2K was a great time for conspiracy theorists.
So I would say like the, the, the biggest impact is this idea that like we're all gonna have to become survivalists embrace for a big fight.
There's still big pockets of online communities that, that have that sense.
That'd probably be the biggest impact of Y2K, in my view, even though the Y2K bug itself was, you know, overblown. Although the One part about Y2K though, a lot of people did work on that behind the scenes to make sure nothing happened. But man, some of the accusations coming out at the time and some of the fears were just so over the top.
I, I see traces in that and you know, stuff like Infowars and all those offshoots.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: So here's another question from Iliacin. Do you see the low culture takeover as uniquely, as in uniquely American event, or did other countries experience something similar? And I'm really curious about that. Because Ann also asked, she said she went to visit Sweden at the time and all of the Swedes associated America with Jerry Stringer. So it's a question to think about not just like how do we think about and how do we elevate our own culture, but how it makes America look abroad.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I, I view it as more American than, than anything because this entertainment was, you know, produced and distributed by American companies. But that impetus did not stay within our borders because we became such, we were such a huge exporter of pop culture. That's one of the biggest things our, our country exports. And then, you know, after the fall of the Soviet union in the 90s, that gave us even more influence to use pop culture as a soft power.
So when all these other countries are getting their TV and movies and music from us, they can't, they're going to be affected to a degree too. If, you know, they're take, consuming all this American pop culture and it's taken such a trashy turn.
We're probably more affected than they are.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Were there spin offs? I mean, did you see like the British version of Jerry Springer or.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Oh yeah, there's spin offs of a lot of these shows. I mean, the, the Apprentice, I mean this isn't the 90s, but like if you look at all the versions of the Apprentice or Jersey Shore, I mean there's a, there was a Warsaw Shore, which is a landlocked city, you know, spin off of Jersey Shore in, in Poland. So that there was, you know, a ton of spin offs of 90s and 2000 shows. You know, there's versions of Jerry Springer out there that may not have as much influence as he does, but you know, other countries tried to adopt, you know, what was happening here.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Who today do you feel are the kind of exemplars of low culture on the scene?
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Oh, that's a. So I, I, I would say a lot of the influencers because they, they put out stuff like really cheap and quick and you know, by like older people who didn't grow up with it, they're, they're looked down upon and not viewed as the same as like TV. Like YouTube isn't viewed as being actual TV by people over 50 for the most part, but they really have a hold on young people and their ridiculous antics sometimes are really effective at getting people's attention. So I think like the, the social media stars of today are kind of replacing what like those, you know, TV stars were of the 90s.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah, well, certainly there are influencers out there who are Peddling all kinds of bizarre conspiracy theories. And where do conspiracy theories tie into all of this? Is it part of kayfabe? Is it just wanting to believe in strange cartels controlling the world? Or is it also a product of this kind of breakdown of trust in the sources of information?
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I, I don't have a comprehensive answer to. I do think there's some kfab, I mean, because there's certainly things that people are going along with being true, even though there's no possibility of them being so and present. I mean, Alex Jones himself actually, I mean, has practiced kayfabe. He has a, had a custody hearing for his kids and his lawyer argued that whatever he says on his radio show is just the entertainer playing a character. He doesn't actually believe any of that stuff. That that's like the definition of what kayfabe is. But I think it goes beyond that in the fact that there's so many people willing and wanting to believe them. But I, I don't, I don't have a great diagnosis for it.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: So you grew up enjoying this content and this kind of programming and the video games and all of that. Maybe talk about the video game phenomena spirit specifically and how that might be an example of what was derided as low culture actually having unexpected benefits.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: Yeah, sure thing. So, you know, video games in the 90s are really ridiculed. Like in 93 and 94 there's congressional hearings over Mortal Kombat and Night Trap for the impact they could have on kids. And they're playing all these clips out of context on the floor of the Senate and having these debates and that, that's kind of the view by, of a lot of people at the time. And you go to 99 after the, the Columbine tragedy and a lot of pop culture starts to take the blame for that. But video games take the blame the hardest because the killers were fans of the video game Doom, which is a first person shooter game. And after that happens and the press is blaming Doom, the academic cottage industry springs up and there's a five fold increase in the number of articles trying to link aggression to video games. And, and so this narrative develops that if a mass shooting happens, it's probably because video game influenced some unstable boy to do these things. But over time that becomes used less and less as an explanation as video games get more popular. Because as video games are being derided and looked down upon, they don't even have First Amendment protection until 2011 when there are court cases that happen in the 80s and 90s.
The prevailing opinion is that video games are more like pinball or baseball. And they're not like a form of media, like a movie or a book that conveys an idea. They say video games have no artistic merit, no ideas in court.
