The year is 2005, you just got back from school on your skateboard listening to the new Bullet for My Valentine album on the iPod Nano. You wake from your dream, and realize that was nearly twenty years ago, and you are now 35 years old. You take a look at your phone, and see that a brand new music festival is happening this summer with all your favorite bands. But you notice something: it’s just bands from your childhood, and no new bands.
This is a problem in our modern pop culture. There has been a massive wave of big businesses and corporations cashing in on music and fashion and overall culture from 20+ years ago. Movies having unneeded revamps, bad remakes, and repeated styles and aesthetics.
In music, huge companies set up festivals that specifically cater to older generations. I find a problem with this because of the misrepresentation of newer bands that get their chances stolen of having a big break.
The issue with this is it inhibits newer acts and ideas from getting opportunities that these older acts do. This applies to all mediums, such as music, movies and clothing.
When it comes to movies, big corporations such as Universal, Paramount, and others like that invest a large amount of money into revamps and remakes of movies made over 20 years ago. This is because of the rising issue of streaming and losing money in theaters, causing studios tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
“A lot of these new movies just have anything interesting in them, they’re all so predictable,” Lucas Marcella said.
Choosing to make movies rooted in nostalgia and old ideas is more guaranteed to make money, since it’s already been proven to be lucrative. Instead of creating new fresh ideas and taking a risk, studios have been put in a situation where competition with streaming services is extremely risky.
In terms of clothing, the rise of early Y2K styles has been exploding, brands such as Affliction and Ed Hardy. Baggy jeans, pocket chains, baggy graphic T-shirts are extremely popular in this current generation.
“I like a lot of the styles, but I think we should also find our own fashion identity as a generation as well,” Carmine Sciascia said.
Overall, I believe that there should be more risks taken by our generation to trailblaze, and continue to make something new. That’s where inspiration comes from. In our current climate, the major industries are more worried about making money than investing in something new. In movies, music, clothing and more.