Today, if I felt so inclined, I could wake up the sounds of Velvet Underground, dab on a touch of Andy Warhol cologne, throw on my Andy Warhol hat, zip-up my Andy Warhol jacket, and grab my Andy Warhol snowboard right before I check my facebook page and head out the door.
In reality, I have none of these Andy Warhol products and I rarely listen to the Velvet Underground. But I do check my facebook page a fair amount and, like throngs of hip young kids, professional designers, collectors at Christie’s, and the folks at Burton snowboards, I feel the appeal of the man who uttered, 40 years ago, “In the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.”
Andy Warhol is everywhere – partly due to the alacrity of the Andy Warhol foundation in all matters of promotion – but mostly because he stands as the iconic Rebel-Creator that survived, even predicted the hegemonic forces that shape our world today. He is not Kurt Cobain, who if alive today, would be protesting free trade and writing songs about the desecration of the individual at the hands of reality TV (rest his soul). He is not Che Guevara who, although hugely iconic, resonates less and less in the current atmosphere of harnessing the forces of capitalism for eco-progress and global togetherness(microfinance, eco-conscious multinational businesses, carbon markets, google.org)
Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes” prophecy came true because the American desire for fame and immortality was perfectly matched with affordable technology and universal exposure (see development of video-phone, advent of youtube, myspace, facebook, photo-blogging). His casual predictions about the future and his relationship with commoditization (part parody, part rebellious, part all-embracing) make his multi-colored POV a substantial influence on youth culture.
