Bell Bottoms, Hammer Pants, Evolution, and our Addiction to Novelty

For as long as I can remember I've been cursed with this insipid and ridiculous need to know. It's never been enough to just live. I have to know how and why everything works. And for just as long, as a side effect of this maddening affliction, I've had these seemingly random ponderings forever rolling around in my head, like those steel balls they put inside of spray-paint cans to keep the paint from clumping together. Sometimes these little steel balls start as ideas, but most often they come in the form of questions. They sporadically tumble from my subconscious mind into waking contemplation where they rattle around, for as long as they have to—sometimes for years on end—until I'm able to reach an understanding on the subject that satisfies itself. At which point my paint can—at least momentarily—feels a little less crowded.

I wanted to share one of the little steel balls that, for years, did its part to keep my paint from clumping together.

It started with fashion. Well, kinda. I was thinking about what it is that dictates the perception and status of style. Ever wonder how something like a hairstyle, for example, or a pair of pants, can go from the coolest shit you've ever seen, to absolutely, unequivocally, embarrassingly and unwearably  horrendous…in the matter of a few short years?

I got to thinking; what determines our appreciation and affinity for a certain style for a brief period of time, only to inevitably have our collective, as well as personal, affinity for said style not only expire, but to rot to the point of revulsion? It is an interesting thought, and the fact that an immediate and satisfying solution alluded me, ensured that this would be a thought that would stay with me for some time.

The most interesting aspect of this condition concerning fashion isn't the clothes or hairstyles, it the fact that a fashion trend is almost like a mass hypnosis. Think about it, a large part of our population decides, subconsciously, without planning or organization, at relatively the same time, to collectively agree, and genuinely believe, that bell bottoms and afros, or tube tops and mullets, or patent leather and corn rows are aesthetically pleasing. And then after a certain amount of time (I'm sure you could calculate, with precision, the average time it takes for a style to turn from appealing to revolting that would show little to new deviation with each new fad) The same group decides, collectively, that the exact same hairstyle they previously, though genuinely, found appealing is not only no longer aesthetically pleasing but is now revolting.

How is that possible? 

It is completely fascinating for me to think about this strange, mass group, social behavior. This variance doesn't happen with smells or tastes, or pain or pleasure. A punch in the balls isn't painful one day and then pleasing on another. Shit doesn't smell like, well, repulsive shit one day and like appealing shit the next. So how does a hairstyle have the ability to look so amazing at one point in time that it alone could increase your chance at a sexual encounter with another person one day, only to have the opposite affect at a point in the future.

My first attempt to satisfy myself with an explanation was to say that, when it comes to style, there is an industry that creates the fashion trends and an industry that tells the public what to like, when to like it, and when to hate it.

This simple solution betrays Ockham's razor. It's a partial truth.Though there is an industry that appears to create styles, and an industry that attempts to tell us what to like. It seems much more accurate to say that these "creators" are merely at the cutting edge as witnesses to what is already becoming popular in the cultural zeitgeist, they recognize the upcoming look and simply do their best to ride the coming wave by designing in the vein of said style.

Which historically speaking, the newest upcoming style trends tend to come from a young, most often, urban subculture. The fashion designers are just the ones who keep their ears to the street, and are often the only ones with the ability to exploit the upcoming trend with finance, marketing, and production. After discovering what the next style shift will be: a mullet, drop-crotch pants, skinny jeans, or a thumb in your ass, the fashion designers do play a role in perpetuating the fashion. But do not mistake the exploiter for the creator.

I point to punk rock and hip hop fashion as quick and easy examples of this point. They started at a street level first, and only later were adopted and exploited by companies. 

How is this mass decision made, because from my own experience it isn't merely conditioning. I wasn't pretending to like Christie Brinkley's feathered hair in the early eighties; I genuinely liked it. And I'm not pretending that it looks ridiculous to me today, it does.

So, after letting this question rattle around for a few years, something came to me. As far as I can tell, our predictable change in the acceptance and rejection of fashion (the time it goes from fresh to stale) is just a small by-product of our programing; it's less of a decision and more of an interesting result, which is why it happens like clock work, over and over again.

I believe we will eventually find that, somewhere in a set of nucleotides in our DNA, we are programmed with an addiction to novelty. This programing isn't just in the individual but relies on the group to be successful. This gene, or set of genes, would be responsible for, creatively, what natural selection did for biological evolution. Our Addiction to novelty is the "random mutation" tool for ideas, theory, and invention necessary for continual growth, to ensure that--eventually--we will hit upon the next best is idea, which will lead to the next best theory and invention...etc.

In the natural world our genes had countless organisms to try countless variations of different mutations to find one that worked, at which point that gene was passed on to the next generation, and so on. This addiction, to the new and novel, ensures that we are ALWAYS trying new things and new ideas and, as a group, are eventually turned off by the old and useless ones.

Only the most useful, novel, ideas are immune from going stale, and no fashion fad thus far meets this criteria. Which is why every style inevitably goes from fresh to stale.

Fashion is just a tiny, rather trivial, byproduct of this programming, an indicator, not the purpose. But because fashion isn't the desired end result of this gene (or set of genes), we can watch this predetermined cycle play out and then determine the half-life of our addiction to novelty, how long it takes before we tire of the pleasing affect of the novel and go from fresh to stale. How long it takes for bell bottoms to go from exciting and attractive to boring and drab should point to the length of this programmed cycle of novelty.

This addiction is why a handlebar mustache can look amazing for a time and then be horrendous at a later time, and then, by the time it is beyond the memory of a new generation, a douchey hipster can think it's cool again. But I suspect the law of diminishing returns applies. The second wave of handlebar mustaches will have a significantly shorter half life than the first, because it's only ironically novel...Thank God!

So the next time you look at an old year book photo and feel like shit, wondering how you could've ever thought a mullet was sweet, remember, its not your fault, it only ever looked good or bad because of our addiction to novelty.

And if you're still wearing a mullet, you've either broken your addiction, or your initial high was so great that you couldn't put that mullet shaped needle down; I'm not quite sure which. Or maybe you're the equivalent of the giraffe without the gene for neck growth, either way, keep rockin' that Kentucky waterfall, you're in the middle of its ironic resurgence.