This week seems to be turning into a US presidency week…

After all, the presidential campaigns are a true sign of the Expectations Society, with the rise of the world’s super expectities and the continuing flood of nextopia promises building the world’s expectations.

So, here’s another post on the subject. About a month ago, shortly after Barack Obama presented his vice presidential pick Joe Biden to the world, Republican candidate John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate.

Even with his head-start, Joe Biden is nowhere near the progress Sarah Palin has made in the last month:

“Joe Biden” renders just over 6 million Google hits (including “Joseph Biden”)
“Sarah Palin” produces a whopping 22+ million hits

Over the last month, Sarah has literally gone from 0 to 100 in web hits as well as tv, newspaper and magazine coverage, and in people’s interest. Why?

Beside the obvious reason that a fourty-something year-old woman is more interesting and eye-catching than a sixty-something man, Sarah keeps an incredible focus on the future – and has done a magic number out of kidnapping the word “change” that Obama launched early in his campaign. Magically, Sarah (actually a part of the establishment, an extension of the men presently hanging out in the oval office) has made herself a representative of the new possibilites (and nextopia) while Joe seems like part of the old.

Sarah has obviously understood why the sitting president can become so uninteresting with months left of his reign – he focuses and talks about what happens today (or, even worse, has happened during the last eight years), when what really matters is what will happen tomorrow. She realizes (like few, if any, candidates before her) that even if she is with the establishment, today does not count. 

But there’s also a much more spectacular reason. Care to guess?

Undoubtedly, JFK would not have achieved the same royalty-slash-rock-star status if he were president in the new millennium.

Rather than mesmerizing a whole world with the famous words “ask not what the country can do for you”, he would be in the public eye for what he for a number of citizens of the country:

 Citizens like movie star Marilyn Monroe, with whom he shared secret meetings and love letters,  and socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer, whom he kept as a mistress. Or White House intern Mimi Fahnestock, with whom he was way ahead of his time (and ahead of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and the famous cigar incident). Citizens like family friend William Walton, with whom he shared sexual encounters (even being documented by first lady Jackie’s camera). Or even Canadian citizens like Frank Worthington, whom he fathered with Mary Evelyn Bibb out of marriage.

He would probably also be remembered for his paranoid statements about military coups and assassinations, told in confidence to pals like Frank Sinatra and movie director Jonh Frankenheimer – who, long after admitted where the inspiration to the movies “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Seven Days in May”  really came from.

JFK presided in the old millennium, before the world of any, where anyone, anywhere, would be able to monitor and record his actions anytime. He lived in an age with no risk of blogarazzi-bummers, where Jackie did not post the frolicking-naked-on-the-floor-with-Will-Walton pics on myspace or flickr, or before they got into anyone else’s hands. Before Mimi Fahnestock or one of her friends would blog and twitter about “oval office encounters with my special man”, before Frank Worthington’s birth certificate would be available just a click away from anyone’s sticky fingers.

Is the above information about what JFK did for some citizens of his country true? There are over 2 million Google hits (produced, of course, in the new millennium) suggesting it is. AS JFK never made it to the new millennium, we cannot learn straight from the horse’s mouth anymore. But if JFK had lived today, Generation In-Charge would have made sure to find out the truth, they don’t just ask what they can do for their country, they are sure to ask what the president can do for them.

How can Obama be the most popular American president ever, which both US and European citizens seem to think in surveys and polls?

The obvious answer lies in nextopia: because he isn’t president. 

Barack Obama is one of the most powerful expectities of our time. People expect he will be president in the future. That future promises fantastic and unprecedented achievements. And those expectations turn him into one of the most fascinating people and one of the loudest rock stars on the planet.

Being president means little compared to expectations of becoming president. Just compare George W:s 46 million Google hits (amassed during his eight-year presidency and the rally up to it) with Barack Obama’s 66 million hits (gathered during his single rally-year in the public eye).

Still several months left of his term, George W Bush is not the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama is.

One may ask  if the lesser interest in George W really is simply due to the fact that he is president? A lot of people seem to think that he just makes to many errors and wrongs? Well, so has any actual president throughout history. What lies in nextopia (the ideal president) stays in nextopia.

