Here’s an executive summary of the Emerging Culture Composite Index v.1.4. To read the full version (and subscribe to future editions), just click here.

Big Idea

Nice, Nice baby.

Nice. It used to be how you described a guy who finished last, but now “nice” is having a bit of a comeback. This time last year Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan and Donald Trump were in the spotlight, but now their egomania and bluster seem old and tired. They’ve been replaced by new stars on the cultural landscape like Zooey Deschanel, the impossibly adorable star of FOX’s hit freshman show, New GIrl, as well as this little music video with the equally nice Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which rang up more than 8 million views.  But it’s not just on TV. The latest issue of Monocle magazine focuses on charm as the new buzzword for businesses, brands and nations in 2012 and beyond. The Harvard Business Review, in its latest issue (left), tackles a similar issue, looking at the value of happiness.

This Week’s Emerging Culture Composite Index

Decision Time For Show Runners
You really have two options now if you are creating content for “television.” (Quick digression, what do we call programming now? You can’t call them TV shows when they are watched from computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones.) You can either create content that people must watch live (reality contests, awards shows, sports, politics, news), or create the type of programming that people are willing to DVR or watch via Hulu…
The Power of the Graphic Novel
There was a time when a graphic novel was just a comic book putting on airs. That all changed with Batman: The Dark Knigth Returns, and The Watchmen which elevated the genre into the realm of the novel (The Watchmen was named one of the 100 Greatest novels of the 20th century by TIME magazine)…

Sh*t People Watch
If you’ve watched a video in the last week, it was probably one of the growing entrants in the “sh*t [blank] say” genre. While the variations are many, the lessons are consistent..

Next on ESPN, Ultimate Frisbee?
Well, maybe not on ESPN, but two interesting projects on Kickstarter caught my eye this week…

And for those wondering what the ‘scoober’ referred to in the subject line means, it’s a type of throw used in ultimate. Here’s an instructional video of how it’s done.

And while we’re on the topic of Kickstarter, check out Y&R New York’s Kickstarter page. Every week we’re backing a project that we think exudes innovation, creativity or in some way reflects or exemplifies culture.

Culture today is a remix. Kirby Ferguson told me so. So did Faris Yakob. We’ve become incredibly good at taking what already exists and making something new. From Warhol to GirlTalk, flipping the script has produced real creativity and moved culture forward. But at some point, it’s worth pausing and taking a look at the cultural road map and ask, “where are we going?”  I think this is particularly relevant in regards to what have become three pieces of our cultural bedrock: LEGO, Star Wars and The Muppets.

These are more than brands, or products or franchises. It would be difficult to strip any of these out of our culture at this point, so deep and wide are their roots. I have no problem with that. In their own ways, all three have inspired, amused and thrilled multiple generations with their creativity and quality. But now remix culture threatens to strip these brands of their essence.

Star Wars: The Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe

I was 7-years old when the original Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) came out. I’m acutely aware of the power of the original trilogy and it played a huge part in my adolescent interests.  I’ve written in the past about Star Wars’ Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe, and I love the fact that things like the 501st Legion can exist. I think there is something great about expanding the use and definition of a brand. It’s what keeps it alive and relevant long after its original creation.

One and a half Stormtroopers.

But at some point, as fans, we stop expanding the narrative universe and start creating an inward-looking, self-referencing implosion.  One that does no favors for the brand, but more importantly, does no favors for us.  There’s nothing interesting anymore about photos like the one on the left. Not because it lacks quality, but because it lacks novelty. Here, take a look at the flickr set, all 365 photos. Again, all terrifically executed, but to what end?  Where does this all lead?

LEGO and the Death of Original Creativity

Go to YouTube and type in Lego and you’ll be able to see just about every major current franchise has been “LEGO’d” by people: James Bond, Gears of War, CSI, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and yes, of course, Star Wars. Over on Flickr it’s a similar case: Batman, Halo, Indiana Jones, Mario.  The LEGO community is of course diverse, and there are many that create their own, original efforts, but what gets shared via social networks is often the derivative culture-mining outputs.  Recently, my 8-year old son built an “Awesome Store” with his LEGO’s. That’s great, he built it himself, from his own design. What did they sell at the “Awesome Store?”  LEGO Stormtrooper helmets. Now, he’s eight, and he was using the Stormtrooper helmets because, from a store inventory standpoint, that actually makes sense.  But why are 28-year olds basically doing the same thing?

