Here's what denormalization means: there was no "New Normal" for the dinosaurs.
Everyone talks about the "New
Normal," as if there's a guarantee that life will return to normal.
But the "New Normal" is De-Normalization, which I define as everything that was normal is gone and will not be replaced with some
new normal. In other words,
normal is gone, done, over: old normal, new normal, doesn't matter: normal is history.
Denormalization is currently used to describe a database optimization
process, but it's too valuable a concept to be limited to a narrow geekspeak
term.
What I mean by Denormalization is the complete
dismantling of what was taken for granted as normal and the
loss of any future version of normal. Consider sports
as an example. We all know the Old Normal that millions hope will magically
return: $100 million player contracts, millions in TV ad revenues, pro
franchises worth billions of dollars, NCAA playoffs, etc.: a dominant kingdom
in the nation's media and mindshare.
The dirty little secret that troubled the kingdom long before
Covid-19 was a steady erosion in attendance at live games and in the viewing
audience. Younger generations have relatively little interest in all the
trappings and habits of Boomer sports manias. They'd rather watch the 3-minute
highlight video on their phones than blow half a day watching games that are
generally lacking in drama and are largely replaceable with some other game.
What few seem to notice is that the Old Normal had become insanely
expensive, irksome and boring, activities that were habits coasting on momentum. Those
embedded in the Old Normal acclimatized to the absurdly overpriced seats,
snacks, beer, parking, etc. of live events and the insanely long commutes
required to get to the venue and then back home, as their happy memories of $5
seats decades ago is the anchor of their lifelong devotion and habits.
The old fans coasting on ritual habituated to the cookie-cutter
nature of the games, while those who never acquired the habit look with
amazement at the seemingly endless dull progression of hundreds of
interchangeable sporting events.
Advertisers will eventually notice that younger generations never
acquired the habit of worshipping sports and so there is nothing to stem the
collapse of the Old Normal but older fans, some percentage of whom will find they
don't miss it once they fall out of the habit.
Some other percentage will find they can no longer afford to
attend live games, or they'll realize they no longer feel it's worth it to grind
through traffic or public transit just to sit for additional hours and then
repeat the entire slog back home.
Another percentage will suddenly awaken to the artifice of the
whole thing; they will simply lose interest. Others will finally realize the
corporate machine (which includes college sports) has long since lost any
connection to the era that they remember so fondly.
This same Denormalization will dismantle fast
food, dining out, air travel, healthcare, higher education and innumerable
other iterations of normal that have become unaffordable even as the returns on the
lavish investments of time and money required diminish sharply.
How many of you deeply miss air travel? You're joking,
right? Only certifiably insane people would miss the irksome hassle and
discomfort, from the endless delays due to mechanical problems (don't you
people keep any spare parts, or is it all just in time like every other
broken system in America?), the seats that keep getting smaller as the passengers
keep getting larger, the fetid terminals, and so on.
Like all the other iterations of normal, the entire
experience has been going downhill for decades, but we all habituated to the
decline because we were stuck with it.
What few seem to understand is
all the Old Normal systems can't restabilize at some modestly
lower level of diminishing returns; their only possible future is collapse. Just as
fine-dining restaurants cannot survive at 50% capacity because their cost structure
is so astronomical, the same is true of sports, airports, airlines, cruise
lines, fast food, movie theaters, healthcare, higher education, local
government services and all the rest of the incredibly fragile and
unaffordable Old Normal.
None of these systems can operate at anything less than about
80% of full capacity and customers paying 80% of full pop, i.e. full retail.
Since their fixed cost structures are so high, and their buffers so thin,
there's nothing below the 80% level but air, i.e. a quick plummet to
extinction.
Here's what denormalization means: there was
no New Normal for the dinosaurs. A few winged
species survived and evolved into the birds of today, but that is by no stretch
of the imagination a New Normal that included all the other dinosaur species. For
them, denormalization meant
extinction.
De-Normalization: everything
that was normal is gone and will not be replaced with some new normal. Normal
is gone, done, over: goodbye to all that.
Recent Podcasts:
AxisOfEasy Salon #15: Toxic Tech
Platforms and Disposable Social Media Stars
Charles Hugh Smith on the
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My COVID-19 Pandemic Posts
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https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-new-normal-is-de-normalization.html
