Sunday Culture: A "Snoop-surgence"
Arts & Culture Editor James Watson says Joe Cool is back.
Look, folks, it’s been a long, unimaginative week in COVID-induced quarantine. Don’t have much to say. However, today I’ll be sharing a few things that I love and have been sources of inspiration recently.
First up: Photographer Ernst Haas
Haas is one of the best to ever do it and one of my biggest creative inspirations. Haas has an unabashed love of vivid color, and he’s not necessarily attempting to be true to life. He shot on Kodak’s now-dead filmstock Kodachrome and used a darkroom process called “dye transfer” to push the colors. The reds are velvety, and the blues are steely and deep. He almost feels like a painter rather than a picture taker. The blend of both documentarian street photography and abstraction is deeply appealing to me and informs (or I’d like to think informs) my own art.
Here is an archive of some of his best color work from his time in NYC.
“Frigidaire, Paris” Courtesy of Mutual Art
Second: TWEET OF THE WEEK
Need I say more?
Last but not least: Snoopy
Courtesy of @ecto_fun on X
Can’t explain it nor do I have any concrete data to support it, but it feels like everyone’s favorite beagle is back in style. Everywhere I go, there he is.
Recently, a popular Twitter account “Laura” (@ecto_fun) has been superimposing Snoopy into movies and TV shows. And these posts are doing numbers.
Snoopy being deposed in “Oppenheimer,” courtesy of @ecto_fun on X
Friend of the show, current Japan study-abroader and Wake Forest junior Tabitha Cahan remarked the other day that it seems like Snoopy was the new “thing” in Tokyo, usurping the once ubiquitous Hello Kitty iconography. She even went to a Snoopy museum.
Even the newest line of Apple Watches and their concurrent operating systems include Snoopy watch faces.
Furthermore, my friend and Asst. Features Editor for the Old Gold & Black, Eli Leadham, who is a Wake Forest RA, gave all his residents Snoopy door decorations this year.
The dog is everywhere! In every online space I’ve been in it just seems like there is more Snoopy content than ever before. There are even accounts dedicated to dogs who merely look like Snoopy. And maybe this isn't new. After all, he is a regular staple at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and once again, we are talking about a universally adored character who’s been around since 1950. I can’t help but think we’re seeing a “Snoop-surgence.”
Time for some number crunching.
Figure 1
Looking at Google Search trends, Snoopy has always been a popular lil guy. He sees an annual uptick in interest around the holidays, November through January. This is easily attributed to the continued supremacy of the Peanuts holiday specials “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.” BUT in figure two, we do see that this spring into this summer Snoopy saw an abnormal uptick in searches compared to years past.
Figure 2
So maybe the Snoop-surgence is a thing. Joe Cool might just be cool again. This warrants further examination, and rest assured, I'll stay on it. It’s what I get paid the big bucks to do.
— James Watson