Muppet Mashup Madness

The Muppets continue to be a vibrant brand, continuously integrating themselves with pop culture. Check out this Mad Men parody:

 

Or this Apple iPod spoof:

 

When the brand itself is doing things like this, I’m not sure that we need to use the Muppets for our own creations. Editing a Muppets video and setting it to hip hop music quickly exhausts the conceit. Muppets and Kanye, Muppets and NWA, Muppets and Lonely Island. Got it. Thanks.

It's not easy be green.

To some degree the property owners are guilty here too. They give us permission to act and think this way by doing these collabs with adidas.  Recently, Kurt Anderson wrote about the death of style innovation over the last 20 years in Vanity Fair. I think this phenomenon falls into a similar area. Culture seems to be folding in on itself. By continuing to tweak, mash and mine the past, we run the risk of diminishing new cultural outputs. It reminds me of the mid-/late-80s English band with the possibly prophetic name, Pop Will Eat Itself.

As I said at the beginning, I don’t have a problem with remix culture, I understand it and know it is hear to stay. But it feels like we’ve exhausted the meaningful iterations that can be had from Star Wars, LEGO and The Muppets. Let’s agree to give them a rest, at least for a little while.

For The Win, FTW!

For the third week of the Y&R Kickstarter program I’ve chosen to back For The Win! – Zombies, Pirates, Ninjas, Aliens and Monkeys. I love this project for the name alone – it speaks to so much of our culture.  The term, “for the win!” has an interesting place in our culture by itself, with an apparently disputed etymology. Personally, I subscribe to the Hollywood Squares theory.

Of course, Zombies, Pirates, Ninjas and Aliens have also all cemented places in popular culture. About a year and a half ago I wrote about these archetypes, and how they continue to cycle back up in popular culture, independently. This game says, screw, let’s mash it all up together, which is very much in keeping with the cultural trend of recombinance that Faris lays out.

This also speaks to my notion of the Cultural Singularity Paradox. All these once discreet concepts converging and mashing up makes it difficult for us to know where future cultural trends will emerge from.

There’s still some time to support this game, and if you are a pop culture fan, I hope you will.

Here’s a preview of the game:

The Big Idea

Mobilityness. It’s an intriguing concept that I’d define as “a set of principles, traits and behaviors that exemplify the expectations of the modern citizen.” In short, it’s something that brands (and marketers) need to understand.  It’s a term coined by Thom Kennon, Y&R New York’s SVP, Director of Strategy. You can read the background on the concept here and here on Thom’s excellent blog, Big Evidence, as well as my take on the concept here. It’s undeniable that this notion of freedom – of content, people and ideas – is changing our behaviors, and yes, our culture. I think brands can display this trait, mobilityness, as well. This week Hulu announced that it was getting into the original content business in a big way. Hulu was able to understand cultural trends in a way that say, Blockbuster wasn’t. Not surprisingly, Netflix and Google also have plans in the original content arena. Content is mobile, from the screen you watch it on (TV, tablet, computer, phone) to the entity that delivers it (Google, Microsoft, NBC, Netflix, Starz, Funny or Die…). Even the physical location where you watch it (home, plane, work, outdoors…). Consumers no longer care to distinguish between these, they only have two criteria: 1) Is it good? 2) Can I watch it when I want, where I want, on whatever platform I want?  If your content (your brand, really) doesn’t have mobilityness built into it, well, I know a guy who can get you a cheap lease on a former Blockbuster video store location.

Red Team FTW in MapAttack! NYC

Of course at the heart of mobilityness is mobility.  I had the opportunity to participate in an intriguing mobile experience this week.  As part of the WebVisions conference, Geoloqi hosted a session of their game, MapAttack! The game combines social and mobile elements by putting participants on a virtual treasure hunt.  Here’s a look at the “gameboard” that shows how players on the Red and Blue teams ‘captured’ virtual spots in Central Park. Each spot had a point value ranging from 10 to 50 points. So, how could a brand use such a technology? A hotel chain could assign guests to a team, and put spots around the property (gym, pool, restaurant, bar, business center, etc.). While each guest would be playing as an individual, they’d also be playing as part of a larger team. The team with the most points each week wins, and the members of the winning team get a 10% discount on their next stay. Business travel can be a solitary experience, MapAttack! can make your stay more social. This could also be interesting technology for a cruise line,  national car dealership network or cellular network.

