Being an asshole / Black Mirror

[fingertrouble]

Not a massive fan of Tegan and Sara and their folkiness and had mixed views about the whole Tyler vs Tegan controversy, but after watching the second episode of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror this quote from the recent Stereogum interview struck a chord:

Tegan said something recently that really hit home with me. She said something about how we can make change and inspire people and do it without being hateful. I know that that sounds so like “mean people suck,” 1990s Woodstock mumbo jumbo, but it’s fucking true. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and die thinking that I was a piece of shit. I want to get to the end of my life and think like, “God, I may fade into the background and people make fun over me in 10 years, 50 years, 20 years, maybe they won’t remember me in the next generation but now, I want my legacy to be about goodness … and I want those things that we do an daily basis to be good and positive. And I just feel like that’s what we need more of and I don’t think in order to be inspiring or to be a visionary you have to be an asshole.

Yes there's something really fucked up with that; the idea you have to be Jeremy Clarkson or Simon Cowell or even Malcolm McLaren, people who use people or insult minorities and people who can't defend themselves. In this reality saturated times, quite a lot of people are choosing to be evil, nasty, bitchy and whatever to get ahead, focusing on the negatives. Be or be killed. Gordon Gecko. Gonna get mine....and I thought the second Black Mirror indeed held up a mirror in classic sci-fi style (as well as some major digs I think at the whole Zeitgeist/resource economy BS which is dystopia and the same-old in the making, no true revolution which is needed to stop the 1% from destroying the world, no it's the 99% that has to feel the pain, die, change their ways...it was ever thus) to this nasty Perez Hilton style celebrity culture, where people are just used and abused for entertainment...

And although it's partly human nature (schadenfreunde) it's also a lot to do with the new technology, the blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, the oxymoronically titled social media. It's easier to say something witty and bitchy in 140 characters than something inspiring without resorting to Hallmark platitudes, Shades of grey get filtered to black and white. Glenn Beck bloggers try to get attention like a modern version of s shock jock...with the mass sea of opinion out there, you need to be way out to get 30 seconds attention, let alone 15 minutes - Marshall McLuhan was generous with the timings for that one!

So people enlarge their online and offline personas, go to extremes...but this has in turn influenced broadcast media as they scramble for viewing figures - hence the Glenn Becks, the Perezs, the Clarksons, people who are relied on to shock (but nothing too much, nothing that really shakes the status quo and the fucked up nature of the machine). New media will eat itself...and it becomes a sort of reality (game show). I hoped podcasting and truly socially generated media and news would destroy this cabal, the Murdochs et al - but no, they just adjusted their roles into being gatekeepers for the New Media World Order.

What happened to being inspiring? Revolutionary? Bolshy, bratty yes...punk was but mostly not nasty in this cynical modern sense...sticking two fingers up at the established order is not what I mean by such rudeness...it's more treating people as commodities, and serving out doubleplusungood glop for them to consume. And getting ahead by being an arsehole, as we say here.

Comments

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who Tegan or Sara are. Did they call Tyler the Creator out? Fair play if they did. I think Tyler the Creator is an infantile little shit but with talent who wouldn't get away with the nastiness if he was white and I would imagine that most of those buying his stuff are white. Doesn't really matter as to me he's like the flipside of Beiber. Others will come along soon enough.

I don;t get the whole Clarkson thing. The bloody union shot themselves in the foot with their ludicrous reaction and thus took all attention away from the march and the issue. Morons.
He's a joke.
Cowell. People lap it up. Let them. Cattle.
McClaren is arguably more interesting as he did actually create something, even if it was through piracy. As for the 'he stole black peoples' stuff. Name me white artists/entertainers that don't. P-Orridge, Tibet, Lydon...Bambaataa was ok with McClaren and what people forget, as was recently pointed out by Arthur Baker, is that early hip hop was more mixed that it is now. Fab5Freddy and Futura hung out with the Clash etc.

I am concerned about the 1%/99% sloganeering. I feel it negates our personal responsibility for consuming and wasting as much as we do. The only reason anyone is starting to give a shit is that their own comforts and more are now threatened. Before that and even still we turn a blind eye to what we as individuals cost others elsewhere on the planet.

