Photos
The Internet has been pretty excited this week about some new developments in bringing pop culture from the 1980s to life. The website ThinkGeek has developed actual Stay Puft marshmallows that you can eat with your mouth, from the hit 1984 movie, Ghostbusters, starring Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson. Meanwhile, some designers for Nike submitted a patent application this week for self-tying shoelaces, just like the ones Martin McFlay wore in Back to the Future 2 The Streets. “I just came. Twice!” said the nerds of the world.
There is nothing wrong with either of these exciting consumer products individually, but together they suggest a larger, more concerning trend. Which is the ))<>(( of popular culture in ever-decreasing concentric circles of self-reference, until we’re going to be left with nothing. NOTHING! We no longer learn from or abandon the past in order to create the future. Instead, we aggressively recycle. Our embrace of nostalgia is suffocating. And it will only get worse. In 20 years, one can imagine the remakes of the remakes, and the ironic collectibles that are self-aware knock-offs of the original self-aware knock-offs until some sort of Large Pop Culture Collider opens a black hole in our Zunes and we’re all sucked into space where we die.
Just kidding. EAT QUISP CEREAL!
 |
 |
You Might Also Like
 Bill Murray Shredded The Ghostbusters 3 Screenplay!… |  Your Back To The Future Shoes Are Coming, Nerds! |  OMG, This Baby Has NO Idea That She Can’t Eat A Magazine |  Maybe Drones Are Cool, Though? |
Leave a Reply
Sign inSign in with FacebookYou must be logged in to post, reply to, or rate a comment.
When are you going to bring back the Hunt for the worst movie of all time blog series? That was my favorite series
After Labor Day.
Gabe can’t review bad movies and wear white shoes at the same time. It just isn’t done.
Old Spice Guy can. and does.
Rad news
BRB, gotta find a gif and write a rant.
I feel ya. I’ve kind of given up hope that I will ever see The Quiet get the WMOAT treatment. Would love to see Amelia get it just to honor your perseverance in these matters.
Is Lindsay out of rehab yet?
Why? Lookin for some easy love in all the wrong places, friend?
My girlfriend is away for the weekend.
Truthgum
Weary, raspy busted old woman voice: “It’s Lindsey…”
I imagined this in Lucille Bluth’s post-surgery “I’m thirsty” voice and it was basically the best thing ever.
I was making a reference to the Soup. Do you watch that show? It’s like a tv version of videogum. As opposed to Tosh.0, which is like what Seth MacFarlane and Jeff Dunham would imagine a videogum version of the soup would be like
I am a freak and don’t like Joel McHale. SORRY GUYS. Between that and actually enjoying True Blood I feel like I am letting you all down.
You said you DON”T like Joel McHale?
Sorry
I dragged myself through the first 6 episodes of Community before deciding I just wasn’t into it. I’ll admit that I haven’t actually watched The Soup except when catching the last few minutes before Chelsea Lately, but I wasn’t convinced by his other work. I even disliked him in his 4-line guest role on Will & Grace.
I do, however, love GloZell, if that makes anything better.
I dont like community at all and gave up on it early on. I LOVE the soup. Heard weird personal story about Joel McHale from a mutual friend and makes me doubt he’s Mr. Cool guy. But that’s another story.
Call me when I can go on adventures on a pirate ship Goonies style
sorry it’s 2010 bing my zune when that happens
It won’t matter anyway because we will all be dead after 2012 (I made the joke so you didn’t have to).
Sometimes I wonder if this kind of thing is a good indicator of the decline of Western civilization. Like, does this sort of thing always happen? Did the Romans go to gladiator fights ironically?
The mustache is too sincere
I think he used to go to the same bar I did in Athens, GA! I recognize it by the signature “$1.50 for a PBR and a loose cigarette” special.
yes
My childhood was a lonely disappointment. I can’t wait to ironically relive it!
That honestly is the half of it. I have these vivid memories of certain things (particuarly those I was forced by my parents to wear) I was made fun of for: tight jeans, chucks, poorly fitting, flat brimmed baseball caps. Now these things are cool? What the fuck?! I was the coolest kid in school but everyone still made fun of me.
That said, things that I loved as a child but was also abused for, such as Star Trek, are also returning to bring joy in my life, irony free!
Unrelated, but I think you’re leaving soon? Have a good trip!
I am, and I am at the height of unpreparedness. Seriously. My landlords are in my apartment right now, riffling through my stuff, borrowing books and comics, stealing my food, and most importantly, cleaning my roomates’ rooms, which at least the non-awesome one did not do before she left.
I’m in Btron till…well…I don’t know when…the 3rd?…and will be on here maybe sporadically. I have to be in Boston by the 5th…cause I leave the country the day after that…but I don’t know how I, much less all of my stuff, am getting to Boston.
Being unprepared is fun!
I understand, I’ve been “moving” for 2 weeks, and no matter what I do there is always a half-full suitcase in the middle of my room and I only have one tiny lamp and there is a small hornets nest on the INSIDE of one of my screens so I can’t open the window but I don’t want to kill them because I’m one of those irritating people who think we are all karmically connected in the circle of life or something so I’ve resigned myself to hanging out with them indefinitely…maybe we should trade lives for a few days, I am very good at packing other people’s things and I’m sure you could find a very humane way to dispose of the hornets.
I’m the same way with the not killing, and when I do get mad and swat a fly, watching it twitch about before it dies is pretty much my least favorite thing.
I’m going to be wandering the North End with my landlord’s pup, Merlin, and so keep an ear out for a guy having long, drawn-out conversations with the most adorable dog in the world, and who occasionally says his dog’s name a bit too loudly, as if he is wondering if someoen will overhear, because I probably actually would try come up with a way to get rid of the hornts politely. If I do attempt, please have mud on the ready.
