There’s this common refrain right now that I keep reading, keep hearing, keep seeing in different ways with similar words.
“Who asked for this?”
“Why now?”
“What prompted that?”
“Where is this coming from?
“Who is this for?”
“Who is this for?” again and again.
Now, right off the bat there’s usually some professed annoyance that something has to be for anyone in the first place, but that’s not the point here. There are many creations — and developments and happenings and spiritual followings — that are independent journeys sprung from some close-held desire at the heart of a group or individual. There are many “organic” activities that need no audience.
Then, the audience isn’t the point. Who cares about the question of audience when it’s crafted by the people that are the audience. There is hardly a need to dissect intent when it’s a shared urge, especially on a small enough scale. When there’s no research group or director or production studio. The audience is making and birthing and consuming through desire’s pull.
And then they whittle it back down to new seeds for a future harvest. Movements and ideas that aren’t being force-fed through commercials. The thoughts that aren’t driven into you for a new bubble-sheet test. Home-grown deliciousness before it gets big enough to be co-opted and given a price-tag. The stuff that emerges from true cultural primordial soup is not what this is about.
No, this about the other things. Bits of our reality that are constructed for profit. For easily-taken dollars. Aimed at empty bits of spectrum that nobody noticed before. Wallflower wallets. I mean the movies and games and products and political messages cobbled together to drive an engineered cause, to match revenue stream scatter charts, to satisfy margin-watching investors. There is a demand to be met, sure, but it’s a demand for returns to fill bank accounts and edge toward mergers and consolidated power.
When I hear that often repeated, “Who is this for?” it’s about these crafted processes. And yes, a crafted process is not inherently bad, and can be used for good, but this isn’t about that either. This rant is about the corporate-polished, politician-approved, western white normalcy crafts and those that profit from them.
The ones that claim it’s all some invisible hand. That things are meant to be this way. That it’s just how it’s always been. That it’s the market just doing god’s work.
Supply and demand can create an ecosystem, sure, but there’s a difference between diffusion and building a heat pump. Between entropy and unleashing a cluster of nuclear bombs to rip everything apart like some discount god.
You can force anything. Unfortunately.
And so, knowingly nodding and winking, these Gantt-chart planning hucksters schedule the demand for upcoming supply. Trickle in the idea and give away the first hit. Promise that greener grass. Just ooze out those same practiced messages of fear and hate versus the promises of what you could be having. The fun and glory in that other direction, not the one you were taking.
This is nothing new and hasn’t been for as long as we’ve pushed any other drug. Our latest whitewashed ideals and movies and music are introduced to neighborhoods that have been primed for years. To further prime them and increase that chance of an idea taking hold.
Yes, what else is new and maybe nothing ever will be.
Because history rhymes with the dulled repeat-stuff reiterative clunk of an A for every A and a B for every B. Hardly even bothering to put together a limerick or anything half as witty. So you almost can’t blame these profiteers for their appeal to an easy win. They’ve got history on their side.
I mean, why not anyway? Don’t we like familiarity? That’s why we keep going back — not because of some engineered plots — because of comfort! Because this is all too complex and convoluted to figure out. Simple is better! Why wouldn’t we just rehash the past into eternity if we know it worked? It got us here, didn’t it! And by the way, and mostly the most important, we need progress that has a known profit.
Progress with uncertainty? Oof, that’s not gonna work. Without some kind of gain — you know, for the ones that deserve it — we’d just clang to a standstill now wouldn’t we. I mean, can it even be progress if you can’t measure it, like, with a stock market fund gently landing me on some island? Somewhere else?
So yes, steal ideas from the past! Yes! Dredge everything back to the top and slop it down with added sugar. Rehash, rebrand, and tweak just enough to count as original. To drive that market further. To keep everyone in neat little orderly groups that don’t even need control because they behave just like they always have. Of course, it does also keep them where we can exert a little control when need be. I mean, just until we can release that next scheduled cycle of dependable dopamine hits on 107.7 the Eagle.
Besides, originality isn’t really just stealing while hiding the sources anyway. Originality is actually stealing from enough sources all at once that it’s a new mashed masterpiece. And if you’re clever enough you can string the pieces together so that there’s an homage and an allusion in every pot.
So that’s all these companies are doing here! That’s what the true nationalistic heart-bleeders strive for! They’re just creating with the puzzle pieces left in the past. We just don’t want them to be forgotten. It’s about paying respects to our forefathers. All four of them. There were only four, right? Well, never mind that, we prefer to pick and choose our facts anyway.
