The Mohaws We Come Across, The Mo Problems We See June 17, 2010

Maybe it should be  “Mo Mohawks.” Regardless, today, I will take the mohawk, back-comb it, hit it with some gel and hair spray, and hit the streets with it, swaggering all the way. The previous two World Cups arguably saw more mohawks than this instalment, but I wasn’t blogging back then, was I? After examining a range of styles, I will wax on some reasons behind the silliest of male coifs.

Few doubt that the modern fascination with the mohawk style derives from Mr. T, who has made a resurgence of late thanks to an appearance in World of Warcraft (some video game, apparently – I prefer Guitar Hero) and the A-Team movie (in theaters now, unfortunately). Here’s an example of the former incarnation:

My, what pointy shoulder pads. This is technically a Frohawk, by the way, and has separate African roots from the Native American Mohawk nation. This style, in its peroxided form, has been adopted by everyone’s favorite braggart in professional sports, Chad Ochocinco:

His mouth alone outweighs the GDP of several remote Pacific Island nations. This century’s foremost mohawker has to be David “er, you know” Beckham, the fellow who sits on the England bench in his designer grey suit:

Beckham’s look has been replicated in the soccer world by the new poster child, the Portugese star Cristiano Ronaldo:

“But Jamie!” I hear you interject, “the sides of his head aren’t shorn!” Worry not, dear reader. What we have here is the fauxhawk, so named because it’s something of a cop out. It’s more of a hairstyle than a hair cut, and is probably the most popular form of mohawk, since it does not require complete commitment on he who sports it. You coud still hold down a respectable job and just fauxhawk it on the weekends, for example.

That’s the sting in the tail of the mohawk: while a great look socially, it does not crossover well into the normal work-a-day world. Thus, may of its proponents tend to be athletes, actors, and musicians. Check out, for instance, this 2009 post on the prevalence of mohawks in the NBA from The Hoop Doctors.

This year has also seen a resurgence in mohawkdom thanks to Mark Salling’s character Puck in the TV series “Glee”:

Interestingly, this character shaved his mohawk off half way through the first season of the show to signal his shift in personality. The shave symbolized, albeit in plodding terms that were spelled out for the viewer, a casting aside of the braggart persona to adopt a more mature, respectful, gleeful singing persona that could treat the black, white, asian, handicapped, straight, gay, pregnant, and Jewish characters on the show with equal amounts of dignity.

This example approaches the niche that the mohawk occupies in our culture. Gone are the days of the mohawk as an intense expression of punk counter culture, although the drummer from Blink 182 still flies the flag proudly. Ok, that photo broke. Never mind.

Instead, the popularization of the mohawk reflects a larger swelling of mainstream culture to engulf little counter-culture movements and strip them of their edge. The same has happened to tattoos, piercings, skimpy clothing, baggy clothing, used clothing, torn clothing, and many more.

We have become desensitized to such an extent that shock-value is now almost impossible to attain. Rap music, pornography, mohawks – you name it. This could pose problems as those seeking to make a bold statement, those seeking shock-value, have to move further and further away from the mainstream. Their expressions do not simply frustrate parents trying to protect their children; they begin to cause serious harm.

On the other hand, expanding our cultural norms also reflects our wider acceptance as a culture. While a pre-pubescent, nasal brat sporting a mohawk might strip a legitimate punk of his ability to express his identity, it also marks progress. Gone are the days of rampant discrimination for non-traditional fashion choices.

A final word on the mohawk: it represents confidence, more than anything else. Male fashion is rife with conformity, and a mohawk-sporter announces that he is comfortable with and proud of his mark of difference. But again, the intensity of this statement has been muted as a once-shocking hairstyle enters the mainstream.

Sport as Societal Unifier + Appearance Changes May 17, 2010

Unifying a society might have benefits. It could lead to political progress, public empathy, lower crime rates, and more random deliveries of pies to new neighbors. If seeking the unification of a society, we should look for what common traits that society has. The significance of any of these societal traits, I would argue, depends upon the extent to which they achieve universality. I would posit, for example, that if 100% of a congressional district takes out their trash at least once every two weeks, and Congress reduces trash collection services to once a month, said district will take action and may vote differently in the polls. That switch will likely be less significant if this trash-taking-out trait is possessed by only 50% of that congressional district. (The true value is probably somewhere in between. I mean, who takes out the trash in college, unless forced to after losing a bet or trying to impress a girl?)

I’m now wondering, by the way, if I should jump on the meme ship and call my traits memes instead of traits. It does sound snazzier, right? I wonder if there’s a meme for consciously deciding to use the term “meme” mid-blog. Like a meta-meme.

I digress, yet you are not surprised.

SPORTS! That’s what this thing is about, right? Sports have the potential to be a unifying societal memetrait, but they are not, because our country is so fragmented and migratory, that it cannot decide which team to support, also in part because there are so many teams. That’s my thesis. Bam. It all started when Tamara and I were watching the Lakers disembowel the Suns tonight. Even at a local bar, support for the Suns was pretty meager. That might be in part due to Phoenix’s huge migrant population, as shown by this census data. Check out the fact that Arizona’s population grew 28% since 2000, while the population growth throughout the USA was 9%. People move here from elsewhere.

