Tuesday 6 March 2012

S Club and The Price of Nostalgia...

I only realised this was here just now, my first week post is on the discussion and I'm wondering if I need to repost it here, just to be in line with everyone else. Anyway, our professor brought up some great points about Neoliberalism this week and the idea of freedom and choice in this country.
Unlike the United States, there is nothing in our country's policies or constitution that says that we have any notion of freedom of expression, which may be why my pleas to the arts council to bring Genie from Down Under back have been ignored. A closer look, and by closer, I mean five minutes on Google, reveals that neoliberalism is often associated with the free market and the economy, in general, rather than anything to do with the majority of society and social policy.
These two could run the country with an Opal-based economy

Now I'm all about autonomy and democracy and that whilst choice is a great thing, I know a lot of people who make bad choices. This is, of course, a very subjective view on what people do and I sound like a judging prick when I do so. Of course, I learnt through my late teens and current 20's, that if it doesn't concern or affect me, out of the fact that I am friends with this person, it shouldn't really bother me, but when people buy tickets to S Club Uni Party, it does concern me. It concerns me whether the money, their own or parents, that is being used is being put towards something that that friend truly believes in.
Are they purchasing the tickets to relive a nostalgic momentum that will push them through a rough time in their life?
Life was simple when every party was an S Club Party

I think that people are often easily swayed with marketing and brands and the simple notion of a generations collective nostalgia being marketed to them is something I am not entirely for. We have been disappointed in the past. The remake of Goldeneye, the reforming of the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block, the upcoming reboot of Spiderman, the possible Buffy reboot, Syndicate Reboot, 3D re-release of Return of the Jedi, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and many more. Of course, not being the license holders or a guy who enjoys mediocre 90's pop, I have no say in the matter, all I can do is right and voice an opinion and maybe someone will listen to my hypocrisy of pointing out nostalgic things and then indulging them...non-ironically.
Now I have to write another series of angry emails to the ABC, Rhys Muldoon and the Arts Council about bringing back Lift Off as well.
Say goodbye to your afternoon...and possibly your dreams.

P.S. If you Google or YouTube any of those references, consider the low you feel afterwards your own fault, not mine.