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Cyclic National Fascination: Difference between revisions
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Cycles are frequently triggered by some innocuous entry into the meme pool, like a popular song or book—see also [[Follow the Leader]].
{{examples}}
* In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the previously secretive world of advertising agencies suddenly became the focus of immense cultural interest. The inner workings of Madison Avenue became the fodder for books, plays, TV shows, and movies (''The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit'', ''[[How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying]]'', ''Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter'', ''[[Bewitched]]'', ''Lover Come Back''). Its unique internal jargon, often focused on CYA and consensus building, briefly flooded American speech; some bits of it still remain (for instance, "run it up the flagpole and see who salutes", which was a well-worn cliche decades before it appeared in [[Harvey Danger]]'s 1997 song "Flagpole Sitta"), and the TV series ''[[Mad Men]]'' seems primed to revive much of the old adman slang. (As a nod to the old fad, ''Mad Men'' casts Robert Morse, the leading man in the original 1961 Broadway production of ''How to Succeed in Business...'', as the eccentric Bert Cooper).
* In the 1970s came the trucker and [[Hollywood CB|CB radio]] fad, kicked off almost singlehandedly by the CW McCall song "Convoy" and the movie ''[[Smokey and the Bandit]]''. The cultural momentum it gathered was so substantial that it actually forced changes in the way the government licensed CB radios. For a few years in the late 1970's, some US-made cars even had CB radios as factory-available features. And to this day, practically every trucker character in TV or movies is a direct descendant of the Rubber Duck.
* [[Blaxploitation]] in [[The Seventies]].
* The success of ''[[Queer Eye For The Straight Guy]]'' gave us a period of infatuation with "[[Where Everybody Knows Your Flame|gay culture]]" (in other words, every [[Stereotype Gay|gay stereotype]] possible). This period even gave us "metrosexuals", men who, [[Ambiguously Gay|despite not actually being gay]], [[Camp Straight|spoke, dressed, and acted as much like flaming queens]] as possible. It also led to the ridiculous replacement of ''fop'' with this neologism; a literal reading of the word would mean either "one who is sexually attracted to moderation", "one who is sexually attracted to cities", "[[Oedipus Rex|one who is sexually attracted to mothers]]", or possibly "one who is sexually attracted to a subway system"... [[Rule 34|not that those things don't exist.]]
* The post-[[World War II]] villains ''du jour'' in American media have been: Sinister Russian [[Dirty Communists|Commies]] during the postwar period, Sinister Muslim [[Arab Oil Sheik|Oil Barons]] during the energy crises of [[The Seventies]], Sinister Russians again during [[The Eighties]] and [[The Nineties]] (with [[The New Russia|a transition]] from commies to [[The Mafiya|gangsters and arms dealers]] after [[The Great Politics Mess-Up|around 1990]]), and Sinister Muslim Terrorists during [[The War on Terror]]. [[Vladimir Putin]] is alleged to be working hard to maintain the cycle.
* [[Everythings Funkier With Disco|Disco]]. [[Deader Than Disco|America spent twenty years trying to forget.]]
* [[Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting|Kung-fu]]. That is all.
* For a time in [[The Sixties]] or so, biker culture became a fad.
* In the [[The Eighties|late '80s]] through [[The Nineties|the '90s]] and the [[Turn of the Millennium|early '00s]], many suburban white kids became [[Pretty Fly for a White Guy|fascinated]] with [[Gangsta Rap]] and "urban" culture, most likely because their parents [[The New Rock and Roll|weren't]]. It ended in the mid-late '00s once [[Moral Guardians]] stopped caring about rap music, [[Glam Rap]] became part of the fabric of pop music, and pre-2000 "old school/golden age" hip-hop started passing into [[Nostalgia Filter|nostalgia territory]].
* In the 1980s, films like ''[[Crocodile Dundee]]'' made [[Australia (
{{quote|As I'm sure you remember, in the late 1980s the US experienced a short-lived infatuation with Australian culture. For some bizarre reason, the Aussies thought this would be a permanent thing. Of course, it wasn't.}}
* [[Older Than Radio]]: Japonisme.
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* [[Anime]] may fit this. Outside of Japan, it was an underground subculture that made its first inroads in the West with ''[[Astro Boy (anime)|Astro Boy]]'' and ''[[Speed Racer]]'', then percolated in [[The Seventies]] (''[[Star Blazers]]'') and [[The Eighties]] (''[[Robotech]]'') before bursting into mainstream in the mid-1990s, peaking in the early 2000s when 85% of people under 35 watched at least one hour of anime a week. It hasn't faded away completely, but it has declined in popularity since the mid-2000s. Much of this may be due to declining quality as production houses, looking to exploit the new American market, focused on making shows that were either fast and cheap or overly filled with injokes for anime fans.
* Thanks to ''[[The Sopranos]]'' and especially ''[[Jersey Shore]]'', the state of [[Joisey|New Jersey]] and Italian-American culture (which apparently means "every guido/[[The Mafia|Mafia]]/party kid stereotype known to man") have "enjoyed" this, with reality shows like ''Jerseylicious'', ''The Real Housewives of New Jersey'', and ''Jersey Couture'' cashing in. Actual NJ residents and Italians aren't too happy about it.
* Reportedly, what we currently know as the "Tea Parties" have long since existed, emerging every fifteen years or so.
** For the confused, we mean vaguely right-wing, anti-[[Washington DC]] populist movements in the US, not parties where people drink tea, which emerge every fifteen minutes (at least in the UK). It tends to reach a fever pitch of media attention every fifteen years, manifesting itself as the "[[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] Revolution" and the "sagebrush rebels" in the late '70s and early '80s, the "Contract with America" in the mid '90s, and the Tea Party movement today.
* The release of ''[[The Fast and the Furious]]'' in 2001 created an obsession with tuner culture, in which people took seemingly "uncool" compact cars, turned them into high-performance machines, and ([[The Theme Park Version|at least in the movie]]) used them to competed in illegal, high-stakes races on crowded city streets. Hollywood cashed in with films like ''Biker Boyz'' and ''[[Torque]]'' (as well as turning ''F&F'' into a franchise that is still going strong), while the video game industry likewise responded with the ''[[Midnight Club]]'' series and by shifting the focus of the ''[[Need for Speed]]'' franchise from exotic cars to souped-up, modern-day hot rods. And to say nothing of all [[Rice Burner|the wannabe "boy racers" out there]]...
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