A FEW DAYS AGO, I briefly mentioned a vision I’d had of what social changes might potentially arise from a tech-company stock crash, should such a rapid downfall occur the way certain anti-dot-com and anti-Microsoft cynics around these parts hope it does.

(If you haven’t read it yet, please go ahead and do so. I’ll still be here when you get back.)

One aspect of this vision was that a general public backlash against “virtual realities” (computer-generated and otherwise) could lead to a craze for any personal or cultural experience that could be proclaimed as “reality.”

Let’s imagine such a possible fad a little further today.

I’m imagining a movement that could expand upon already-existing trends–

• Martha Stewart’s home-arts fetishism;
• the shared frustration with the gatekeeping and intermediating functions of what conservatives call “the Liberal Media” and liberals call “the Corporate Media;”
• Old-hippie Luddites’ rants against anything to do with television;
• Neo-hippie Luddites’ rants against anything to do with the entertainment conglomerates;
• Granolaheads’ belief that anything “natural” is good for you (even cigarettes!);
• The Burning Man Festival’s “all participants, no spectators” policy;
• The retail industry’s move away from megamalls and toward “restored” downtowns;
• The tourist industry’s increasing sending of underprepared civilians to such spots as Mt. Everest; and
• The Xtreme-sports kids’ drive to live it-be it-do it.

It’s easy to see these individual trends coalescing into a macro-trend, coinciding with a quite-probable backlash against the digitally-intermediated culture of video games, porno websites, chat rooms, home offices, cubicle loneliness, et al.

As I wrote on Monday, live, in-person entertainment would, under this scenario, become the upscale class’s preference, instead of distanced, “intermediated” experiences. The self-styled “cultured” folks and intellectuals could come to disdain books, movies, radio, recorded music, and all other prepackaged arts even more than they currently disdain television.

(Not coincidentally, this disdain would emerge just after technology has allowed the masses to fully create and distribute their own books, movies, recorded music, etc.)

Society’s self-appointed tastemakers could come to insist on live theater instead of films, lecturers and storytellers instead of writers, participant sports (including “X-treme” sports) instead of spectator sports, and concerts (or playing one’s own instruments) instead of CDs.

The arts of rhetoric and public speaking could enjoy a revival on the campuses. The slam poetry and political speechifiying beloved by Those Kids of late just might expand into a full-blown revival of Chataqua-style oratory. On the conservative side of politics, Limbaugh wannabes might take their rhetorical acts away from radio and further into staged rallies and intimate breakfast-club meetings.

Jazz, the music that only truly exists when performed live, could also have another comeback.

Even “alternative” minded music types could get into this line of thinking; indeed, there are already burgeoning mini-fads in “house concerts” and neo-folk hootenaneys.

As packaged entertainment becomes more exclusively associated with nerds, squares, and people living outside major urban centers, it might come under new calls for regulation and even censorship; while live performance could become an anything-goes realm.

(If carried to its extreme, this could even lead to the recriminalization of print/video pornography, and/or the decriminalization of prostitution.)

The rich and/or the hip would demand real shopping in real stores (maybe even along the model of the traditional British shopkeepers, in which the wife rang up sales in the front room while the hubby made the merchandise in the back.)

Those without the dough might be expected (or even made) to use online instead of in-person shopping; much as certain banks “encourage” their less-affluent customers to use ATMs instead of live tellers.

In this scenario, what would become of writers–or, for that matter, cartoonists, filmmakers, record-store clerks, etc.?

(One group you won’t have to worry about: The entertainment conglomerates. They’ll simply put less capital into packaged-goods entertainment and more into theme parks (manmade but still “live” entertainment), Vegas-style revues, touring stage shows, music festivals, and the like.)

MONDAY: Another local landmark gets defaced a little more.

IN OTHER NEWS: There’s one fewer employer for washed-up baseball stars.

ELSEWHERE:

• More anti-major-record-label screeds, this time from the ever-erudite Robert Fripp (found by Virulent Memes)….
• Wasn’t too many years ago when “race-blind casting” meant all of a play’s stars were white, no matter what the ethnicity of the role. Things might be changing….