EDITORIAL LAKSHMI SANKARANANOUCHKA/ISTOCK UNRELEASED/GETTY IMAGESPOP GEEKS AND GODS
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n this modern agnostic world, pop culture
is the closest thing we have to a shared
religion. Matinee idols, artists and rock
stars are our gods and goddesses, feeding
us an endless supply of enchanting lore and
myths. For this movement to thrive though, it
needs fans; followers who have gone beyond
aloof observation. Pop culture requires that
fans click below to subscribe, not let it just
play in the background.
One of my favourite explorations of fandom
is Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s amusing
semi-autobiographical movie about a wide-
eyed teen writer and music geek, William,
who receives the assignment of a lifetime
when a magazine commissions him to join
his beloved rock band on the road. William’s
mentor is Lester Bangs, a senior critic with a
hilarious zeal for mainstream culture. Lester
would often launch into passionate defences
of popular music, and a few lines from one
fiery soliloquy, delivered to William in a diner,
have always stayed with me. “The day it
ceases to be dumb is the day it ceases to be
real. Right? And then it will just become an
Industry of Cool.”
Pop culture is the industry of joy, I like to
think. Its idols make our lives immeasurably
more tolerable. We carry their songs in us, wePOP CULTURE IS THE
INDUSTRY OF JOY.
ITS IDOLS MAKE OUR
LIVES IMMEASURABLY
MORE TOLERABLE
live inside the fables they create. Sometimes,
we travel to be reminded of them. Or other
times, they recreate the places for us.
Children of the nineties probably bought
into two exaggerated but equally popular
versions of New York, depending on what
they watched—Friends or Seinfeld. If you
grew up glued to the former, you thought the
Big Apple was a city full of broke singletons
who spent endless hours in coffee shops,
cracking wise. If it was the other, your New
York was a place with impatient eccentrics
out to steal your soup recipe.
In NGTI’s seventh anniversary edition,
pop culture is the dominant conversation—
travelling to relive the stories of famous
movie stars, musicians, chefs and authors,
to seek out their influences in the places
they loved, from Colombia to Vietnam.
Our contributors have handpicked their
deities—Anthony Bourdain, Don Draper,
The Beatles, Harry Potter, Shah Rukh Khan,
among 18 names. We are true believers in
these men, women and characters. Travelling
in their shadow feels wonderful, delirious
and appropriate. If this issue comes off as
an unapologetic love fest, that’s entirely
accurate. As Lester would put it, we are
righteously dumb and hopelessly uncool.10 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | JULY 2019