Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

by Chuck Klosterman

“Johnny Carson” was, almost in totality, the entire construction of watching television late at night. Everybody knew this, even if they didn’t own a television. It was a specific piece of knowledge that all Americans had in common. Obviously, that could never happen today. There will never again be “cultural knowledge” that everybody knows, mostly because there is simply too much culture to know about. A few years ago, the OutKast song “Hey Ya!” was wildly popular, and it seemed to have an uncommon social reach; white people liked it, black people liked it, advertisers liked it, communists liked it, kite enthusiasts liked it, etc. etc. etc. I recall having a conversation with a bunch of rock critics who kept referring to this as “The ‘Hey Ya!’ Moment,” when everyone alive seemed to be simultaneously connected through a pop single. However, I can think of fifty people I know personally who have never heard of OutKast or listened to “Hey Ya!” nor could they recognize what this tune sounds like or have even a rudimentary conversation about its popularity. “Hey Ya!” was the most universally appreciated song of the past ten years, but it was still a niche phenomenon; in order to know about OutKast, you had to care about music. This was not the case with Carson. To care about “Johnny Carson,” all you had to do was be alive. There was nothing else to know about it.