As I wrote previously, New York City was mired in an intense heat wave
for about the past week. This heat wave lasted up until the late
afternoon yesterday, Wednesday, July 18th. At that moment, the skies
blackened, and a massive summer squall materialized over Manhattan, a
storm which lasted much longer than an ordinary thunderstorm.This is is
what a squall looks like:
This weather system was no mere thunderstorm. It was a paradigm shift.
In New York, people’s attitudes change in lockstep with the weather.
In the Summer, on a clear, hot day such as the city experienced the last
week, the mood is voyeuristic, and exhibitionist. Females display ample
flesh, bosoms, and buttocks. Males of suitable body types make every
attempt to boost the size and definition of various muscle groups, so as
to also draw level 1 attention from onlookers in the streets. However,
since the consciousness of the average New Yorker nowadays is ‘wise’ to
such simplistic attention scams as physical attractiveness, that
awareness cancels out the effectiveness of the scams. But, since we are
still in the early stages of the transitional phase from the Industrial
Money Economy to the Attention Economy, most New Yorkers are still
unable to convert the attention they get in passing to any lasting
consequence. They are walking on the stage, but not putting on much a
performance.
Imagine a very attractive musical performer, like Shakira. As
attractive a woman as she is, Shakira would still have a hard time
holding her fans’ attention if she merely stood on stage looking good
(level 1). People will only continue to pay attention to Shakira if she
makes it worth their while by doing things like this:
Likewise, the exhibitionist who is covered in tattoos, and counts out
a stack of 20 dollar bills while riding the A train in Manhattan, will
elicit a comment of ‘I like your tattoos,’ but nothing more. New York
City is bursting with level 1 attention scams. People in the city will
soon learn that they’ll have to ramp up the sophistication of their
scams if they want to become ‘stars’ in attention era New York.
And their time is limited. ‘Rain Changes Everything’ is a concept I
developed through observation of how the mood of New York City – the
attitudes and disposition of the people – mirrors the local weather.
The basic factors are whether or not the day is wet or dry. On a dry
day with clear skies, the mood of New Yorkers is extroverted. On ‘wet’
days, they’re introverted. The reason for this is simple: New York City
is a very dirty place.
For anyone who has traveled to other large cities either in the US or
the rest of the world, a trip to New York will show how filthy the
fixtures of New York are by comparison, especially Manhattan. Such
filth can be ignored on a pleasant, sunny day in the middle of the
summer, with all of the ‘attents’ strutting up and down the sidewalks.
But it is still there:
Now, when it rains in Manhattan, and the ‘attents’ are cowering under
umbrellas, their bodily flesh now covered by long pants, boots, and
overcoats, the paradigm shifts dramatically. Now, with such
exhibitionist / voyeuristic ambitions thwarted, one of the ‘downsides’
to living in the #1 ‘attention City’ in the world becomes apparent: the
city can be physically disgusting:
So how do New Yorkers respond when the ‘outside’ New York of the
city’s streets is not an outlet for attention-grabbing? They do the
logical thing: they hunker down indoors, in ‘clean’ and ‘dry’
environments like offices, cafes, bookstores, and private homes.
The summer squall that passed over Manhattan yesterday shifted the
paradigm of New York; for how long who knows. But as I looked out of my
window yesterday, and observed the sheets of rain coming down from slate
gray skies over the Hudson River, I knew that this was a key event. I
was therefore not shocked to see this when I scanned Google Trends this
morning:
Three of the 5 ‘hot searches’ are weather-related? Hmm. I wondered if
my own observations of yesterday’s powerful storm were proving to be
accurately aligned mentally with other people in my city/region? So I
clicked on a couple of the results.
The results showed that I was partially correct. The articles
top-listed on ‘Trends’ were coming out of the ‘Jersey Shore’ area, as
well as Lancaster County, PA. But a quick stop at 7online.com showed
that New York had the story covered:
So, then, as New Yorkers were driven inside to the safety of their
‘inner worlds’ (offices, homes, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble) by this
freak storm, many turned their attention to their computers, their
focus solely on the weather. This is shows that in any attention-based
society such as that which New York (and perhaps surrounding regions) is
rapidly moving towards, there is an acute awareness of the factors
that directly affect how the ‘attention flows’ shifts. Daily weather, as
well as seasonal changes, are two of the biggest physical determinants
of how people’s attention will shift.
Apparently, my own attention did not shift enough to realize that
while it was 98 degrees yesterday, today’s high is only going to be 84.
As I type, it is only 72 degrees (a 20+ degree dropoff), and I put on
shorts. So it seems that like yesterday’s squall did, I too have to
change everything………
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