It's too early to tell if the country's renewed interest in Old Glory and American patriotism will be a just another fad or a new way of life. But anthropologists studying American pop culture 2000 years from now will, undoubtedly, see a remarkable trend emerge over the last 3½ months of 2001. The traditional beacons of pop culture—fashion, music, advertising, and television—are all flashing red, white, and blue.

A television gimmick once relegated to the day's lottery numbers and sports scores is now responsible for informing the world about everything and anything 24 hours a day. Cable-television executives this year fell in love with the technology that scrolls text along the bottom of your TV screen. Now, if you don't like what you're watching you can read; if you don't like what you're reading, you can watch. It's like having two annoying channels wrapped into one.

How can one woman be a pop trend? Here's how: start the year by starring in a halftime show that overshadows the biggest football game of the year; release a wildly popular new CD; film her first live concert special; sign an out-of-the-universe marketing/promotion deal with AOL Time Warner; go on an arena-packing North American concert tour; and remain one of the top three search terms on the Internet for the third straight year. That's all.