ZPac and the Holograms

ZPac and the Holograms (I am submitting this for an online writing spot...so I thought I would test it out here first)

Like every 33-year-old white female, I was so excited to see that Tupac resurrected for Coachella (ask anyone in high school in the mid to late 90s…we were all down with Pac).  I would have given anything to be in the desert with all the celebrities and hipsters when zombie Tupac rose to the stage with Snoop…what a magical moment (not to mention he is in phenomenal shape).  That night, Twitter was on fire with reports of ZPac (I like the sound of zombie Tupac, so just work with me), and there were also a few great jokes about which deceased celebrities should join Snoop and Dre the following weekend; the best suggestion that I saw was Bea Arthur!  The next day, the video was posted everywhere, and most people were very impressed at the chill inducing performance whether they were a huge rap fan or not; it was a really badass music festival moment. So, what is the big fuss about? 

Several articles this week have revealed with disgust the discussion of taking ZPac on tour.  I get that there are ethical questions, like who actually owns a deceased person?  Let’s face it, if Snoop and Dre take ZPac on tour, they would make lots of money!  Not only tour profits, but Hologram Tupac has his own Twitter page with around 50,000 followers after a few days; he has become quite the celebrity this week.  ZPac is by far not the first dead person to be brought back to life through technology, so why is this situation different?  One article in particular from Yahoo! Contributor blog “Stop the Music” revealed that though this has been done numerous times for commercials, this instance is extremely different.  In the past when a celebrity or athlete has been “resurrected,” archived footage of the individual from the past was spliced with a live performance or with footage filmed for a commercial, promotional video, or short film.  ZPac, however, was given all new moves and a new performance routine that were only based on past performances.  The blog explains “If people want to watch Tupac dance Swan Lake, it is now entirely possible.”  This is where the big fuss starts…so we can now take the image of deceased stars (or Hitler) and make them do whatever we want?  What if someone decides the Golden Girls would be great if they all acted like the Kardashians?   Or that Michael Jackson should sing country music or opera?  Or that Dick Clark should continue to host New Year’s Eve until, I don’t know, 2057?  This would be disturbing and awkward for everyone.  I would love for Chris Farley to appear at my birthday party, but would that be right? What if he didn’t want to come as Matt Foley and hated all my friends?  I would be selfish for making him come to my party.

I see the exciting side and the disturbing side of the discussion of the digital zombie.  The act of “someone” capitalizing from the dead will never go away; for example, Whitney Houston has sold more records since her death than she has in years.  Correction…Whitney hasn’t profited at all, but someone has.  My main issue with the method used for the Coachella performance is that the deceased person has no say in what they are doing or performing, so we have to ask ourselves how fair that really is to the artist.  What if 2Pac would have hated what ZPac did?  Like I said earlier, I loved it, and I am sure after the drug induced festival attendees stopped freaking out about the dead man on stage, the set was an amazing performance to see live.  I think that at the end of the day, like all zombies, we only need zombie holograms in very small doses, and really, we shouldn’t make them prance around doing things that we would like to see. And honestly, using technology to make impossible situations possible could end up coming back to haunt us.