Though, to be honest, it feels like we’re past the need for even pretending at originality. In fact, maybe that’s why a lot of these latest reproductions taste so stale. We’ve gotten used to this dull chase toward a forever-helping of nostalgia. Yeah, it’s not as intriguing as something remixed, but damn if it isn’t exactly what we expect it to be. I mean, why else do people repeatedly watch Friends? It’s not like it’s actually good. Not like The Office, am I riiiight.
Plus, added bonus, now we can keep that precious copyright renewed. That means the company that owns it will make more nostalgia for us! Good thing they’re not just profit-hungry entities that push the idea of nostalgia and periods of classic media to engineer those fond childhood memories. Good thing they aren’t totally risk averse and dedicated to continuing old systems for the sake of continually growing privately-owned wealth.
Yeah, good thing. I can’t wait for the next Back Again to the Past Future movie. And Fast and the Furious presents The Hogwarts Express to Big Trouble in Little China. Though, unfortunately, we can’t always get the original property owners to sign off on these things. But, that’s okay. For those edge cases, it’s enough to take the whole batch, add one new ingredient, and then you can rebrand. There’s nothing that works so well as selling something new that looks exactly like the original. Except it’s got a new name!
Speaking of looking exactly like the original? Nazis? Nationalism? Fascism? Talk about predictable reboots. And a complete lack of trying anything new. Blech. At least change the color of skin you support if your pretending to be radical. There’s not even a little creativity there. We understand that you never really went away, but that doesn’t mean you had to freeze-dry the same shitty talking points from 3000 B.C.E. Too bad you don’t believe in evolution or you could use that for some growth.
But really — be it Nazis, offensive political stances, or 80’s and 90’s television — somehow there does appear to be some pretense that it’s not as bad as the original. It’s been improved, honest, and this new version isn’t bad or boring or racist. In fact, look, it’s got 3D graphics! And it can’t be racist, it uses algorithms!
Of course, it is as bad. Realistically, it’s probably worse. Fascists, by the way, are definitely worse now, though that’s only because they have shinier graphics and an entire internet at their disposal. The shitty side of vast worldwide connectivity is that it’s something that even intolerant dipshits can use. Fortunately, offensive jokes and wannabe-nostalgia media aren’t really worse, we’re just (arguably) better educated — or inundated — with media to recognize even the most well-polished shits. Not to say we don’t pay to see it — no, of course not — now we just nod in disgusted agreement as we leave the theater.
Yet, unfortunately, just like other nostalgia-copied material, fascism isn’t universally disliked. Some people like that old rhetoric and the tired but tried ball and gag. Comfort, it would seem, is our biggest enemy. There’s a whole lot that’s been done, that continues to be done, to keep a privileged few living in ease. Pretty much every problem is caused by comfort taken at the expense of others.
And — let’s be clear here — there’s no confusion or misunderstanding at play with these regurgitated creations. The people trying to remake an old television series or an old armband-wearing demagogue do not think this somehow crafts a better world for all of us. No, they want the old boring bullshit with tired laugh tracks and prejudice-laced outrage. They want that familiar safety that comes with fitting in one exact square-foot of remembered normalcy. Except, much like anything rose-tinted or scented, something’s being covered up and it’s usually shit.
Fortunately, we have the capability to connect and confer and create better methods of creation. Better futures. There are tools and tips illustrated by generations of official and pirate Wiki-how artists. We can create the demand because it’s already there. We have the demands chiseled into our hearts from every outrage and heartbreak. We are the demand, and unlike false prophets of capitalism, it’s not some invisible hand. These hands are very real, and together we can raise a lot of shit.
This is easy enough to say, of course, because words don’t behave like people. Words can be driven together in the most uncomfortable ways with the ease of tapping keys or scribbling pens. Words don’t have shoulders that chafe when rubbing too close to the truth. Words just ‘are’ because they don’t have a brother or sister or stock options.
So, we could say that we need to be more like words, but that’s just stupid. Expressionism is nice and all, but sometimes you need to mix some hard lines with the ambiguity. We just need to be like people, but with a unified voice and a scar-knuckled fist. Doing our damnedest to stamp out intolerance and fight toward a unified cause.
Which can be done, but not by trying to head some new organization. Not by yelling on the internet. Instead, we can create change by flocking to the bridges that are already built. The were built by organizations helmed in strength by the historically underprivileged. There is untold wealth of power in the practiced resistance known by people of color, indigenous peoples, LGBT groups, and immigrants and refugees. They already have networks spiraling further into the sky than anything that could be started anew. All they need is ready hands to join that cause and help as true accomplices toward a better future.
Their work, their organizations, will help everyone. The baseline for our human experience can be lifted, but only if everyone is lifted together. Because that is who this is for. Humanity. That’s what everything should be for. All of us.
And sure, it increasingly feels like a rising tide will drown us all before it lifts our boats. But, we probably should try.
