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What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

countercraft.substack.com

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Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#21

Post by flyinghamster »

telotortium wrote: post #12
tomjen3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Harry Potter will stand the test of time that well. In the world of Harry Potter, there are no cell phones, no internet, no Google and no AI. For my generation that was no issue at all when we got into the books, because the Internet were fairly obscure in 1997 (as in, not something you would use on a daily basis), Google was just a postdoc project and of course kids didn't have cellphones. 7 books late…

> And then the characters have to search through books by reading them until they happen to find the piece of information they want. Thats already laughable to me. If Google keeps on declining, that experience will become even more relevant in the future. Most of the information the kids need is in a book somewhere, but often in the restricted section or perhaps not in the library at all, which is quite analogous to…

> Most of the information the kids need is in a book somewhere, but often in the restricted section or perhaps not in the library at all

A problem that is getting worse with politically-motivated "protect the children" witch hunts bringing book bans to the Land of the Free. Nobody shooed me away from the grown-up side of the library when I was a kid.

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#22

Post by tomjen3 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #14
tomjen3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Harry Potter will stand the test of time that well. In the world of Harry Potter, there are no cell phones, no internet, no Google and no AI. For my generation that was no issue at all when we got into the books, because the Internet were fairly obscure in 1997 (as in, not something you would use on a daily basis), Google was just a postdoc project and of course kids didn't have cellphones. 7 books late…

Why did Shakespeare remain popular in the age of the atom bomb? Wasn't every new reader in the 1960s just thinking "Hey, why doesn't Macbeth just nuke Macduff?"

Good point. Harry Potter is about a friend group fighting evil in a world of magic. If there is no magic, if in fact that world is less magical than the real world, then a big part of the appeal of the book will be lost.

Magic is not a big part of Shakespear, and the part that is (Ghost, fairies) are most dissimilar to the magic we have since created.

I also think that Sherlock will continue to remain popular because the appeal of the stories - who did it and how did the detective figure that out - has not fundamentally changed.

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#23

Post by ckemere »

tomjen3 wrote: post #8
ineedaj0b wrote: post #4

Harry Potter will last. I have not read it but god it is everywhere. I cannot escape it, maybe it's less referenced in Asian cultures. Videogames: I don't play much. But Mario seems likely. Minecraft and Fortnite are very big right now, but they lack memorable main characters so I doubt they survive 25+ years. Music: None of my favorites but Kanye might have 1 song remembered in 50 years. I know friends who got into…

I don't think Harry Potter will stand the test of time that well. In the world of Harry Potter, there are no cell phones, no internet, no Google and no AI. For my generation that was no issue at all when we got into the books, because the Internet were fairly obscure in 1997 (as in, not something you would use on a daily basis), Google was just a postdoc project and of course kids didn't have cellphones. 7 books late…

My daughter recently read through the “Nancy Drew Diaries”. It turns out they took the original Nancy Drew books, including settings, and redid them in a cell phone/ early smartphone world, and they’re still fun. It’s an interesting concept!

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#24

Post by DonaldFisk »

niccl wrote: post #19
ggm wrote: post #2

Here's a popular culture take on the same theme. Jokes and sketch comedy. "The three Yorkshiremen" monty python sketch. It's actually a sketch that some of the pythons did for another comedy sketch show some years before. As far as I know it's the only one they carried forward. My parents could recite a 1940s radio comedy sketch about the phonetic alphabet and cockney rhyming slang which would probably make no sense…

> My parents could recite a 1940s radio comedy sketch about the phonetic alphabet and cockney rhyming slang Was that the "'Ay for 'Orses" thing? I still know most of it, and never knew where it came from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_Alphabet

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#25

Post by lelanthran »

tomjen3 wrote: post #8
ineedaj0b wrote: post #4

Harry Potter will last. I have not read it but god it is everywhere. I cannot escape it, maybe it's less referenced in Asian cultures. Videogames: I don't play much. But Mario seems likely. Minecraft and Fortnite are very big right now, but they lack memorable main characters so I doubt they survive 25+ years. Music: None of my favorites but Kanye might have 1 song remembered in 50 years. I know friends who got into…

I don't think Harry Potter will stand the test of time that well. In the world of Harry Potter, there are no cell phones, no internet, no Google and no AI. For my generation that was no issue at all when we got into the books, because the Internet were fairly obscure in 1997 (as in, not something you would use on a daily basis), Google was just a postdoc project and of course kids didn't have cellphones. 7 books late…

> I don't think Harry Potter will stand the test of time that well. In the world of Harry Potter, there are no cell phones, no internet, no Google and no AI.

