I agree with Nutty -- it's hard to be general or pervasive if you don't have a good meme vector. I've heard of the Riot Grrls, and am pretty sure I couldn't define them without offending a bunch of people. It's not been a descriptor of anything I've been, or been near.

I'm back to the part where, how can something be of the zeitgeist if it's not available widely?

My general thinking is that an item cannot practically qualify for "zeitgeist" unless it is already inextricably bound into the system of cultural production. Not that there is an inherent economic aspect of every item of the zeitgeist (although, god knows, a lot of it comes from advertising), but I don't see how it can be the "spirit of the times" until such time as a vast number of people, nationwide, are thinking about it. That involves production and distribution and marketing and sales, on the national level, of whatever medium is transmitting this new idea.

Nutty and I (edit: and ita) have the same concept of "zeitgeist."

Sorry ita, Just fanwanking there. I had planned to put a smiley next to it.

Whoa, Daniel. You've been watching fandom shows too long, man. Good wanking there, and you were just kidding around? I think if I ran all of Smallville through that fanwank filter you got there, I might find the show watchable on more than a "Hey look, shiny" level.

The Kents might have also depended on Clark to do a lot of farmwork, and without him they'd have to hire help that they couldn't afford.

When my book group did Snow Crash there was a whole debate about whether Y.T. was raped, since she herself didn't refer to it as a rape, just as the sex part of a date, so while she didn't really seem to want it to happen, she didn't really not want it to either. So she left her special device in place.

Just watched Smallville. It was a down comforter. I enjoied it more that I though I would. So , we are to assume Helen is evil, Ma and Pa Kent have forgotten about the dead baby, and Clark is a virgin.

can we just drop clark and lex on an island and have them chaseing each other around and eventually catching each other?

Actually -- I saw a possibility -- for Clark to actually learn to chose good. and not listen to Jonathan's ideas of right and wrong which are skewed.

can we just drop clark and lex on an island and have them chaseing each other around and eventually catching each other?

yes please.with oil.

oil , chocolate sauce, maybe some whipped cream whatever works

I'm back to the part where, how can something be of the zeitgeist if it's not available widely? Or do you mean zeitgeist only for particular cities, or regions? (This works a lot better in France, where everyone looks to Paris as their cultural cluster.)

My general thinking is that an item cannot practically qualify for "zeitgeist" unless it is already inextricably bound into the system of cultural production.

I was talking about two things. One was the real riot grrrl movement, which was underground and not widely dispersed in the mass media. Second, there was a widespread distortion of riot grrrll promulgated in magazines like Sassy, and big media groups like the Spice Girls co-opting the stances and phrases (notably, "Girl Power") from the movement.

So, the best parallel I can make would be between the small number of bohemian, underground, genuine Beats of the 50s, and the cartoony Beatniks which became a big part of the cultural iconography of the 50s. Riot Girl was a part of the zeitgeist, but only in a cartoony and distorted form. But it was a big influence on people who were attuned to the underground (like cyberpunk writers such as Gibson and Stephenson), but worked in mass media.

Second, there was a widespread distortion of riot grrrll promulgated in magazines like Sassy, and big media groups like the Spice Girls co-opting the stances and phrases (notably, "Girl Power") from the movement.

And, frankly, the Power Puff Girls.

And, frankly, the Power Puff Girls.

Definitely.