"Did you see the Normal People finale?" "You'll have read the Naoise Dolan book by now?" "What did you make of Calm With Horses?" "That Jon Brooks album is good, isn't it?"
There were days, not too long ago, when I would have been able to have any of these conversations, easily. Once upon a time, I loved nothing more than going over the whys and wherefores of new albums or TV series. A bit of conversational sparring would easily turn into a full-blown nerdgasm in the right, informed company.
Nowadays, the Naoise Dolan book teeters on a wobbly To Be Read pile. I came so late to the Tiger King party that everyone else had pretty much gone home or moved onto the next Netflix party. To my utter shame, the podcast phenomenon has largely passed me by. Ask me for a podcast recommendation and you're likely to get a shrug.
I was once a cultural obsessive, but now I’ve become embarrassingly uninformed.
Ironically, it’s never been easier to keep up with the cultural conversation. In the current moment, we are living in a land of plenty when it comes to books, albums, TV series and films. We don’t even need to go outside to access any of it.
And, for want of something else to do, keeping on top of all of them has become a bit of a stealth sport. There’s a barely-there competitive note to all this pop culture gorging.
Everyone's talking about the same TV shows. Watch parties are sitting down to the same new movies. Everyone's outdoing each other on social media by naming the 10 most credible albums that "influenced" them, like they're Bob Dylan being asked by Mojo magazine.
When it comes to unwinding and spending our leisure time meaningfully, culture has taken on a whole new importance. It’s heartening to see, and I hope that when this pandemic is over, people will recall and acknowledge the culture-makers that helped them through it. But trying to keep up with it all is exhausting.
Whatever about having a bounty of available time these days, it takes next to no effort to surf the Zeitgeist. A moment trending on Twitter here, a batch of glowing reviews there, and there’s barely any digging required to find the hottest cultural moments, right as they are happening. The wave of must-do music, film, literature or creativity just washes over us en masse, and sometimes it feels as though these are the only conversations happening.
I understand the joy and warming feeling in feeling like a part of this communal moment; I really do.
Except that right now, I feel woefully unfit for these conversations. I should be having the time of my life; bingeing on quality shows until my eyes mist, and catching up on the record releases I’ve missed.
So why isn’t it happening? Why am I opting out of the cultural conversations that everyone else is having and enjoying?
Experts observe that when we are overwhelmed with choice, the sheer volume of options causes a sort of mental shutdown
A couple of years ago, the streaming service platform Deezer created the term “musical paralysis”. It’s used to describe people, often over 30, who moan about modern music sounding the same and go a bit bleary eyed in confusion when they look at the latest festival line-up. Their research concluded that after a certain age, many people were less likely to seek out new stuff to listen to, and essentially gave up the stealth sport of keeping ahead of the musical curve. Usually, a lack of time was cited as a factor, and the pressing demands of family, work and social life left them with little inclination to do anything but stick with the music they know and love. Experts also observe that when we are overwhelmed with choice, the sheer volume of options causes a sort of mental shutdown.
Well, I’d wager that there’s probably such a thing as “cultural paralysis”, especially in the times we live in now. When the cultural conversation replenishes itself on a near-daily basis, keeping up with Netflix’s latest offerings can feel like getting on to a hamster wheel. Joining the social media conversation can feel like walking into a blizzard.
We are constantly being lured into a cultural echo chamber: Amazon recommends books based on the ones we've already bought. Likewise, Spotify will offer you up a batch of artists that sound just like the ones you stream on its service. It doesn't leave much room for an element of innovation or surprise.
Being part of the chatter around a big cultural moment, from The Crown to Normal People, is part of the fun. But I’m clean out of bandwidth.
After the event
If anything, it’s been fun to enjoy a TV show long after it’s had its big moment. For years, friends told me that I was plain daft for not watching The Wire, the acclaimed US cop show. They were foaming at the mouth about how great it was, and for some reason that didn’t lead me to hunt down the show. The conversation was already happening around it, and I was missing it.
A good decade after those conversations, and I finally got around to watching it. My friends were entirely right; it’s brilliant.
I watched it without the low-level hum of chatter around it. The series was stripped of hype and heat, and it was brilliant. I’ll let you in on a secret; there’s something really rather nice about watching TV that way.
