Creation? or re-Created?

So much of the world we live in today is a “remix” of other things. This concept seems very hard to grasp, until you look at some of the endless examples of this phenomenon. After watching the video in class, it is much easier to notice these concepts in our modern world. Things are transformed and remade more than we realize, for many different reasons. Whether it’s for entertainment, business reasons, to make profit, or even to raise awareness, remakes or remixes have a lot more power in our society than we are willing to realize. Remixes make up not only most of the media we are exposed to, but also the traditions that we have.

 I think the best way to depict this is to ask yourself the question: “Is anything ‘all American’?”

The most common ideas would be something like this:

Baseball- based off of “cricket”, a similar game invented in England in the 16^th century

Football- based off of “rugby” which was created in England in the 18^th century

Hot dogs- based off of sausage which is a German food

Hamburgers- also originated in Germany

Fireworks- first used in china as early as the 7^th century

Beer- another German innovation……genius German innovation

Etc.

There are countless things that you can think of and almost all of them can be traced back to someone, or someplace else. Once you come to terms with this idea that everything is a remix in a way, it’s almost comical to look at different things and notice how much they have been transformed over years to be completely new things. My favorite one, Santa Claus. While the legend of Santa Claus can be traced all the way back to a monk named St. Nicholas, it has now turned into a character that is associated with Christmas and gift giving. I like the example of Santa Clause because not only has this character experienced so much remixing, but he has been remixed for so many different reasons. The legend of St. Nick has been recreated to make children’s movies, make sales in stores by allowing kids to “meet Santa” and even to advertise products such as Coca-Cola. In fact, it was coco-colas advertisements featuring Santa that gave us the image of Santa clause that many people use today.

There’s lots of interesting Coca- Cola related Santa facts here:

http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/2008/01/did-coke-create/

Santa has been copied, transformed, and had different versions combined to be what he is today, and I’m sure there will be even more creation involving the big man dressed in red in years to come.

The important thing to remember is that no matter how much of our world is “a remix” or a copy, it is all still creation, and it is all still necessary to move forward with ideas.