Excellent. I will randomly and loudly insert the words “hornets nest” into any and all outdoor conversations, most of which will incorporate $4 wine and a short yet passionate rant about some kind of social conspiracy.
I’m just sitting here waiting for the film version of the Broadway version of The Lion King.
In CGI 3-D! Now with more flying hyenas!
Not just Ghostbusters marshmallows, but CAFFEINATED Ghostbusters marshmallows! I’ll take 29 boxes please.
“We no longer learn from or abandon the past in order to create the future.”
So would you say we need to go back to the future?
(Sorry.)
At least we won’t need roads.
So no traffic stops! Basil Marceaux Dot Com will be victorious!
Just think about all the grass or vegetation we could plant on all those vacant roads.
this was a pizza hut now it’s all covered with daisies
Graphs are the BEST!
Finally! It all makes sense to me. I’m a visual learner.
That’s why I am bringing back the 70′s.
The 1770′s, that is.
I can see it is casual day at the office.
Friday is pantaloon day.
Aren’t you showing a little too much wrist there? SLUT!
Two of my friends in college did that for an ’80s party. They went in powered wigs, knee-high socks, and the like.
Be advised
I was four years old today!
I can wait til the World Genius Council gets around to watching Valkyrie and comes up with a plot to kill Hitler that worked!
and goddammit, Jetsons fans, where is my fucking flying car?
marshmallows, psh…
Ouroboros is a word? I just though Jenny Lewis was saying Aurora Borealis the wrong way!
just kidding guys, I went to college
Wherever you got this image, the rest of that website it really cool.
I’ve been trying to do that since I was 15
I almost spit out my soda when I read this because I am twelve. Well-played sir.
“Ouroboros” immediately made me think of Resident Evil 5
I can’t Fucking Wait to Try SLURM, BRAWNDO, and Eating Praying And Loving.
You don’t have to wait for Brawndo. It’s been mutilating people’s thirsts for at least the past year.
http://www.brawndo.com/
Oh! I just realized you were already providing links. I thought you were just boldening up your type. My bad!
I just had 3 shells installed in my bathroom ala Demolition Man
they look great .. but.. fucking three shells, how does it work?
From our favorite Harry Knowles’ & Ain’t it Cool News
“Round Two With Stallone”
9. For the love of all that is good and Holy.
How do you use the 3 seashells?!
Louis Saucedo
Dallas, Texas
OK, this may be bordering on the grotesque, but the way it was explained to me by the writer is you hold two seashells like chopsticks, pull gently and scrape what’s left with the third. You asked for it…. Be careful what you ask for, sorry.
holy smokes. i guess, in an era in which Taco Bell is the only restaurant, drastic measures have to be taken in the restroom.
The word “scrape” has no business being used in a sentence that involves my private parts.
The “scraping” era will be brief, like the beeper era. Because after shells, they’ll invent the transporter thing from Star Trek. And instead of using transporters to explore the universe, mainly we will use them in bathrooms to dematerialize what is in our colons.
I kind of wish I hadn’t just thought of that. But these are the voyages.
And that’s a pretty fancy lookin prison you got there.
Anybody want to make sangria in the terlet? Scruffy does.
When do I get my third breast?
After you move to Mars.
GAHHHHHH MINE EYES, Feel like they been poked three times!!!!!
What a superbowl half-time show that would have been!
I can’t wait for “I Love That I Love the 80′s!”
I can’t wait for “I Love The 00′s” to start talking about how in the 00′s there was a series of “I Love The __’s” shows and create a self-referential pop culture black hole.
“I Love the Teens” is going to sound dirty.
Maybe they’ll only do 2018 and 2019 to stay legal.
You two! I feel like a fly on the wall at the Algonquin in 1925! (Awesome joke, teacherman! Keep ‘em coming!)
Maybe I’m just confused, BUT HOW are Staypuft Marshmellows NOT ALREADY a thing? I mean, MARSHMELLOWS exist. They are REAL. It’s not LIKE SOME kind of crazy SCIENCE HAD to be involved to MAKE THIS particular KIND OF marshmellows. SO are nerds REALLY THAT suddenly excited that THE SAME thing they’ve ALWAYS eaten and HAS ALWAYS existed has A NEW label on it THAT THEY could have MADE THEMSELVES with Photoshop? I guess I JUST DON’T get it.
Remember that time on the internet when you got all mad about marshmallows and nerds?
Hey, xaa, I was just thinking about that time you made an instant nostalgia joke BACK IN THE DAY
i cant wait for 3d-braininvasion gum to start running this article as an ironic 2-d throwbackgum
Sweet, maybe I’ll finally be able to get those horrible sneakers from Elizabethtown!
Gabe, you need to relax man. Just don’t have kids and then it doesn’t matter if 2012 comes now or later bro.
….Meanwhile, my hair is dripping with SoulGlo, I’m listening to Stillwater, and drinking Suntory Time….
Heeeeeey! I was going to say that, ya freak bitch!
I’m still waiting for the Jumanji boardgame to be developed.
Boom!
http://www.amazon.com/Unknown-Jumanji-The-Game/dp/B00000IVZN
I like that this post had a reference to pooping back and forth in it. I really liked that Miranda July movie.
Welcome aboard the Good Ship Lollypoop.
C. Everett Poop over here.
Next up: a generation of kids who don’t know how to tie their shoes.
In all seriousness, when Gabe wrote “until some sort of Large Pop Culture Collider opens a black hole,” my brain without meaning to instantly thought: “I hope there’s a remake of Disney’s The Black Hole soon.”
Boom?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole#Remake
Sigh.
What about all these Teamocil pills I’ve been popping? I thought it was reacting badly with my Gleemonex.