In summer 2003, sitting in a stuffy computer club where I used to spend 10 to 12 hours a day playing Counter-Strike, I pirated two latest releases: an anime film compilation “Animatrix” and an album called “Meteora” by Linkin Park. At this point it is hard to say if these two pieces of culture rhymed so well in my head just because I was exposed to them during the same period, or because they were characteristic of the spirit of time. I would argue Linkin Park’s video for “Breaking the Habit” would fit into Animatrix quite well.

I spent my entire salary that summer on an MP3 player (128 Mb or storage!) to walk around Moscow streets and listen to Linkin Park on repeat. As for Animatrix, I watched it right there, in the computer club — and felt sick. In a film which tells the story of a war between humans and robots, there was a scene of people revolting against harmless servant humanoids, raping and killing them. I felt nauseous, had to stop and get some air. Not sure why — right around the same age I would watch genital mutilation or suicide videos with friends just for lulz. Maybe, seeing an aggressive crowd of life-loving humans fight well-meaning emotionless robots, confused me about which side I would be on.

At the time of Animatix and Meteora, it was hard to imagine robots really walking around the streets and human brains really being connected to a global network. Nevertheless, tiny changes in lifestyle brought about by human progress make most people think about where the world is moving, even if they do not realise it. If you are talented, you can capture this collective unconscious future that people are imagining in a book, a song or a movie — give people a tangible version of their common feeling, so they can talk about it. This, to me, is the definition of culture.

Image by: ZD Press

At the time when Wachowski Brothers were writing their script for the Matrix, computer games were getting just slightly more realistic, while the Internet was just about to become useful. I doubt that the Wachowskis were making explicit calculations about either of these trends, they were just observing and thinking about them, like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, though, they dreamt up, in amazing detail, a world where people are living in a ultra-realistic computer game, which operates on a massive computer network you can hack. They over-reacted, exaggerated normal human thoughts of the future, and came up with something completely crazy. Needless to say, reception of the Matrix was great— people were thinking about it, too!

Linkin Park was a similar thing to me. It sounded fresh, like future — a synthetic, escapist, unnatural sound. At the time I was listening to Meteora, it felt like everything exciting was going to be happening inside the virtual world — in a computer game, in an MP3 player, etc., while the real world was shifting to be more refined and sterile.


Fast forward to now. Guess what, the real world is way more refined and sterile. Robots are about to start walking around the streets. Conversation topics like distinguishing between a bot and a human or inability to “disconnect” appear mundane. Many things that Wachowskis and Linkin Park helped us imagine are already happening.

I grew up to hear from many people that Linkin Park and similar nu metal bands are primitive compared to real classics like X, where X would be Nirvana, Rolling Stones, or Liszt, frequently depending on the age of the person. I completely disagree. Linkin Park produced prominent culture — something that helped a generation of people emotionally understand the changing world around them. Today, I would say Linkin Park is classic.

As much as being a classic means cultural importance, it also means being inadequate to the new vision of the future. Classics are successfully incorporated into human culture, they are not addressing a current need anymore. Scientists and engineers made the Internet for us, Wachowskis, Chester, Mike and others helped us figure out how to feel about it. It’s done.

What is going to be the new classic? What are the new changes in our lives we need culture to address? The older I am getting, the harder it is for me to tell. At first, I was convinced that to be cultured is to always learn about new things as they appear and keep re-imagining the future. Now, I think on top of that you need to try and imagine how that future would feel.

How would it feel to be able to ask any question to your inner voice and get an immediate, correct answer? How would you decide to live your life at every moment being presented with a choice of being in the real world or immediately going anywhere else? My brain would probably be so spastic from all the decisions and context switching I would smoke weed every day. Maybe I would also feel that real me is the slow me, the person I am when I am not taking in any more information. My friends would also recognise and appreciate non-conforming to current expectations of cool, because that would signal that I am a real person and not a bot. So I would become based. I would probably also be more confused about where the boundaries of me lay, or if it even makes sense to think of myself as somebody.

And, maybe, this what I would feel like:

)
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade