A snob's guide to
the '90s
I
t’s a long row to hoe, those of us who wish
to be and remain truly pretentious. We
need to time our acquisitions of the right
consumer goods at just the right time — not
so early that our friends and acquaintances are
unfamiliar with them but not so late that
everyone else has one and the impact is lost
Our plight is compounded by the damnable
talent of American consumer capitalism to
take perfectly good, expensive (and thus
desirable) items and make cheap knockoffs of
them. Take Gucci-striped luggage, for
example. When new, it was ultradesirable
and available only in the finest boutiques.
Then it hit the department stores and became
somewhat less desirable. Then some really
horrible adaptations got into the discount
houses. Now the stuff will get you laughed
out of any Greyhound terminal in America.
Projections for the nineties
Cleaning up the environment will gradually cease to he the goal; holding the line
will he about all we can hope for
Predicting the
future — myths
and realities
Corporate scenarios
F
or at least the past 50 years, American
corporations have put forth bright,
Jetsonian tableaux of life that (not coinci
dentally) happen to feature their products.
Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the
American Future (Summit Press, 1984)
n one sense, no one can truly predict the
contains numerous examples of corporate
future. Who, at the beginning of the
future scenarios. Most are quite funny in
1970s, could have foreseen OPEC, Watergate, retrospect:
the General Motors “Futurama”
or the Anita Bryant crusade? In another
exhibit from 1939 (see sidebar) and Ford’s
sense, we predict (or at least forecast) the
1957 Moonport (with tailfinned rockets) are
future all the time; it’s a necessary and vital
two of my favorites. Yet, there are people
job. Should I rent for another year or buy
who
still take this stuff literally, instead of
now and hope that housing prices hold up?
merely as playful imagination.
How many hospital beds will AIDS patients
in my city need next year? Should I work for
a small company or a larger, more
conservative one? All these questions require
Change for change’s sake
us to make guesses — to some degree
educated guesses — about the future and our
his is the line of analysis that assumes
place in it.
we’ll be happy to scrap a reasonably
We need to have some idea about what the
efficient way of doing things for something
future holds — unfortunately, much of what
new, untried, and (usually) vastly more
we hear about the future is bogus or
expensive. Despite AT&T’s science-fiction
inaccurate because it is based on false
advertising in the 1960s (see “Corporate
assumptions. As we begin a new decade, this
Scenarios" above), picturephones have never
is particularly true. Here are three common
gotten
established because the benefits don’t
myths that distort our view of the future —
come near the costs. Another innovation that
and three realistic approaches that almost
seems to be perennially just around the comer
always work.
is the personalized, FAX-type newspaper that
prints out in our living room every morning.
Wishful thinking
Rather than pay $40 to $100 a month for such
a service, though, I suspect that most of us
will continue to buy the daily paper for 35<i
his is the fallacy of talking about what
and skip over the parts we don’t like.
we’d like to have happen as though it
necessarily will happen. Any gay agenda for Megamistakes: Forecasting and the Myth of
the ’90s is bound to stress a cure for AIDS — Rapid Technological Change by Steven
Schnaars (Free Press, 1989) is must reading
it’s something very much to be desired. But
for anyone who is too easily seduced by
our desires alone, unfortunately, do not make
“high-tech.”
things happen. People who commit the
Fortunately, though, not all future
fallacy of wishful thinking can cause much
unintended mischief: “I think the number of
forecasting is based on emotion and illogic.
There are a few common-sense guidelines we
AIDS cases will decline (because I’d like it
can follow in making some realistic
to)” is a falsely optimistic prediction that
assumptions, among them:
could even distort planning.
I
T
T
just out ▼ 16 ▼ January 1990
Demographics
A
s Steven Schnaars points out, demo
graphic predictions almost always work.
Even after disease and accident, most of us
will still be here 20 years from now — and
we’ll be, by definition, 20 years older. Thus,
it takes no great leap of faith to predict that,
barring nuclear war or some other cataclysm,
the number of American retirees will
skyrocket after 2000 A.D. because the oldest
“Baby Boomers” will be approaching 60 then.
California/Bellwether
I
n the ’50s, California got a freeway system
and vast tract housing first. In the ’60s,
student unrest, swinging singles and other
manifestations of the emerging Baby
Boomers. In the ’70s California led the nation
in the formation of “Gay Ghettoes.” In the
’80s, unfortunately, snarled traffic and crack
cocaine. Social trends seem to hit California
first. Alvin Toffler’s prescient book Future
Shock (see sidebar) uses quite a bit of
Califomia-watching to make its predictions.
Voting one’s wallet
T
Fortunately, by following a few simple
principles we can predict which items are
going to be hit by premature mass-acceptance.
High technology that calls too much attention
to itself is always suspect. Digital watches,
which were quite in demand 15 years ago, are
now at the bottom of the heap of timepieces,
socially speaking. Beware of investing in
anything that is readily copiable and already
shows too much popularity. Here’s a list of
things that I predict will be truly tacky by
1998:
• vanity license plates
• sunroofs and moonroofs (the truly sportif
will own convertibles)
• gold credit cards (the truly elite will be
into Amercurium)
• anything country, except the music
• cutesy telephone-answering machine
messages
• (for men) suspenders
• (for women) the Colonel Sanders-type
silk tie
• home cookware with uninsulated handles
• serious discussion about coffee beans
his works quite well to predict future
presidential elections: the party in power
stays in power if the economy is good, it loses
if the economy is bad. The one exception to
On the other hand, a number of things
this was 1976, when Jimmy Carter (barely)
which are now considered quaint or “out”
beat Gerald Ford despite an improving
may come to be seen as desirably rare over
economy. Most political analysts credit
the next 10 years. These include:
Carter’s win to the number of people who
• rotary-dial telephones
voted for him and against Gerald Ford
• manual typewriters
because they were mad at Ford for having
• liberal-arts college educations
pardoned Nixon. The “voting one’s wallet”
• large collections of 33-rpm records
analysis would put a Democrat in the White
• pre-1974 cars (not only are they antiques,
House in 1992 only if some kind of “Bush
but their high-compression engines require
Recession” precedes the election.
leaded gasoline, or a substitute therefor)
In the next section. I’ll use these and other
• the two-week vacation.
trends in a forecast of your daily life in the
decade to come.
Don’t say you haven’t been warned.