Just look at the president who comes close to Obama’s rock stardom – JFK. Dead while expectations of his presidential term were still building. They still are (of what could have been).

If JFK would have lived and died in the new millennium, would he have been more or less of a star?

Google “president USA”, and more than 25 million webpages hit you right back.

First page, hit #8: Barack Obama.

Amazingly, typing in “Barack Obama” produces a whopping 66 million hits (“George W Bush” renders 46.6 million).

Needless to say, hit #1 on Barack’s list features “president USA”.

Since the start of his title bout with Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic presidential candidacy, he has risen to stardom, interest and popularity increasing by the minute and million hits leading up to the final round against the ruling champion’s protegé. 

 American  – and European! -polls suggest he is the most popular president ever. Among them, the Wall Street Journal recently presented a survey where the majority of voters were excited about the Obama presidency, and focused on visualizing Barack in the oval office.

Obama underwear, “Woah-Bama”, “Hot Mama for Obama” – the guy is a virtual rock star. Pretty much resembles what it was like for that other guy, who tends to pop up on top in most-popular-president-ever contests: JFK.

See the connection?

You’ve probably seen this clip already - after all, it’s been viewed 10 million times… 

This week’s edition of Swedish business magazine “Veckans Affärer” (Business Weekly) features a six-page, in-depth, story on “every consumer’s dream and every business manager’s nightmare: nextopia“.  Out today.

If you read Swedish – what do you think of it?

I just found out that Guns n’ Roses will (really!) release a new single this month, “Shackler’s Revenge”. And the vehicle is right in line with the Chinese Democracy strategy so far:

The song will be featured in the video game Rock Band 2, first released in the Xbox 360 version.

The nextopia album premieres as a nextopia soundtrack.

And this will happen just after the Skwerl chase. Anyone for conspiracy theories?

Accordingly, there’s a Rock Band 2 trailer for us all to consume:

Did you figure out the answer to yesterday’s quiz?

It’s rather telling that one of the best-selling rap artists right now is called The Game; because games are a primary driver of music consumption in the Expectations Society. While movies and music are consumed less and less in the traditional (old millennium) sense overall – going to theaters and seeing the whole movies, buying music albums – the total consumption has actually gone up. That is, in the new millennium sense, in video and computer games.

Once upon a time, movies spawned video games that generated some extra business. Around the turn of the millennium, that extra business became major business, and in the new millennium, video games spawn movies. And, obviously, best-selling, Billboard chart-topping albums like “VGL: Volume One”.

How come? Video games cater to the same Expectations society consumption patterns as movie trailers (please scroll back to the last posts before summer and refresh your memory on trailerism) and are perfectly designed for the new millennium’s Generation In-Charge. Remember them/us? The people who are used to do what ever they want, have things their way and be in charge (over everything and everyone from national banks and universities to Hillary Clinton and Sepultura – to mention a few goodies from the control-your-darlings list). In video games, we control the action. And just like movie trailers – games have no end (and neither do many of the games’ songs). They are promises of nextopia, where there is always your next go, and the next game level, which will be more exciting and better than ever. And last month, the first soundtrack to nextopia skyrocketed on the Billboard chart.

Remember Abbey Road Studios in London? Probably not, they used to be a chapter in the old-millennium music history book. Since the 1960’s, Abbey Road has been most famous for hosting that progressive guitar band nobody believed in, the band that was ahead of its time. Ask your parents or grandparents about the Beatles, and they’ll tell you.

A couple of weeks ago, Abbey Road stepped out of the history book and back into the future. Once again with a progressive guitar band. This time, it’s called Guitar Hero. Together with acts like Halo, Warcraft, and Tetris, they are featured on “Video Games Live: Volume One”. The fastest climber on the American Billboard chart this August, the album peaked at #8.

Once again, Abbey Road has crafted an album that sets a new standard – the standard of the Expectations Society.

Why would video games albums be a standard in the Expectations Society? Give me your best shot – and win a Nextopia t-shirt…