At the beginning of 1984, when I was roughly 8 1/2 years old, I saw the music video for Van Halen’s Jump on MTV. The intensity with which the video and the music struck me was like nothing I had experienced up to that point. So, I did what most kids my age did in this situation; save up a month’s worth of allowance money from doing household chores to purchase the vinyl LP of the band’s “1984” album.
The only catch to this whole thing being that, because of my age, this would be up to parental supervision and scrutiny. Add to that the compounding issue that my dad is a congregational minister and did not necessarily approve of the cherubic angel smoking a cigarette on the cover. After much petitioning and consternation, the old man relented, and I proudly marched my LP home.
Another cultural reality set in. This exciting brand of heavy hard rock was practically foreign to my parents’ ears, and certainly foreign to the family stereo that sat in the living room. It became clear to me quickly that I would have to acquire a second copy of this album, one on cassette, to enjoy it properly.
So, once again, turning to the cultural norms of the day, and not wanting to spend a heap of money on an album I already owned, I joined Columbia House Record and Tape Club. This was the near-ubiquitous institution of the 70s and 80s that would send you records or cassette for one cent if you signed up for their monthly purchase club. I would be able to play this cassette on my newly acquired Sony Walkman, one of the earlier models in the Walkman line.
The next level of cultural consumption in the sequence was that I absolutely needed to see the video debut for “Panama,” the next single off of 1984. Once again, problems arise when MTV was airing it shortly after my bedtime on a school night. Again with the moaning and consternation, and my parents caved. This is the kind of commitment one had to have in the era of broadcast television. There was no saving it for later, no streaming it on YouTube, no catching it shared on social media.
Subsequent pivotal moments included a Nintendo gaming system, thusly replacing the need for arcades, which we didn’t have on Nantucket Island anyway. Later, a CD player as a graduation gift from high school. Yes, I was a cassette holdout until sometime around 1992 or 93. Even as a musician.
There was so much that I identified with in this TEDx video. Even though it was 10 years ago that this video was first published, there is much that is still accurate. I will say that in a decade since it was produced, we have culturally reconciled a number of things about our digital lives. The ubiquitousness of our phones. The pervasiveness of social media and its algorithms. The nearly limitless on-demand entertainment options.
I’ve had the opportunity to work in media and marketing for a whole bunch of years now, and while there are plenty of aspects of the media landscape that have changed since I first started my work, I do believe that there are some things that stay essentially the same. I believe that well-crafted words are the genesis of any good media project, regardless of what the end format will be.