Surely the easiest way to break the system would be to stop buying shit.
No new shiny phone devices of any sort.
Control social media by using it for specific purposes only. Delete Facebook accounts. Don't watch tv.
Volunteer our time etc etc yada yada.

We buy the shit and they supply us.

Junkies always hate their dealers but run back to them all the time.
We allow them to control our destinies by agreeing to the contract.
Then we get to misbehave a bit.

One thing I think is to ignore/cut out any influence you see on your life as negative culturally. Be it Cowell or McClaren or Clarkson or Murdoch or the Royals or pop or apps or...whatever.

But then hold on to and cherish what or who you see as a positive.

Nowhere are you mentioning who you see as inspirational or admirable or...

Just looking at the Observer Review there were 'intimate portraits of people we lost this year'. Laced between Winehouse and Falk and Scott-Heron and Barry and Styrene and Taylor and so on were people who were more unsung. One of them, Tim Hetherington, I found hugely inspiring in life.
Another, John Herival, I was unaware of.
Undoubtedly there are many and obvious reasons why music and film dominate our consciousness.

But should they so much?

Where is Control?
Right where we all choose to spend most of our time.

Cowell has made millions from music. Of course, he doesn't care about it. If he he'd lose his game. Repackaging it for the cattle.
Clarkson has a book out and says something dumb and gets the press.

We make them important.
Tell you what...you know the Seditionaries t-shirt 'One day you'll wake up and realise what side of the bed you've been sleeping on' (probably not)...I'll try to hunt out or copy the text.


Then I'll make my own.

Then if I show you mine you'll have to show me yours...


shit...now I have to sort this lamp problem out...

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

The 1%-99% is a slogan, and like all slogans it's rather simplistic...it's a useful device, but of course it doesn't obviate people from taking responsibility...but i notice that despite revolutions or even in the suggestions from people wanting to change things it's most still rich 'Cunts are Still Running the World' - nothing radical, same old people whose daddy and their daddy going back generations or even centuries earned it...they don't seem to want to change, but expect the poor to do so. That's the annoyance - the brunt is always taken by the lower classes to pay for their extravagances, and I see no difference in any of the 'green' plans.

McLaren: well I'd not have a go over piracy; although recording South African artists during apartheid and ripping them off was kinda low. And the black thing - most of the time it's not a one way influence, you neglected Elvis who was the worst, supporting the colour bar making white versions of black rock/pop tunes...although in later life he broke out of that more and gave more credit...but McLaren as you say wasn't unusual in that.

No it's the feeding or supporting Sid Vicious's smack habit so he'd perform or be pliable...that was pure evil. Treating people as expendable might be an inevitable part of being a svengali, but either as Lydon claims he was making sure Sid got his fix, or at least standing aside or egging him on and not doing anything....and it's not like he didn't see the effects of heroin on the New York Dolls. I agree he's the most creative of the people I mentioned and most interesting...but he got where he was stepping on the heads (and corpses?) of many people. Not nice.

But true we make them important...and the technology at one point had a real chance of breaking this monopoly, but people wanted safe, they wanted polished, they wanted vetted, they wanted fucking competitions and pointless drivel and talking about the weather and coffee and obviously corporate interest plugging interviews and music policy. Probably good John Peel died when he did, rather than see what it's all become...and yes I'm fucking bitter about the podcasting thing for this very reason. The gatekeepers like iTunes and BBC and Podshow came in and told people what to like - the drivel or not radical same-old slop...the next Black Mirror goes into this.

But yes people get the Kings and Queens they deserve, although they're also told to also, so it's far from a totally free choice...people don't know they've got a choice most times, or never even think they have. Buying less shit is good...although some of the shit is useful, like my phone means I don't have to carry an A-Z - a certain person stood on it and it was broken for 4 days and I was kind of lost without being able to look addresses up, use GPS, google maps etc. It's not all bad...although I'm starting to think I should withdraw more from social media as after Egypt and South Africa the whole 'First World Problem Moan List' is really starting to bother me...people seem to be more bothered about X-Factor than Syria, more bothered about indeed Clarkson than Levenson (which probably only gets mass coverage as it combined celebrity with real news - and Murdoch bashing which i can't complain about).

I'd love to see that tshirt or text....