But, you know, 10 years later, video games have First Amendment protection.
The average age of a gamer is 35 instead of in their early 20s. And that change happens in the 90s as they're being mocked. So, you know, with like, Sega Genesis is Super Nintendo. Those systems are only selling like, probably 30 million units apiece.
By PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2. Game consoles are selling over 100 million units. So it's the 90s right in the heart of when they're being blamed for problems that they reach like, like just the masses. They become, you know, it's popular or more popular than any other entertainment format. And now we're at a point where video games make more money than movie, music, books and TV combined.
Like, 90% of people under 35 are video gamers. And like, I think probably about 80 of the population if you count smartphones in some capacity. And the view on them has flipped completely. They are the, like, genesis of these, you know, highly valuable intellectual franchises, intellectual properties like the Super Mario Brothers movie and the Last of Us Show. So it's just been like a huge transformation of like in the 90s. They're the political whipping boy. They're the easy target that can be picked on. Not everyone is familiar with them. And now they. There isn't a huge distinction between how movies are treated versus video games because they're just part of the, the culture that everyone has, not everyone, but most people have come to accept. And that's like a, a huge transformation over a period of less than a generation.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: All right, this is a great question from Kingfisher21. He asks, 1999 was also the year Napster was launched. Do you think music file piracy also played a role in this phenomena?
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you definitely saw 99 was probably the most pivotal year in changing media distribution because Napster launches and. And so does TiVo. So, like, the way people are exposed to media and what they can go out and venture and get into is radically altered by those companies, especially Napster. I, I would say the idea of Napster of like, having your own library that you kind of, you know, put together, not having to buy recorded music, you could really go for your own niche that's become very influential beyond music. Even with, like, the way we consume TV now, you know, we don't just sit there and watch one broadcast network or whatever. We put together whatever we can have at any time we want. I feel like that's, you know, part of the, the Napster phenomenon. I don't know if it necessarily fed to the rise of some of these, like, trashy entertainment things that I look at, but it's had a gigantic impact on how we consume media to this day.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: All right, Ann M.
Says Talk Soup on E.
Made fun of low culture. Do you think Talk Soup itself was part of low culture as well?
[00:43:46] Speaker B: Yeah, Talk Soup, for those who are unfamiliar, it was, it was kind of like how Sports center what will show like highlights of baseball and football games, but it was just for talk shows. So E would have a host get up there and show you like clips of Jerry Springer and Morton Downey and Ricky Lake and, and Jay Leno and just kind of laugh at it and give you the highlights. Because there's so many talk shows that they had a, a recap show.
I would say it's part of low culture as well, because they're the, they are appealing to the fans of those shows and they seem like they really love it too.
I can't remember the name. I think the last name is Henson. Was a host of Talk Soup. He said that Jerry Springer was the patron saint of Talk Soup. So they like, you know, rejoiced in the, the trashy talk shows. Even though it might be ironically or they might be winking, I feel like they are, are part of that phenomenon.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: So you grew up consuming low culture, the shows and the bands.
You have two very small children. I got to meet, I think your infant son right before we went.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: I know our listeners probably have gotten to hear them too.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: That's all right. You know, raising two kids and having two dogs in a small apartment in New York is probably, you know, it's no way to get away from that. But when you think about your children and the kinds of culture that you want them surrounded by, are you going to be more of a free range parent kind of trying to give them the same experience that you grew up with or quite. Are you going to, you know, want to encourage them to read more than play video games or, you know, go. Go to history museums or what have you?
[00:45:47] Speaker B: I probably won't be as free range as my own parents were because if I am, I will probably get in trouble with the other parents around here.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: I'll have to have some sort of control. I think I'll give them freedom, but not like I had and especially with smartphones, I, I can't imagine her having a smartphone to do whatever she wants to do when she's like seven. You know, like if I gotta, she grabs my phone, I'm gonna have to have the parental lock because it's so intuitive for these kids to figure these things out even at a young age in a way that like, you know, I had to learn it because that technology was being introduced when I was older. I can already ready see that with, you know, her and her friends that they, they pick up these things quite quick. So I'll have to definitely be a little more cautious than my own parents were.
[00:46:38] Speaker A: Steve C. Asks, isn't a big part of low culture a low attention span?
For example, ESPM highlights talk soup bits and pieces instead of the big picture.
[00:46:52] Speaker B: Huh. That, that's an interesting way of looking at it.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but our attention spans have been declining for a while and yeah, you probably have a point there.
I don't have anything super insightful to elaborate on other than when Jerry Springer made his, When Jerry Springer's show was serious and he'd have long form discussions with people like, like Jesse Jackson.
