Contemporary activists coalesce around cultural flashpoints (surface events, often fleeting), which are triggered by different Life Conditions (deep metapatterns created by the intersection of Historic Times, Geographic Place, Human Existential Problems and Societal Circumstances). This tidal pattern exerts a hynoid control on the psyche, and often unconsciously impels the activists to respond.

Elder activists are aware of these invisible currents and whirlpools in the emerging zeitgeist: they emphasize the importance of the activist's separation from the prevailing societal mythologies (which always exist in any time-period, including right where you are sitting now).

You can observe this dynamic configuration in the popular music industry, looking beyond aesthetic and political economy factors, by recalling the controversies, other than 'Napsterization', that held our gaze in 2000.

PoMo rapper Eminem pushes our evolutionary hot-buttons with his mysogynist and violent lyrics, selling millions of records in the process. Angry at the commercial failure of Nine Inch Nails's The Fragile (Interscope, 1999), which glanced backwards at 1970s 'progressive rock' through a rearview mirror, Trent Reznor attacks both 'Outcast Music' (Eminem, Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock) and 'Made-for-Millennials' synthetic pop ('N Sync, Backstreet Boys).

Hope lies with the artists who oppose these manufactured 'trends', and with Outsider Musicians who exist in the spaces between popular/altenative culture. Radiohead experimented with the MediaBlip-driven 'viral marketing' campaign for Kid A (Capitol/EMI, 2000), over expensive MTV video clips. Marilyn Manson filled Holy Wood (Interscope, 1999) with occulture references, citing an essay by revisionist scholar James Shelby Downard's essay "King Kill 33", which alleges that a Masonic conspiracy was responsible for JFK's assassination.

Want a case study in why surface events are driven by deep metapatterns? How Fred Durst retaliated against Trent Reznor's unrelenting personal attacks is one that jumps the gulf between memetic engineering theory and occulture reality.

Durst's strategy was to overtly playing the wildcard of inter-generation (and infra-subculture) conflict. He cites albums by his vocal critics, including NIN's Pretty Hate Machine (TVT Records, 1989) and Hole's Live Through This (Geffen, 1994) as "generational landmarks" for "Millennials" (the generation born after 1982); makes post-Columbine violence look 'cartoonish'; and shows willingness to work with the System by joining the Interscope Records management team. These tactics create True Believers. When Limp Bizkit abruptly exited the 2001 Big Day Out festival, citing security fears, they remained immune to their audience's hostility.

Durst is doing more than deploying an "attack PR" campaign here. He is playing card of inter-generational conflict for band positioning and profit.

As the BBC series Dancing In The Streets (1997) showed, rock music has evolved through Hegelian synthesis, where minor modifications are hailed as revelatory gestures. But what is different this time is that record executives who pre-package youth culture have been profiling the "Millennials" since before they were even born. Once predicted, subculture trajectories can be modified (CIA + LSD = 1960s Counterculture). Each "Millennial" is unique, but the content analysis and profiling instruments are so sophisticated that we must engage in the practice of self-interrogation instead of pop-driven self-suggestibility.