Post #617882 by hoody on Mon, Dec 19, 2011 6:27 PM

Wow - a heavy and depressing thread to read. Are things so bad? Really?

The purpose of letting you know about my kid's enthusiasm was to show that Tiki - proper Polynesian pop culture tiki - had a future, a strong future, if the leaders in the tiki community can engage and guide the kids: The tikiphiles of tomorrow.

The kids are more savvy than most realise. They enjoy different styles of music, architecture and decor. They genuinely enjoy a swanky lounge bar groove; and they also have a fascination with the South Seas culture and artifacts. With travel so cheap today, many kids have visited the islands and they desperately seek to recreate the same ambience at home.

As older people we might fondly reminisce about the past, and collectibles that have passed. These kids have a vibrant interest in tiki that is reflective of enthusiasm that hit America during the post war era. This vibrant interest needs to be encouraged/directed so that it blossoms into something special.

However, in the absence of available guidance from artists and enthusiasts, the energy of these kids will either wane or be redirected. In desperation they will resort to bright plastic tiki parties... never enjoying the depth of the true Polynesian pop tiki culture.

I agree with many of the sentiments in the thread - information on tiki culture needs to be available to this new generation of enthusiasts, in a format that they use. I love my hardcopy BOT, but kids don't have coffee tables, and they rarely read hardcopy books anymore. Its so hard for them to emulate a culture if we don't expose them to it.

Its difficult to read a "doom and gloom" thread without injecting some enthusiasm about the future. We need to embrace the mocktail and coloring book crowd, and then grow them from "Mocktails to Cocktails", from "Tiki Coloring Books to Tiki Art".

If we want the true Polynesian pop tiki culture to grow, then we have an imperative to expose the work of Tiki Icons to kids now, so that in 10 years there is a whole new generation of young adults looking to enjoy our tiki bar culture.