People didn't watch it when he was like, we're gonna do five minute segments where, you know, a guy is gonna be fist fighting his brother in law because they're sleeping with the same woman.
That got people's attention and, and his show was supposed to be made entertaining so that you'd watch it even if the sound was off. So I guess that would appeal to a low attention span if you, if you're act captivated even with the sound off.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's certainly a challenge for us here at the Atlas Society because in the 1970s, young people reading novels every day for fun and that's down to about 10%.
And I've also seen data that the brevity of books actually help determine longer staying time on best sellers. So.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: But that's not good for me either because I, I have two books with academic presses, so I need people to focus for more than 10 seconds.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Yes, indeed.
Is Tick Tock a part of a low culture?
[00:48:29] Speaker B: It could be, you know, depending on how you use it. But I mean some, when, when there's like a, a big hashtag that develops and, and people start to get into it in the, you know, replies back and forth with each other, you know, combative conversational style you can see on Tick Tock or Twitter for that matter.
You know, it's not a whole Lot different than the way audience would participate in daytime talk shows in the 90. And that's very pointed questions.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: So I was wondering, do you think that there is an aspect of engaging with trashy culture, like watching a show in which people are having fist fights because of bizarre relationships or what have you?
Is there an aspect that watching that makes people feel that they're not so bad, that they're not so messed up if they can point to somebody who's, you know.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I get what you're saying.
That's certainly part of the appeal. So I would watch Jerry Springer with my parents in the 90s, and I suspect part of the reason they liked it. You know, my parents, you know, it's not like we're high class. They used to live in a. In a trailer park before I was born. And we're in a small town in Nebraska. So who the hell are we? But, like, you know, my dad would sit there and be like, who the hell are these people? Oh, my God, this is so crazy. And it did make you feel a little bit better, like, that you have more stability in your life than the. The crazy person on tv. So I think there is that, like, voyeurism aspect fueling the, the popularity of some of those shows.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: My Modern G asks, many people think the 1960s or the 1980s, they think of them as turning points in American culture. What do you think is going to be considered the next turning point? Will it be the 2010s or.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Oh, man.
The next turning point after the 90s. I feel like the. That's a good question.
I still feel like the, like, late 2000 and tens and the early 2000 and twenties.
I know we're, we're still living in the aftermath of it, but between 20, like, 19 and 22 with COVID and everything after that, that was such a crazy, weird period that I think those repercussions will be interesting to look at, like, you know, 15 years after the fact. And that could be viewed as a significant turning point.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: So we're coming to the top of the hour here.
Wanted to ask, is low culture here with us to stay?
What, if anything, could lead to a more uplifting, more meaningful, more refined culture?
[00:51:26] Speaker B: Well, I'd say low culture is here with us to stay, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. And what all those deregulations that we talked about showed is that low culture has a democratizing effect because if you let people have what they want without any guardrails, the numbers of people that will go for something quite trashy is pretty high. But I, I don't think anyone has to feel terrible for their taste or anything.
Now, how we get to a more uplifting and refined culture.
Boy, I could sit there and recommend you do X, Y and Z, but how you get people to do those things, such as reading that you discussed, is beyond me. And I, I, I'm at a loss for a vision of society that looks much different than today.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: Well, they say that politics is downstream from culture, but cultures downstream from philosophy. And so at least at the Atlas Society, we're trying to do our small part in inculcating the next generation with reason. Individualism, productivity, achievement. And if more people embrace those values, I think they'll probably have a greater taste and demand for more sophisticated content, including reading longer books like that one. So we're about to wrap up. Is there anything from your book that I didn't get to touch on that you want to leave our viewers with?
[00:53:01] Speaker B: No, I think you covered everything pretty well.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: So what is next for you and how can we follow your work?
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Well, you could follow
[email protected] I'm also on Twitter occasionally. And what's next for me is spending lots of time with these kids.
Yeah, that's, that's the next project for me.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Ross. I really enjoyed your book and appreciate your making time amidst all of these domestic demands to have a chat with us. Thank you.
[00:53:39] Speaker B: Appreciate it.
[00:53:41] Speaker A: All right, and thanks, everyone. Boy, this week you guys really stepped up and asked some great questions. I appreciate that. I want to hear from our audience and not just myself asking the question. So it's really great to get that assist.
And I hope that you will join us next week. Author Eric Kaufman, who is returning to the show to talk about his new book, the Third Awokening A 12 Point Plan for rolling back progressive extremism.
So I'm enjoying it immensely. And he was great on previously to talk about his book White White Shift. So I'm just warning everybody in advance, I'm going to Burning man tomorrow, so I will be hopefully broadcasting from an rv and we'll see how it goes. So we'll see you then. Thank you.