This Week’s Emerging Culture Composite Index

Must Tweet TV
What’s the future for the broadcast networks? Sports and Awards shows. That fact was made evident once again this week as the only shows from ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX to make the Top 10 on SocialGuide’s rankings were the Golden Globes, the People’s Choice Awards and the Miss America pageant. Everything else came from the world of cable. Those three shows generated 1.3 million comments from nearly half a million people. Diving a bit deeper into the numbers, it’s interesting to see who is engaging in this sort of behavior.  SocialGuide’s data shows that people with lots of followers tend to be more likely to talk about shows in general, and awards shows in particular. The Golden Globes pre-show and the Critic’s Choice Movie Awards led the pack with an average followers/unique of 862 and 799 respectively. This compares to a general average follower count of less than 100.  An engagement strategy that targets consumers not just on social media channels, but during these key programming opportunities could either be a great enhancement to more traditional marketing activation, or a great way to reach a proactive audience if the brand doesn’t have the resources for a Super Bowl or Oscar telecast :30 second spot.

New Stars, New Content
An interesting trend over at Hollywood Stock Exchange this week. The top traded stars on the virtual stock exchange were: Michael Nyqvist, Paula Patton, Toby Jones, Robin Wright, Brad Bird, Goran Visnjic, David Thewlis, Emily Watson, Rooney Mara and Nick Frost. Not exactly Clooney, Pitt, Roberts or Jolie. Are we on the cusp of seeing a new and different breed of Hollywood star, or is this just a temporary vacuum being filled?  Also interesting to note, was a lack of retread material in HSX’s movie stocks. In the Top 10 were only two properties – Fantastic Four Reborn and Hancock 2 – that we’ve already seen on the big screen. The rest were a mix of eagerly awaited novel adaptations (Hunger Games) or original screenplays (Arbitrage, This Means War). Has Hollywood, and the movie-goer, grown tired of franchises?

Science, Hold The Fiction
While the graphic novel genre has been dominated of late by The Walking Dead (3 of the Top 10), and interesting entry caught my eye this week. Feynman is a biography of the physicist Richard Feynman in graphic novel form. It’s a great remindeof the breadth of subjects that can be explored through this graphic novels, and the equally broad audience that makes up fans of the medium.

iWatch
The most funded project on Kickstarter right now is the TikTok+LunaTik Multitouch Watch Kit. This clever little bit of

Nearly $1million in pledges

design turns an iPod nano into a multitouch wristwatch. More than 13,000 people pledged a total of nearly $1 million to support this project. This is a fantastic example of how brands and people can be co-creators, but it also speaks to something more. The pledge goal to make this product a reality was set at $15,00. They raised roughly 62 times that amount! How did they get such a great response? Because LunaTik gets it right. They, just like Apple, understand the importance of design. They also treat their community right, offering them the products at a nice discount for pledging their monetary support. This is what happens when the right product at the right price finds the right tribe.

NPR without the Pledge Drives?

Sounds too good to be true right? Well, here’s the secret – download your favorite shows, like This American Life, WNYC’s RadioLab, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, Fresh Air and more from iTunes. Not only are these shows available, they are all in the Top 10 podcast downloads. In 2012 the idea of a podcast may seem a little dated, but clearly there’s a specific audience (fans of soothing voices, tote bags and/or Schweddy Balls) that are heavy users of the genre. Does your brand attract a similar audience?

This week I saw a lot of content or ideas or even products finding new homes. This too is a facet of mobilityness. How are you designing campaigns or spots or even ideas so they have a certain mobilityness to them? I think that’s an interesting question to ask as it’s clearly something the people that brands are trying to reach now expect.

For those following along, yes the Emerging Culture Composite Index continues to evolve with each issue. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, is credited with the following saying: “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Sometimes in order to know what you’ve got (or don’t got), you have to push it out there. After each issue I’m learning more about what works and what doesn’t, but I’d also like to hear from you, so please continue to give me feedback. Thanks.

For the second week of the Y&R Kickstarter program I’ve chosen to back The Written World. This project is described as a multiplayer storytelling game which lives on the Internet. 

