
Hologram Tupac Was Inevitable - llambda
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/hologram-tupac-was-inevitable/255990/
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loso
I don't know what to think of this article. It reads as if it was written by
someone who may have heard of Tupac but definitely wasn't a fan. I can't say
that a fan of hip hop music would consider Kurupt to just be the answer of a
trivia question. If you are a hip hop fan Tupac's death is more along the
lines of Bob Marley, not Elvis. People chose sides during that stupid time in
hip hop but mostly everyone who was a real fan in that era respect both
Biggies and Tupacs music now that all of the smoke has cleared.

While I agree that after death, Tupac image has been "manipulated", but it is
the fans doing it more than anyone else. They remember their version of 2Pac
and casually dismiss his life contradictions. 2Pac made a lot stupid decisions
but also had moments of genius. He was the image of youth rebelliousness but
too often crossed the cavern of casual disregard of others. That is a thin
line and at times he walked it poorly. And now that I am ten years older than
when he died I can see why. At 25 years old you do a lot of dumb shit.

I think a lot of fans reacted as they did to that hologram because 2Pac has
never really had a proper public memorial. Biggie had the big MTV awards
spectacle with Puff, a gospel chorus, and Sting. He had big budget movies made
of his life, tribute albums and a whole host of other tributes. Basically a
lot of chances for his fan to mourn his passing while also celebrating his
life. 2Pac has had a couple of tribute albums and a few really low budget
documentaries. Nowhere near even especially considering how even they were in
stature in both the hip hop and the music community as a whole.

Even though I was aware of the tech behind the "hologram" and hated a lot of
what 2Pac became towards the end of his life I was still amped up and moved by
the show. I wouldn't want to see it again because then I would feel his image
really was being exploited. But as a DJ and fan of hip hop for about 29 years,
I was glad to see it.

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evan_
Can we stop saying "hologram"? It was no more a hologram than a movie shown at
a theater is a hologram. The word "Hologram" has a very specific meaning; this
isn't it.

It's exceedingly silly that people are freaking out about this, Elvis
impersonators have been a cultural cliche for decades and I'm sure there are
Tupac impersonators.

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victork2
Being relatively young, I don't know if what I am going to describe is new or
not.

I am under the impression that the advent of a globalized internet culture has
fostered the nostalgic phenomenon. If you are a regular reader of any social
websites where people can publish content you can see the extent of this among
people from "Generation Y": clothes, old games ( Prince of Persia on Apple 2
anyone ?), actors, movies, music, etc... It doesn't even have to be good, it
will be put on a pedestal anyway.

What enables us today is that these old things which use to be forgotten by
previous generations can now be accessed at will: old videos are put on
Youtube, old pictures are backed up everywhere, memories are slowly becoming
immortal.

I am absolutely not a nostalgic person myself so I don't feel the impulsive to
think about oldies but I think it's a very interesting thing to analyze, maybe
it's even a bit worrying: Could these fond memories hold us back?

~~~
gaius
In the 90s, tho', everyone looked to the future. Some anecdata, all my friends
were cybergoths back then. Now they wish they lived in the '30s... The 1930s.
It's a cliche, but it was 911 that turned the world from a certain to an
uncertain place. Now people are hankering for simpler times.

~~~
kalleboo
> It's a cliche, but it was 911 that turned the world from a certain to an
> uncertain place. Now people are hankering for simpler times.

I have to call you out on this. What the heck are you talking about?

~~~
gaius
The Cold War had ended, the "new economy" was in full swing, the future looked
golden. Historians like Francis Fukushima called it "the end of history". Then
the world was plunged back into social, economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
People look to the past for comfort.

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WyattHook
I thought that article was pretty ridiculous.

"Hologram Tupac is an inheritance of arena-rock one-upsmanship, the latest
step in rap's forced march on Spinal Tap-ism."

This, to me, just screams that this writer knows nothing of rap/hip-hop and
it's current trends. Sure, people who don't actually pay attention to the
music may see it that way because of artists and performances like Kanye and
Jay-Z's "Watch The Throne" tour but currently hip-hop is coming back to the
point it was at in the mid-90s, with thought-provoking poetry on one side and
money/cars/girls anthems on the other.

"Over the past 16 years, a lot of Tupac's music has been gradually sullied by
all that's followed. "Dear Mama" is held up to make him a sensitive feminist,
which he wasn't, while "Hit 'Em Up" is held up to make him a hyper-violent
gangsta, which he wasn't either. "

What does this writer know of Tupac's actual life or his reasons for writing
and performing those songs? Hip-Hop is a way to express not only one's own
opinions, but also the viewpoints and stories of others that we wouldn't
normally see in our lives.

I understand where the article is coming from but it seems like a lot of over-
analysing. It seems unnecessary and a grab at a few reads just because this
whole "hologram" is currently trending. Hip-Hop is and will always be a large
part of my life and I just don't think this guy really gets it, just my two
cents.

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geoffw8
I saw a hologram of will.i.am at DLD in Munich alongside Cheryl Cole roughly 3
years ago. I don't see what the fanfare is about? It seems like _we_ have just
discovered it, but its by no means nothing new.

~~~
rollypolly
Indeed. Here's a 2009 video presenting the same technology:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSICZ_7hpho>

~~~
forza
Richard Branson from 2006: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HicaK7NTHQI>

Edit: I also remember the pinball game "Revenge from Mars" from 1999.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA7Cgzk-y1U>

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sbarre
Japan has a fully virtual pop star that does "live" performances as a hologram
(although this was never a real person so it's somewhat different):

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/18/hatsune-
mik...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/18/hatsune-miku-japan-s-
hologram-pop-idol.html)

I think it's interesting to see this as a technology and it has cool uses
(like above I suppose), but are we, as a society, prepared for something that
takes this to the next level?

I'm thinking something like "The Nirvana 2015 Reunion Tour" with a holographic
CGI Kurt Cobain.. I'm not sure that would be as well received..

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stcredzero
_In 1981, Rolling Stone famously slapped a photo of Jim Morrison on its cover
to go with the headline: "He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead."_

Digital recreations of the dead have been with us for awhile. And art of this
nature has been around for much of human history. I wonder how different this
will be from the Renaissance technology of painting? Perhaps the difference
will be that, with the help of computer technology, such recreations will be
able to pass the Turing Test, at first in limited contexts, then more
generally.

I think digital Tupac fell into an Uncanny Valley of a different sort. His
appearance was almost flawless, but the context was still unsettling to many
of the audience. I wonder how long it will be before we have the first
"Digital Resurrection" cult?

How about a novel where a terminally ill iconic business leader and
entrepreneur, instead of faking his death, fakes his continued life? Everyone
just assumes that he's never seen mingling with the public because he's gotten
Howard Hughes eccentric in his infirmity. By the time humanoid robots are
ready for him to "meet" people and shake hands, his age and frailty make it
easier for the technology to pull off the performance.

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sp332
I really like the way this article is written, but it's really too easy to say
something is "inevitable" _after_ it's happened.

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sunkencity
So does this mean Hologram Jobs is inevitable at WWDC?

