Afterword

Afterword:

That Thing with the Pop and the Boogie

 

There’s something called pop culture. It’s made up of novels, and manga, and movies, and games, and music—and just about anything else, really. Art? Nah, that’s a little, you know, too artsy. Frankly, pop culture is a bit better at rocking people emotionally than the better part of the so-called fine arts. The sole standard of judgment in pop culture is the ludicrously simple concept of “what sells wins,” which is nice and honest. Sells is sort of an “eh” term to me, so instead let’s say that it finds an audience. It’s a very pop culture thing to establish yourself by finding an audience. Which is true, and I tell people this, but I bet they’d say everything works that way. In our world, however, there are things that are just really damn good—no matter what other people say. And that sort of thing is not called pop culture. No, that’s known as a lost masterpiece, or a legendary performance, or by all sorts of other names. It’s not that these things aren’t great—they just aren’t pop.

I’m saying this in full knowledge that it might be misunderstood, but most pop culture is kind of half-assed. “The real thing is stuff, so fake stuff is better.” Is that logical? People fully capable of making something real are deliberately pulling back and putting out something fake. What does this tell us? Thinking about that scares me, so I’m not going to, but this very half-assed approach is also sort of “blowing away the petrified past and opening a path to the future.” (Nobody’s got any idea what I’m talking about, right?) (Okay.)

The best thing about pop culture is how hard it is for it to achieve any kind of legitimacy. It’s not that it never earns it, but it is pretty rare for it to do so. Something that was king of the hill a moment before is cast onto the compost heap a second later, while something that was long ago pronounced dated is resurrected and declared, “Innovative!” people wondering “Why did those idiots forget about this?” That’s what pop is. It’s pretty crazy, but within that whirlpool you do get a sense of a certain kind of necessity. Something appears, becomes huge, and then explodes, and is gone completely. Like a bubble…with a pop. Hmm, a fitting name. There’s no cheap trick to get something established. A novel might win some big award, but that doesn’t have the least bit of effect on sales.

To be perfectly honest, my own tastes have always been a bit disconnected from my generation. I’m the least pop person ever. I’m running around listening to stuff from twenty years ago, thirty years ago, screaming, “Awesome!” and reading books from fifty years ago. shouting, “Coool!” Yes, that kind of guy. These things aren’t connecting to the pop of today at all; the only one getting excited is me. I’m a little worried about that. As someone who’s trying somehow to make a living as a novelist, naturally I’m worried, and I’m trying to make myself more pop, but it just isn’t working. As I can imagine you can tell from the general tone of this essay, I admire pop and have a sort of complex about it, really. But since my personality’s gone and twisted itself, everything I make people say is something along the lines of “Well…it’s unique,” or “Is this supposed to be funny?” Which is usually followed up with “Well, we can’t publish it…” And they’re still saying it, even now.

Still, I’ve got to aim for pop. This is the theme of my life, so it can’t be helped. If everything I make ends up being more boogie, it’s not my fault… That’s what I’d like to say that, except it is my fault, really. But I’m going for it, anyway. Even if it’s a kind of boogie pop, then someday, I still might make the real thing.

(This guy just writes whatever crap he wants to…)

(Whatever.)

BGM “CHILDREN of the SUN” by MAYTE