Where Oh Where Have Our Communal Pop Culture Events Gone? Searching for the Next One After the Final Harry Potter Book Experience

I can see images of families gathering around their high-definition TV's as they watch an elite group of astronauts landing on Mars for the first time. Let's hope you can see that too--or do you also see parts of the family congregating in other rooms doing separate things? Ok, maybe the youngest son is in the other room playing a video game (coincidentally about battling alien beings from Mars that have heads similar to that famous sphinx seen on the surface of the planet). The sister is in her room immersed in chatting with her friends (about boys, not astronauts) on the internet off her iPhone. The mother is in the guest room with the second TV watching a show about interior decorating on HGTV. (How is that still on when people are landing on Mars?) Even the family dog and cat are off in the kitchen fighting with one another and thinking dogs are from Mars and cats are from Venus. That leaves dear old dad to sit (with a few fellow male friends) to take in this stunning piece of history playing out on TV...and because they've always considered themselves space buffs. Replays of the Mars landing will be on during the 11 o'clock news.

What you just read above is a gross exaggeration in a worst-case-scenario--but it attempted to illustrate a point of how segregated families are today when something major is happening either on TV, in movie theatres...or in the very rare world of books. In fact, it's never happened in the world of books before except when the first-known published Christian Bibles were printed and proliferated. The major event of J.K. Rowling's final Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" has to rank up there now as one of the greatest pop culture happenings of all time after reports surfaced that 8.3 million copies were sold within a 24-hour period on July 21 in the U.S. alone. And then add all the Harry Potter parties and reading marathons slash discussions that went on from Hawaii all the way around to Sydney Australia...you have something unprecedented. But let's not forget that there have been other pop culture events in history where millions tuned in to available media to watch a major event unfold...both happy and shocking ones. Many of them happened when progressing satellite technology began to be used regularly that resulted in the world finally being able to take in something at the same time.

--The JFK assassination on November 22, 1963 may be the first event in the satellite era where the world experienced an event together in modern media...albeit having to be a tragic one. Satellites weren't really made for massive international live broadcasts yet, however, so places such as the UK (where the news of the assassination is still ranked as one of the most-watched TV event there ever) received some of the updates hours later rather than spur-of-the-moment as it is today.

--The first moon landing on July 20, 1969 (almost exactly 38 years before Harry Potter's final book event, coincidentally) was broadcast live in almost every country in the world thanks to satellites progressing their use in the broadcast of TV signals worldwide. This may outdo Harry Potter (though the jury may be out now) as the #1 event that united the world in a needed positive frame of mind after JFK's assassination and other 60's strife.

--Some people say that Elvis Presley's "Aloha from Hawaii" TV special in 1973 was one of the most-watched TV events of all time. Newer satellites had enabled it to be broadcast in about 90% of the world--and (assuming people were home or even awake in other continents to watch it)...it may take the cake in the top spot...unofficially.

--While strictly an American event...the series finale of dramedy "M*A*S*H*" in 1983 still holds the record as the most-watched American TV event in history. It had over 50 million people in the United States watching, while subsequently being the last time that's ever happened to date for television.

Yes, Super Bowls usually still get huge worldwide audiences in the multi-millions. And Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 was the world mourning unilaterally at the same time. But even Super Bowls and Oscar telecasts are starting to dip in worldwide interest since 2000 and the age of increasing multimedia available in every room of your house. We seem to be turning into a society where we get so consumed in our own offbeat media interests now that even major, profound events of world and pop culture importance keep people away from absorbing the events unfolding with family and friends. That's probably the result of so many "events" taking place lately being within the realms of tragedy (i.e. 9/11/01) and natural horrors that can sink the well-being of any person. Now many people have conditioned themselves to go focus on something else that may not be relevant in the wider picture just to keep their sanity. Part of that--for some people--is becoming a modern equivalent to Thoreau and communing more with nature rather than absorbing media.

The better side of this sociological examination is that some families out there really are spending more time outdoors (at least in the summers) and realizing that more joys exist in being around natural surroundings than sitting together in a movie theatre or watching TV. Those families are probably in much better shape than the ones who are slaves to the media machine technological behemoths who are subliminally convincing us all we need their products in our households. Nevertheless, positive pop culture events don't necessarily have to be separated from the outdoors. Thousands of Harry Potter parties went on around the world in the immediate midnight hours of July 21 that wisely weren't confined to the indoor world. Well, many of them were outdoors first before the bookstores opened and costumeless customers buying the book had to bump into a sweaty, tall, suspicious-looking man (or woman) wearing a Hagrid costume inside. What garnered my attention to those parties being something out of the ordinary was when my local news reported on the night of July 20 about the outdoor Harry Potter gathering in Portland, Oregon. It was outside Powell's Books, stretched for blocks and closed down an entire street. The local anchor on the 11 o'clock news described it as Mardi Gras...without the beads, drinking or topless women. So far, I haven't heard anybody complain no topless women were there.

Add to that a weekend marathon reading session of "Deathly Hallows" by millions young and old around the world--it makes it clear the world just experienced something rare. Maybe it'll happen again in the book world if Jo Rowling decides to write that Harry Potter encyclopedia she says she wants to write next if deciding to stay with that subject in her writing. Such a book might just raise fever-pitch high expectations as did one of the books with a plot in it...because an encyclopedia would likely help answer some questions about things in the books that still perplex a few readers.

Now that we realize Jo Rowling may be responsible for bringing the world's population together in a happy happening--does that mean she was one of the few in the world able to make something like this happen? It may seem that way, but it might inspire more people to attempt to make it happen again. Catalysts like this one are powerful and can help inspire creative minds when there was an obvious lack inspiration before no thanks to the prior mindset of it being impossible to bring that many people together for a piece of entertainment. You can be sure, too, that a good portion of those millions worldwide who read all the Harry Potter books studied how Jo Rowling approached her writing and subject matter. Most analysts have noticed that the books dealt with the harsh realities of growing up, death and battling evil on a monumental scale alongside the fantasy elements. It's no surprise that most people in the world can relate to the same issues and found the gold within the metaphors while also enjoying the escapist elements. All of that was mixed with generally appealing and happy pop culture characters that became an interesting mix that resonated profoundly.

Digging deep into the psychology of what people are thinking isn't always easy when it comes to creating entertainment mirroring that. But a happy event like the Harry Potter phenomenon only happens when everybody can agree with one another on something via a psychological level. Or, I think everybody would find that out if they bothered to ask the person standing next to them at that Harry Potter book party why he's dressed like Professor Dumbledore.

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Let's go back to that Mars landing being televised worldwide and the family off doing their own thing while it unfolds. Maybe if we look a little more carefully, we'll see an alternate scenario of massive pop culture events saturating our world rather than being so rare. We've seen moments like that occasionally too--when so much is going on at once...you can only absorb one thing at a time. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing to help get people's minds off the realities of the world a little more often rather than communal events being so far and few between.

The reality is that landing on Mars someday will likely have every human who lives in reality on the planet watching it on any available media device. Landing on a planet in our solar system again is the true communal event we're waiting for in joining a profound sense of discovery as human beings. If we find copies of the Harry Potter books there...then the recent Harry Potter events will break another record and tie with likely the greatest human-created event of all time.