Recapturing the zeitgeist?
By Scott Keith on May 12, 2021
Hello again,
No worries, no “What if's” this time around. 🙂 I'll be current this time, promised.
What would it realistically take to trigger the next wrestling boom period? I mean, in terms of in-ring wrestling it could be argued that we're right in the middle of one, but in terms of mainstream appeal and acceptance and its presence in public consciousness, it curiously seems like wrestling has rarely been colder. General consensus seems to be that the previous two boom periods, Hulkamania and The Attitude Era, happened because wrestling managed to “tap into the zeitgeist” and incorporate current sensibilities into storylines and characters to create an exciting blend of wish-fulfillment and counter-culture rebelliousness, so to speak, in broad terms, that also appealed to the non-hardcore masses.
Assuming that there's truth to that (which I think), what would it take to “capture the zeitgeist” today? What even is the zeitgeist of the 2020s? And how could it be incorporated into wrestling in order to achieve mainstream appeal again? What kind of storyline or character could lead to a similar effect like Hulkamania or The Attitude Era? Assuming of course that such a thing would even be possible today, given the severely changed and fragmented TV/entertaiment landscape.
If a boom period were to occur, do you see it being centered around one specific wrestler/character, like with Hulk and Austin, and one storyline? 'cause I was trying to think about what a compelling, entertaining storyline incorporating current societal sensibilities could look like, but I'm drawing a blank honestly.
Or is a next boom period a pipe dream to begin with? The 80's had colorful, cartoony superhero wish-fullfilment, the late 90's had edgy, racy, sexy, violent “kick your arrogant boss' ass” wish-fullfilment. What kind of wish-fullfilment appeal could (or should) wrestling have in the 2020s, so that it could potentially “tap into the zeitgeist” again like it's done twice before so far?
Cheers (and thanks for posting my previous e-mail!) 🙂
P.S. Of course the entire premise of the question rests on the (perhaps naive) assumption that the previous successes were actively engineered instead of being stumbled into ass-backwards through sheer dumb luck. 🙂 But just in case it's the latter…how do you make lightning strike a third time? 🙂
The problem with lightning is that you never know when or where it’s going to hit. That’s why it’s so hard to put it in a bottle. And now Vince actively crafts the shows to avoid creating stars who are independent of his promotion so they won’t escape. From his perspective, he makes billions now off TV rights, so why does he even need a “boom period”?
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