Are there any current trends in pop culture, politics, religion, or what have you tht you predicted years before the fact?
If so, here’s your chance to crow.
Here’s mine:
At the public library, I recently bumped into a former co-worker from my misspent youth at Sears, where I spent th 90s as a salesman, HR grunt, and manager. This particular acquaintance was from the sales phase. After we spent a little time catching up, the FCW suddenly said, “You know, you were totally right!”
“About what?” I said.
“About computer encyclopedias. Remember back in 1995 or so, you were setting up a new crop of Packard Bells, all of which had MS Encarta included on CD, and you said that inside of 10 years, computerized encyclopedias would have pretty much migrated online, and I told you that you were nuts? Well, given that I’ve just spent two hours on Wikipedia, I’m pretty sure you were right and I was wrong.”
Well, we’ve had internet connectivity for about 15 years. When we first got it, everyone I knew said “The internet?? What do you want that for??”, and I said “In under 10 years, it’ll be like the telephone; not having it will be the exception”. I overestimated how long it would take to become ubiquitous, but I predicted that it would happen.
Not me, but back around 1978 my college roommate suggested that we set up a booth at the university spring fair, and sell water. Everyone else was selling beer or soda. I told him he was crazy, noone would pay for water.
Botted water existed in the 1970’s. Perhaps it wasn’t sold at fairs at the time, but it certainly existed. I have a clear memory of asking for water at a meal back then and getting Perrier. I was apparently the only one at the table who hadn’t drunk it before.
I used to wear a polo shirt underneath a sweatshirt that also had a collar - people commented on the double collar, so I cut some collars off old polo shirts and stitched them inside other shirts so it would look like I was wearing two shirts when there was only one. This was fashionable for a while ten years or so later, and still persists today.
Sparkling water like Perrier was far more common back then than bottled still water. Such things were generally obtainable only from gourmet or health stores, at least in the areas I resided in.
Consumption of bottled water has risen from 1.5 gallons per capita in the US in 1976 to 24 gallons in 2005, and is continuing to rise rapidly.
I wish I’d listened to my friend, and decided to invest in a nice bottled water company like Poland Spring.
Of course, I’d have continued to drink water from the very same well that I’ve drunk it from all my life, at home anyway.
I feathered my hair back in 1973…(pre disco) I cut my hair with tin snips into “artistic uglyness” in 1975… (prepunk)I told people not to buy paper bound encyclopeadias in 1995, as they would be soon supplanted by web based knoweldge…
I rode a bicycle and idd not own a car until I was 33 (when I required one to be at many places 100’s of km distant by work, even then I bought a small , economical second hand)
I have always been open to any gender /sexual interpretation that did not involve cruelt/exploitation.
I knew Bush was a fool…
and a tool (take it both ways)
Alway knew that organised religion was just a social thing, and had little to do with spiritual advancement.
Realized that "new Age’ was just a marketing ploy… (well before the "Harmonic Convergance) (wanna buy a used crystal… ok, its just quartz… still its real old…)
Things change… things remain the same… that’s all I have ever really learned (so far)
I predicted YouTube (or a site like it) to my friends years ago. I would download cool videos from all over the net and I’d say that someday someone would centralize all of this. To bad I didn’t think of doing it my$elf.
Back around 1983, the Downsview Public Library in Toronto got in this incredible gadget. It was a computer terminal connected to what amounted to a wide area network called Teleguide. (Apparently this is related to Videotex and other NAPLPS-based systems, but I didn’t know this at the time) Teleguide was like an interactive information system where you could look up all kinds of information such as local malls, live theater, movie theaters (including what’s playing when and where), restaurants and menus, and tons of other services. It displayed graphics using line-drawn and flood-filled raster graphics as was the technological capability of home and business computers at the time, and options were selected both with its touch-screen, and an attached keyboard (for when you needed to enter information, such as when a mall in Markham had a contest to guess the number of window panes in its central arched skylight). I was fascinated by it. I couldn’t help thinking, “This is gonna be huge. How can it not be? It’s so cool and useful at the same time. This could start turning up everywhere!” There were also a couple of local malls that ended up getting kiosk versions of Teleguide terminals. Bell Canada later offered a stripped-down version of this (no graphics, green screen) for the home called Alex. It was way cool to a geek like me, but we couldn’t afford to rend one out as the service fees were ridiculously exorbitant. Alex, although not particularly popular to begin with (it lasted about two years before people got fed up with the access fees and canceled their service), was nevertheless rendered obsolete once the World Wide Web started picking up steam – and when you get rid down to it, the WWW is really just a global, massively souped-up version of Teleguide.
When I got my hands on an Atari Portfolio back aroud 1991 or so (it came out in '88) I thought to myself, “Y’know, in a few years I’ll bet they have even better handheld computers, 'cos this is way too cool not to take off.” Of course there was also the Apple Newton available at the time, but with all the grumbling over its poor handwriting recognition, I didn’t think it would go anywhere unless it improved. So I was half right: 3Com’s Palm Pilot came out a few years later, and it was indeed a portable computer, but vastly improved upon Apple’s handwriting recognition for data entry.
I’ve been doing this my whole life, and I’ll even tell you the next one: Western Suits. You know, the Nashville country style with the placard on the shoulders and the arrow pointed pockets? Some of the hispanic cowboy stores (I don’t know what better to call them) around here sell them and I think they’re fantastic. Give it 6 months to a year and cowboy suits will be all the rage in Hollywood. They don’t sell them as blazers as far as I can tell, but they look great with a t-shirt and jeans. Real sharp stuff, great cuts on them too, real thin and lean looking.
We live in a “retro” world, nothing new is coming down the pike and so we’ll continue to cannabilize our own culture. These haven’t been touched yet and so they’re ripe for the taking. I’m already sporting two of them I found at Goodwill.
With all the tobacco lawsuits I predicted that it wouldn’t be long before they started going after food. Shortly after 9/11 I predicted that gun control wouldn’t be a big issue for either party for a number of years. Over 10 years ago I predicted that people would become more accepting of homosexuals. While I won’t pretend that it’s all sunshine and rainbows out there, I know that 15 years ago nobody would have been taking gay marriage seriously, so that’s some progress at least.
I’m not sure if this counts as a fad but two years ago (separated from my SO and feeling sorry for myself on Christmas day) I was trolling YouTube and found this guitar playing kid. I was blown away! I sent a link to everyone. I got back a lot of, "Yeah, he’s good so what"s. It had been downloaded a day or two before.
Today he’s been viewed over 23 and a half million times. Obligatory Wiki link. Who knows how many ‘covers’ on guitar. Cell phone covers, even toy piano covers.
I could see the iPod coming from miles away. When mp3 players first came out with ridiculous 16mb storage, I’d always say why don’t they just slap a harddrive onto the thing. Its not as if they weren’t making small harddrives for laptops, its a no brainer. I guess if iPods had come out years earlier they wouldn’t have been so refined or cool though.
I doubt I’m the only one who said it, but when my friend phoned me on 9/11 and told me what was happening my first reply was “Oh well, I guess we’re going back to Iraq then”
