Awesome Culture

In which Ben identifies the Awesome trend and derives the Equations of Radness.

Turns out you have to have a dictionary of 80's cartoon shows to communicate in our society. Totally ok with me--I watched Voltron 5 like any good American. It's just the tip of the iceberg in what I'm calling "Awesome Culture": the state of the art in social obfuscation in which the cheesy, obscure, and overblown are deified for the lack of truly inspiring messages. Or perhaps in spite of them. Allow me to digress (in this case, that request is like an H2 towering over your Camry with the blinker on being interpreted "Please let me into this lane."):

Iain Banks posited the eventual existence (well, actually, the current existence) of The Culture, an amalgam of minds, artificial and human, that exist in an anarchic and essentially hedonistic society where having fun is infinitely more important than being useful. Think of a cross between Star Trek's Federation and a frat party, and you've pretty much got it. Also think the Internet and you've still pretty much got it. Though we are definitely in state of economic scarcity, informationally we have a massive glut. Results? No, really, the results of having everything from Avogadro's number to DuckTales at our fingertips? DuckTales. And lots of it. It seems that the more we are allowed to look into the abyss, the more the abyss looks back into us and says, "By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!"

Note the following: Mystery Science Theater. Here's a precursor--Crow and Servo taking truly awesomely bad movies to task with verbal barbs. The beginnings of our Awesomeness, the show introduced a rising generation to rubbery monsters and bad dialogue. Awesome. All kinds of abominations are covered by this umbrella: Snakes on a Plane, a rekindled love for monster movies, and the general retro-desire we've come to accept as all-pervasive. And so, because I love you so much, Equations for these Radnesses:

Equation 1: Is this movie crap or adorable crap?

R = Monsters x Bad Dialogue x Kitsch x Oldness*

Note that Oldness is a value between 0 and 1. Anything 1969 and older is a 1.

Equation 2: How obscure is the right obscure?

R = Robots x Anthropomorphic Animals x Quotable Battlecries

Note that Voltron 5 is the highest possible score.

Equation 3: Can I use this word?

R = Have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used it?