|
The dot-com I was riding lasted four months - that's right, bucking bronco to glue factory nag in just four months. From there, I staggered bowlegged from the smoldering stable back to my overpriced San Francisco hovel and the iffy realm of self-employment, far from the vague but fruitless hope that a lowly content provider could grab a piece of that New Economic pie. (By the way, may I call myself a writer again, please? "Content provider" never quite worked for me.)
I took a somewhat dim view of the dot-com boom. I learned to mute my criticism, of course. I used to ask, "Say, isn't this dot-com business just old-fashioned mail order minus reliability, plus a lot of incomprehensible jargon?" But every time I did, some hotshot entrepreneur would whomp me upside the head with a cell phone and good-naturedly shout, "It's E-tail, you Luddite! Climb aboard or get out of the way!" So I climbed aboard.
Now reality has overtaken even the most swaggering of boosters. The dot-com boom is bust. But in its death throes, the dot-com phenomenon may have evolved into a historical moment. An article in SF Weekly informed me that we had "... lived an epochal moment of the likes history has never known: San Francisco's Dot-Com Spring," ("Not Com," Nov. 8, 2000).
The "Spring" apparently began in 1995, when "... the city became the Promised Land of a sort of intellectual youth movement for the first time since the Summer of Love." And it ended with the market crash of early 2000. During that long spring, "Kids leaving college and possessing nothing but literary ambitions landed writing or editing jobs at engineers' wages."
Strangely, even though I have literary ambitions and have left college, I never saw those wages. Could it be because I left college 25 years ago? Dang. Missed it again. It's the same cruel trick of fate that caused me to move to the Haight-Ashbury nine years after the Summer of Love.
On the bright side, the Summer of Love didn't leave much of a legacy, unless you count drum solos, sand candles, and bell-bottoms. Will Dot-Com Spring have "legs" as a cultural phenomenon? Well, it gave us HTML, Flash animation, and "scalable solutions." You be the judge.
Why can't people predict the beginnings and ends of these epochs? The world is full of pundits, futurists, trend spotters, analysts, consultants, and spin doctors. They ought to be good for something.
Looking back on it now, I see an area where a shrewd prognosticator might have charted the rise and fall of the dot-com revolution. What time of year do people throw common sense out the window and dash about purchasing things that have no earthly value? That's right - Christmas!
Christmas of 1995 was still a little too early to detect the phenomenon. The Power Rangers were popular, but I wouldn't call them a craze. Not until Christmas 1996 did adults employ brute force in the aisles of Toys R Us to decide who would first obtain a cuddly gewgaw for their irrational offspring.
The toy was Tickle Me Elmo.
And what did Elmo do? When you tickled him, he got excited - just like the New Economy! The hot ticket item in 1997? Tamagotchi. This egg-shaped digital device died unless you paid constant attention to it - just like the New Economy! In 1998, it was Furby, who talked gibberish and craved attention - just like the New Economy! And last year it was Pokemon. If you bought one, you had to buy hundreds - just like the New Economy!
Christmas 2000 was a comparative downer. Toy sellers had high hopes for Absolute Sensor, a device that let 3D cartoon characters in a virtual landscape echo what real life players were doing. But most consumer experts and children fell asleep before marketers could finish describing it. Pokemon figures and Beanie Babies kept multiplying, like hideous alien life forms, and Play Station 2 was so popular nobody could buy one.
But the toy that signaled the end of it all to me was the talking Eeyore, Winnie-the-Pooh's donkey friend. In the commercials for it, I saw high-spirited young children pressing its tummy to access phrases like, "Oh, well," and "A hug would be nice," in Eeyore's low-pitched depressed monotone. I don't know what other phrases Eeyore employed - "We're doomed," perhaps, "Give up," or "Nembutal, please."
I don't know how Eeyore sold, but the fact that it's on the marketplace is a clear indicator that the fun is gone, which means the time is ripe.
Next Christmas look for the plush Ian. Insert three AAA batteries into my brain, whomp me upside the head, and I'll issue my trademarked phrases: "You can't let me go, I quit," "Can I at least kiss my cube goodbye?" "Ian needs a hug," and "But I'm not vested yet!" Please, next Christmas season, wrestle each other in the aisles over this lovable, cuddly figure. It's not for me, you understand. It's for the children.
Ian Shoales lives in San Francisco, where he will provide content for food. Look for him on a street corner near you.
|
|
|
|
|