But the problem goes beyond Phoenix. But this game, which viewers at the bar seemed pretty nonchalant about, still matters. Just look at the ratings for last Sunday’s Suns vs. Spurs showdown to show how relevant sports can be. That’s right, iCarly, the Western Conference divisional finals beat you to the punch in terms of viewers. Note that these statistics only include cable networks. If you don’t pay for television, you don’t get these channels.

Now, though, look at how hugely popular sports can be on television, by analyzing true Nielsen ratings for 2010’s NFL playoffs. The local results show that in places with less migration, such as Minnesota, supporting local sports can be a societally unifying memetrait. A quick explanation on what Nielsen ratings are tells me that the first number listed gives you the percentage of viewers in that market that tuned in at any given moment (averaged out) during the event, while the second shows you the percentage of viewers tuned in at all during the event. The numbers for Minneapolis, 48.4/82, tell us that 82% of Minneapolisians (?) watched at least some of the game against the Cowboys.

Then, to thrown basketball back into the mix, look at the comparative ad revenues for the postseasons of various sports:

Basketball, then competes with football in the ad revenue market, although both are bested by the NCAA tournament.

The real problem is that the USA is full of big TV markets just like Minneapolis, where the Minneapolishianians (?) might act as a unified society by displaying the same memetrait of watching a football game, but these local preferences get drowned out on the national level.

Compare this to the viewership during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, when England lost (again, arggh, grrr, etc.) in dramatic fashion to Portugal, a country of cheaters, and one whose economy will finally collapse soon as a result of their lack of sportsmanship on the soccer pitch. These numbers show similar percentages in England, but on a national, not a local level. over 80% of English television owners bothered to watch the match. That’s an entire country displaying this memetrait.

It is true that England, with its hung parliament and Con-Lib coalition, is not cooperating at the moment to prove my point. But American politics are so divided and divisive right now because of all this local noise drowning out any national identity. The closest Americans come is watching the Olympics, and even then I doubt we’ll ever see scenes such as those during the Men’s Curling final in Vancouver earlier this year, at which fans broke out into spontaneous national anthem singing and many tears (CTV has removed the link, and I got Asian Rick-Rolled when trying to get to the bottom of it, so never mind, apparently).

Average people care much more about sports than they do about politics. The NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL, through their sheer dominance in sports that exist to much lesser extents in other countries, have fostered local support that precludes anything national. There is nothing national. No wonder our country is undecided on everything – we can’t even decide whom to cheer for.

POSTSCRIPT – APPEARANCE OF BLOGGEDY

I know I’ve been pretty fidgety on the appearance of this blog. I’m still figuring out wordpress and all its nooks and crannies. I like this one for now, but ultimately want a tamer one that still dedicates a lot of the page to the main blog articles themselves.

On Watching Television May 14, 2010

I have never technically owned a television. I wear that fact as a badge of liberal pride. That said, my buttocks have impressed themselves upon sofas, futons, armchairs, and college coffee tables used for coital support and margarita preparations (sadly in that order) on several continents, all in the name of television. Like its bedfellow, delivery pizza, television is both pleasurable and regrettable for me.

Tonight was the first time I had really watched in a while. Regret trounced pleasure this time. My friend Lassen’s TV does not pick up NBC, and if I had the chance to watch The Office, I might not be writing this. Instead, we watched CSI and The Mentalist, and Fringe just baffled us completely, but definitely held our attention. The writing of both CSI and The Mentalist disappointed me hugely in its formulaic nature. Both episodes borrowed the crime show variation of the much maligned House plot structure: develop one or two complex, compelling hypotheses, only to discard them for something completely random in the last five minutes of the episode. This screams old hat, I know, but seeing the same device in two separate shows struck me as excessive. These writers are really telling us that 43 minutes and a television budget cannot satisfy their plot twists. Take The Mentalist, for example (spoiler alert, for you loyal Mentalist fans who also happen to be reading this). Why bother introducing the idea that the human trafficking coalition was funded by human trafficking kingpins if you are just going to abandon the idea for lack of evidence almost immediately? “Look, over there!,” these writers tell us. “There’s a far-fetched idea we had! We have no idea how it will pan out, but it sure kept you guessing for a while, didn’t it? Made you think you were watching something a little more filmic, worthy of a one-hour time slot.”

My respect for the writers completely disappeared when the crack-team at CSI dragged in a Chevy Malibu product placement bit, kicking and screaming. Skip to the 28-minute mark, and marvel in the awkward hesitation of the female detective before announcing that “Malibus can get, you know, up to 34 miles to the gallon.” Does Chevy really want their award winning vehicle associated with serial killers and guano? Couldn’t they just buy some advertising time?

My plea to Chevrolet springs from the pain of the advertisements I did watch. First, John McCain’s stilted, plain folks attempt at immigration crackdown: Awkward desert tortoise. What a handsome Navy cap you have there, Senator, and how tactful of you to use of the word “dang,” showing that you are both serious about this issue and willing to use mild, outdated expletives.

The boondoggle of analysis that is the local news will have to wait.