Books and stories that stand the test of time do so in spite of aging.

By that, I mean that $FOO is just so damn good that it captures the imagination completely and fully.

There were no television sets in Grimm fairy tales, and they're still being retold. There were no cellphones in Shrek, the last movie was made in 2019, and those ears are still recognisable to my child, born after 2019!

For books and stories to age well they don't need to be very relatable to the reader (although it helps), they need to be good!

A further argument is that, to be relatable, technology is not needed. There is not problem, right now, reading a book or a story written in 2024 that is set in (for example) 1960. Some very popular recent books/stories/movies/series were set in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Being relatable is neither necessary nor sufficient to aging well.

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#26

Post by PaulHoule »

I wonder how much of Lovecraft’s popularity has to do with the excellent Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG (one of the generation of games that targeted everything wrong with Dungeons and Dragons) and how much it has to do with stories like that becoming so mainstream (e.g. any season of Sailor Moon is about some kind of supernatural-extraterrestrial invasion.)

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#27

Post by PaulHoule »

loughnane wrote: post #11
ineedaj0b wrote: post #4

Harry Potter will last. I have not read it but god it is everywhere. I cannot escape it, maybe it's less referenced in Asian cultures. Videogames: I don't play much. But Mario seems likely. Minecraft and Fortnite are very big right now, but they lack memorable main characters so I doubt they survive 25+ years. Music: None of my favorites but Kanye might have 1 song remembered in 50 years. I know friends who got into…

Tough to say. I can’t remember the name right now but I was reading an essay from whitehead written about a hundred years ago and he was lamenting how popular some writer was the he considered awful. It struck me because I hadn’t heard the name before, and I’m pretty well-read. There are oceans of forgotten works out there, we just——by definition——have forgot about them. Yes Harry Potter has sold lots of books, but h…

My wife is a big fan but she was a horse crazy little girl who grew up to run a riding academy.

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#28

Post by lelanthran »

flyinghamster wrote: post #21
telotortium wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then the characters have to search through books by reading them until they happen to find the piece of information they want. Thats already laughable to me. If Google keeps on declining, that experience will become even more relevant in the future. Most of the information the kids need is in a book somewhere, but often in the restricted section or perhaps not in the library at all, which is quite analogous to…

> Most of the information the kids need is in a book somewhere, but often in the restricted section or perhaps not in the library at all A problem that is getting worse with politically-motivated "protect the children" witch hunts bringing book bans to the Land of the Free. Nobody shooed me away from the grown-up side of the library when I was a kid.

> Nobody shooed me away from the grown-up side of the library when I was a kid.

Me neither, but the grown-up side of the library back then did not have instructional books for teenagers on how to have homosexual intercourse.

In fact, instructions on having intercourse of any sort weren't in the grown-up side of any library I went to in the 80s. I'd be very surprised if you went to a library that did direct teens and younger to instructions on having intercourse.

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#29

Post by morley »

ggm wrote: post #2

Here's a popular culture take on the same theme. Jokes and sketch comedy. "The three Yorkshiremen" monty python sketch. It's actually a sketch that some of the pythons did for another comedy sketch show some years before. As far as I know it's the only one they carried forward. My parents could recite a 1940s radio comedy sketch about the phonetic alphabet and cockney rhyming slang which would probably make no sense…

Some comedy works have endured, like Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (though it is helped by its huge influence on To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis).

Re: What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last

#30

Post by js8 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #22
IncreasePosts wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did Shakespeare remain popular in the age of the atom bomb? Wasn't every new reader in the 1960s just thinking "Hey, why doesn't Macbeth just nuke Macduff?"

Good point. Harry Potter is about a friend group fighting evil in a world of magic. If there is no magic, if in fact that world is less magical than the real world, then a big part of the appeal of the book will be lost. Magic is not a big part of Shakespear, and the part that is (Ghost, fairies) are most dissimilar to the magic we have since created. I also think that Sherlock will continue to remain popular because…

> I also think that Sherlock will continue to remain popular because the appeal of the stories

I am not sure Sherlock stories are that good.. I think what is really compelling is Sherlock as a character (at least for me).

So perhaps the answer is that the characters are what makes it compelling even today.

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