SNP’s word of the day: Devolution

Word: Devolution

Meaning: The regressive evolution of (American) pop culture.

Usage: “You Say You Want a Devolution?” — Vanity Fair

You should know it because: In this new year, we’re talking about the end of culture. Or at least, Kurt Anderson and people who read Vanity Fair and listen to the CBC and stuff are talking about it. Anderson’s essay, which you can read in full online if you’re not acquainted, posits that 2012 looks a lot like 1992, and not just because minimalism and cropped sweaters are back. He argues that Lady Gaga is merely Madonna 2.0 (true…ish) and that Adele is basically Mariah Carey (wait, what? Adele is a heartbroken old soul, not a svelte “Heartbreaker”; still I could concede that her sound isn’t groundbreaking). He argues that hip-hop was the last new musical genre, completely—thankfully—ignoring dubstep, not to mention every genre suffixed by “gaze” or “wave.” He doesn’t really address the Applefication of design, which is a pretty significant failing, I think; he brings it up only to point out that Apple customers are the same people who post Hipstamatic photos and shop at urban farms and live in brownstones cluttered with flea market flotsam. It’s true that all our stylish nostalgia is sticky—so sticky it can be a trap. And I’ve argued before that the return of Mad Men-style fashion is bad for modern women, recalling a time in which we were crippled by pencil skirts, bound by wasp-waisted housedresses. I do believe we need to get over the current mania for recycling/remixing/reimagining if we’re ever going to make anything for which we can be remembered. Still, is devolution too strong a word? I can’t help feeling that it’s rather too convenient for a 60-year-old white American Vanity Fair writer, faced with his pending irrelevance, to give up and say nothing is new.

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