Getting Your Stuff Out There

A few days ago I asked you to consider the Lily and open your puffy eyes to the raft loaded with Uber-Zeit, currently floating down the grand old River Teen, that the kids are calling MySpace, but the phenomena of 'getting your stuff out there' goes way beyond that. To understand this we gotta go back, way back to 'the good old days.'

In the 1960s some animals sung 'I gotta get out of this place' and a whole generation were like "wow gravy man" and “Costco, dude” and set out to far flung parts of the planet to “find themselves.”

These crazy young tomorrow people were called 'happies' and at the time they were totally zeitguyst - imagine a Video iPod with a beard. The happies mainly went to places on the right-hand side of the planet like India and the other ‘curry countries,’ and in so doing followed a path known as the ‘happy trail.’ Then they’d come home to places like New York and Burnley and be all like “you gotta get out there, man,” even if they were talking to girls.

The happies weren’t zeitguyst for very long because they lived in caves and smelt and soon people forgot all about them and all the original happies formed computer companies in Silly Cone Valley and made enough money to air condition their caves.

However, even though the rest of happy culture died, the idea of “getting out there” was still totally zeitguyst and people dug it more and more every year. Travel companies even started building small white prisons next to the sea so poor Eurpoeans could still “get out there” without having to meet an untamed local who would shatter their blissful ignorance.

Then in 1995 blur's lead signer, Dr Alban sang the lyric that would forever change ‘getting out there’s’ position as vice-ceo of the good ship zeitguyst.'

“and all the highstreets look the same” (Dr Alban, Blur, The Escape, 1995)

It was almost and aside but when the Doctor spoke the hoards of floppy haired youngsters (known as “indian kids”) who that at the time controlled zeitguyst listened, and they listened hard. Society was never the same again - people from Croyden to Culcutta took a good look around them and went "yeah Dr Alban's right" everything is samey and shit. Why bother getting out there."

So for about six years no body did anything. It was like Raymond Carver was God. And then someone came along and was like “hey, instead of ‘getting out there’, we should be ‘getting our stuff out there,’ that way with our own creativity we can like make the world really cool again.” Everyone simultaneously agreed it was a good idea and immediately everyone started making their own Christmas cards, clothes, bicycles, drugs, and houses; Channel 4 started a programme called Gland Designs where people told a man called Kevin The Cloud about their ideas for a new house and he’d laugh at them until they had finished it; people dressed less like townies and more like grungers; and everyone learnt to play the guitar.

Once everyone realized that everyone was creative and there was no distinction between people in terms of creativity and that everyone could be a popstar people put the great plan into action and started “getting their stuff out there.” And that’s about where we are now. Currently the UK’s fast growing type of business (after Muslim haberdashers) are “get your stuff out there” companies. Most people find they can get their stuff out there for no financial cost, and seeing as dignity knows no physical bounds this is a zeiguyst that could be here for a long time. Just look at this blog!

ZG