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

And yes Tegan called Tyler out on his casual homophobia...yes he is a little shit, and doing it for shock like Eminem did, but sad thing is that crew cannot rap for shit. It's jockrap bullshit, when I saw them at Coachella I was so disappointed...as with the homophobic shit, I was hoping for an intelligent/experimental mass alternative to modern hiphop but again, it got dumbed down with pointless shit. Sad, cos hearing their other stuff they have talent, but playing that same old boring game to get press.

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

Actually re: Tyler the Creator...a mate is totally into him so I have listened to a fair bit. My take on it is that I'm 51 and it's not made for me and so I do not care what he says really. I'm certain he feels the same way about me. I think it really impressive that he designs stuff to wear, makes the music, etc etc. I mean, really impressive.
All of which is then undermined by rapping about raping a pregnant woman and that being a three way. And the like. The misogyny bothers me more than the 'faggot' stuff but, that's just me.
As far as I know, he's a middle class kid and is on an indie label selling to other middle class kids. If he was white he would be in a band like 'Anal Cunt'. Just getting far less attention.
I think he is reinforcing the scary black youth stereotype that the white indie kids want to use to freak out their parents. I think the the money made off him is made off that stereotype.
But could he give a shit?
When he is a bit older he'll be wealthy and running things even more and the nihilism will have dribbled away like all the just past teenage jizz he is leaving on his Star Wars duvet cover nightly right now.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

Yes he's creative, loved Odd Future when they started to break, they do more than rap and it's interesting...but live they completely suck. Can't even rock the mic/crowd without a beat.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

And yes the nihilism is completely staged. which is why I was a little ambivalent about the whole Tegan thing; it's obviously most of the stuff is trolling, and he's an intelligent kid. Yes he's middle class - they all are, extremely so and not 'ghetto' at all...just wish he'd do something original rather than pushing all the same buttons.

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

Pushing the same buttons..exactly.

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

Lydon entirely disowned Vicious. Turned his back on him completely.
Efforts were made to get Vicious off smack. Or rather, away from Nancy Spungen which seem to have been one and the same thing. I don't think it is possible to do the right thing around junkies. They either get themselves off it or they don't.
Lydon was never there at any of the benefit gigs.
Believe me, I don't think McLaren was a nice piece of work. We haven't even mentioned Anabella Lwin or his wanting to start a magazine called 'Chicken' with her naked on the front cover. But it seems that the nihilism and negativity and perversity came with the anger and the bravery and the willingness to go entirely out on a limb and attempt to change things when everyone else was smoking dope and doused in patchouli.

You're right. People don't know they have a choice. Or at least the beginning of one. They don't even have the time to discover it because they are working to pay the rent or worrying that they can't or buying more crap to make them feel they are worth something which then takes them right back to the bottom of the unholy hamster wheel again.

If we consume we are controlled and exploited and by consuming we control and exploit others. The template was put in place decades ago and now is almost bred into our bones.

I think only a seismic shift will really force us to change. That may well be economic and social collapse.

But now there is dissent in Russia...

...and I read somewhere about a government official being utterly confounded by an Arab Spring demonstrator holding a placard that was just a Twitter hashtag...

and I saw a photo of another holding up a placard sending support to Occupy Oakland...

now there is something.

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

And I'll sort the t-shirt. It was designed by Bernie Rhodes and is really sharp. Best thing is that there seem to be two sides but it is more ambivalent than that.

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

Here you go.

You're Gonna Wake Up

Although this shows them as Hates/Loves. I don't think the shirt has those words though. However, looking at it again the sides are pretty clearly cut.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree with all the hates apart from George Melly and maybe Hockney but then again he's a strange closeted piece of work, so bring on the pitchforks.

Loves I don't know some of those, but agree with pretty much all I do...

News and popular culture

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

I look at "Yahoo News" every day and read a few articles. I am surprised by the number of popular cultural related "news". I also get a daily e-mail with news headlines/synopsis from a newspaper here in Barcelona. And the difference in coverage is rather striking. The other thing I find disheartening is the anger/hate or stupidity/lack of knowledge of many comments on Yahoo.

Chuck

Re: News and popular culture

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

Yes that's a change that happened 5-10 years ago, celebrity news even in respectable/not tabloid papers being treat as a Big Thing. Years ago it'd have been put on page 25 or some column at best...it started with the free papers here and the success of those meant it spread to others.