Indie-fication of the World.

Yes, I'm well aware that tonight was the Oscars. Surprisingly, the Oscars is really the only awards show I could give a damn about anymore. I guess it's hard to care about the Emmys when you don't really watch TV, and the Grammys have been a joke for YEARS now.

So, apparently the feel-good hit of the Oscar season was Juno. I loved the movie. Really did. But see, here's my thing: people like me are supposed to love a movie like Juno. It's quirky, it has an amazing soundtrack, it's rife with clever waggish and jocular dialogue, and the ending leaves a sense of resolution with the possibility for different scenarios to work themselves out.

"But Bill," you ask, "if the movie is so great, why are you writing about it like something is wrong?"

Good question, gentle reader. Here is my issue: movies like Juno were once the things of cool independent artsy theatres. They were the movies you had to be "in the know" to really find out about. They were the movies that finally started building a buzz years after DVD releases were snatched up by geeks like me. This plague is not limited to Juno, look at the winner for best song - it was from an independent film made on two camcorders. I saw the movie. I felt that the music was amazing but the movie itself lacked in many ways.

So here's my thought: pop culture and mainstream media as we know it has started a process of "indie-fying" our world. Suddenly, you can see a movie like Juno at the huge multiplex. Hell, that movie out-grossed all the other contenders. I can walk into Blockbuster tomorrow if I desire and rent a movie like "Once" and it won't be in an independent section, it won't be in a foreign film section, it will be in the new releases. I think I've gained a little teeny insight into why hipsters are always so bitter about everything these days: their cred is becoming impossible to hold on to. The rise of YouTube and iTunes and RapidShare and all this stuff makes things that were once obscure suddenly easily obtainable. It used to be if I wanted to find an album by a band like Belle and Sebastian, I'd have to go somewhere like Amoeba; the store that had EVERYTHING, and your average joe didn't necessarily know about it.

So where can the hipsters go now? What was one of the biggest hipster flicks of the last few years? That's right "Snakes on a Plane". Those hip, cool kids decided to turn the tables, and throw their support behind an AWESOMELY terrible movie that had all the trappings of a blockbuster, but the campy, cheezy, blog-backed cred of an indie flick. At least they can rest assured that Samuel L. won't be getting any Oscar nods for his not-so subtle declaration "Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" If that isn't "PoMo", I don't know what is.

I feel bad for the modern hipster. They have to find bands, movies, and books that NO ONE has ever heard of. What's the problem of this "broadening of the public taste"? A vast majority of what those unwashed little nerds out in the Mission consider "cool" nowadays is absolutely atrocious. I know there are many things that I'm missing out on because I've lost a step in the "hip" world, but some of the music people have played for me that's indie for the sake of being indie just so happens to blow goat balls.

So, sorry hipsters. I feel your pain, and it is my pain too. One day, pop culture will turn back to arena rock and sprawling blockbusters, but until then, ask yourself "Is this music REALLY worth listening to, is this movie REALLY worth watching if you're watching it just because other aren't?" Or could it be that there's another, far more obvious, reason that people aren't enjoying it like you do?