You had me at storytelling game. I’m a big believer in both of those concepts, so when they are combined I’m always intrigued. The Written World is the brainchild of Simon Fox of playlab London, Toby Green, Anna Fogg and Shelly Lozdon. The game itself is too textured and detailed for me to explain here, so I encourage you to read the Kickstarter page, but the underlying concept delivers an innovative approach to narrative and gameplay. Here’s the video:

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There’s clearly been a tremendous amount of thought put into this, and that’s one of the key lessons of game design that I’ve learned. The pre-production time is enormous, both on the creative side and in terms of game mechanics. The Written World creators appear to be expert world builders. Take a look at the design of the game characters:

The Written World Game Character Design

The gameplay is designed around collaborative writing by both “the narrotor” and “the protagonist.” See the run of the gameplay here. Ultimately, nothing in this project feels like a rehash to me, and that’s the sort of project I’m looking to support. This one still needs a bit of your help, so please consider backing this one.

You can also read this interview of Simon Fox by Emily Short for more on the game, as well as these other posts:

The Huffington Post: http://huff.to/rTxstX

The Atlantic:http://bit.ly/vs41oa

Hero by Clicking: http://bit.ly/uPe8nv

So it Goes: http://bit.ly/s9a9uW

Otterjotter: http://bit.ly/vCcJI6

Heading towards an Age of Onlinetenment

Last week Jinal Shah, a Digital Strategist at JWT, shared an essay with her friends titled, 2012: A Year of Digital Behavioral Shifts. It’s a great piece and Jinal puts together a strong case for changing the way we operate online, with a renewed focus on thinking, rather than just sharing, liking and retweeting. She believes this new era is upon us, calling it the age of enlightenment in our digital history. This transformation will be led by:

[...] thinkers, artists and storytellers not programmers and geeks. These are people driven by a vision that’s a bit more individualistic, centers more around exploring the tapestry of human opinions, intimacy and feelings instead of connecting the world into one large immutable being.

And what will this lead to? According to Jinal: a mindful web… systems that:

1. Are designed for constructive debate and dialogue by exposing us to different points of views
2. Are designed for quality and intimacy – not quantity. Where there is less immediate gratification.

It’s a compelling vision and one I wholeheartedly support. But it’s also a big task. The simple truth is that the vast, vast majority of people aren’t interested in changing their behavior. They enjoy the relatively simple gamification elements of Foursqaure and the ability to express their opinions view a digital ‘thumbs up.’  Even when viewed at the micro level, exploring just the world of marketers that both Jinal and I are part of, it’s evident that not everyone is interested in exploring the new possibilities.

And yet, I’m literally inundated by the highly intelligent thinking of people in our industry who are committed to building something better, to thinking deeper and exploring ideas that are challenging. From Tim Stock to Justin Briggs to countless others the issue is how do we build the type of web Jinal is talking about that will not only connect all these great people and ideas, but allow them to be connected in a meaningful way?  How does an idea I write about, say, The Cultural Singularity Paradox connect or build upon an idea like Interdependence, Chomsky and the crowbar by Eaon Pritchard, a winner of Neil Perkin’s Post of the Month Hall of Fame?

I think we still need the ”programmers and tinkerers and computer scientists,” the builders of the web’s Industrial Age according to Shah. We need them to continue to build, but this time to build a web that intelligently connects and combines the work of those that will create the Age of “Onlinetenment” (my term, not Shah’s).

In her book, Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal relates the story of Halo 3 and the collaborative effort to record 10 billion kills by game players. How can the marketing industry create that sort of collaborative effort?  On the subject of games, a subject I’m passionate about, Shah says, “Gaming will have a larger role to play in the age of enlightenment, but perhaps not so overt. It’s job will and should become about elevating the meaning and importance associated with a like, number of friends and followers etc.”

And while that’s important, I think gaming can play a bigger, more important role in a different way. Games can solve bigger problems than improving the meaning of the quantitative issues Shah mentions. Games can be used to rally people (marketers?) to work for a common cause, to unite for a single purpose greater than themselves. That’s something I think we could use. Rather than everyone writing and thinking in isolation, we need to figure out how to write and think together. When that happens maybe we will enter the Age of Onlinetenment.