Thursday, November 17, 2016

The culture we find ourselves in

In the days since November 9th I've found myself succumbing to the thoughts of despair I never thought I'd succumb to prior to November 8th. I've journaled some, but my writing has become so pessimistic that it's difficult to re-read even in editing. I want to say something smart. But the truth is, our country isn't interested in intellectual stuff. Do you know how many people watch The Bachelor? Too many to count. I used to watch it myself, and then one day I realized how shallow and ridiculous the show was and how into it I was getting. I wanted to watch it to have some pop cultural thing for my sister and I to talk about on our weekly phone calls. I was living in DC and she in Georgia, and I felt like our relationship was falling by the wayside, and I wanted something to have in common with her. So I started watching The Bachelorette, because I knew she watched it, based on her passionate tweets. I wanted us to be close. When she started reading Moby Dick I was thrilled to have something more in my wheelhouse. I had never read it. When I started reading it I was just as bored as when I tried to pick it up in high school and my mind wandered to guess what, The Bachelorette. 

Our culture is past Moby Dick. We are not in a place to sit down and read a long-ass book about a whale anymore. Maybe "we" as a collective never were. The culture we find ourselves in is uninterested unless it's fast, cheap and we can do it while staring into our screens. I count myself in as one of the zombies. We've become desensitized to what's going on beyond us. Why would we spend half a year slogging through the feats of a captain fighting a whale when we can go on Instagram to get more likes? Now we've become caught up with how many followers we have and how much content we're producing and how many likes a selfie gets as opposed to a landscape scene. We are obsessed with attention of the reality show sort. We want it to last but only from week to week so we can forget what embarrassing event happened on last week's episode. There's more drama to come. Stay tuned. I spent the two weeks prior to Nov 8 reading up on how to restructure a blog and how to post content on Instagram to gain a greater following. I used to only care about how true the writing was. But now I know it's about what gets read, and by whom. Great if my high school teacher, whose approval I still find myself seeking, reads it. Greater still if my mom reads it and texts me about it. But you hit the jackpot when it gets tweeted by someone you've never heard of but is trending on Twitter. It's not about captain Ahab anymore and perhaps it never was. We live in the land of Kardashians and Trumps. Until Justin Bieber subscribes to a paper edition of The New York Times, not a lot of millenials are going to. But then he has to post a selfie of himself reading the Times with a Starbucks drink of the minute  in order for it to work. And even then, I'm sure some blogger would write a piece of snark, crying that the Times has now become bastardized. We have become watered down. Our culture of advertisements, media and marketing has to be talked into something. We don't make decisions of our own accord anymore.  This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Just look at the now defunct circus of our most recent election. Clowns, elephants, donkeys and a pile of shit to clean up. Now we watch as the clown car keeps filling up with our nation's most colorful mimes. The trouble with these mimes is that they talk. He promised to drain the swamp but instead he's filling the tent. That's our White House, by the way. The newest rendition of Cirque du Soleil: Washington Style. Last week a client came in looking for red silken tablecloths that were made in China for her victory party. I would've assisted her but I was caught up bubble-wrapping the 6 Baccarat crystal Champagne glasses for her comrade. It would have been a shame for them to shatter. 

No comments:

Thursday, November 17, 2016

The culture we find ourselves in

In the days since November 9th I've found myself succumbing to the thoughts of despair I never thought I'd succumb to prior to November 8th. I've journaled some, but my writing has become so pessimistic that it's difficult to re-read even in editing. I want to say something smart. But the truth is, our country isn't interested in intellectual stuff. Do you know how many people watch The Bachelor? Too many to count. I used to watch it myself, and then one day I realized how shallow and ridiculous the show was and how into it I was getting. I wanted to watch it to have some pop cultural thing for my sister and I to talk about on our weekly phone calls. I was living in DC and she in Georgia, and I felt like our relationship was falling by the wayside, and I wanted something to have in common with her. So I started watching The Bachelorette, because I knew she watched it, based on her passionate tweets. I wanted us to be close. When she started reading Moby Dick I was thrilled to have something more in my wheelhouse. I had never read it. When I started reading it I was just as bored as when I tried to pick it up in high school and my mind wandered to guess what, The Bachelorette. 

Our culture is past Moby Dick. We are not in a place to sit down and read a long-ass book about a whale anymore. Maybe "we" as a collective never were. The culture we find ourselves in is uninterested unless it's fast, cheap and we can do it while staring into our screens. I count myself in as one of the zombies. We've become desensitized to what's going on beyond us. Why would we spend half a year slogging through the feats of a captain fighting a whale when we can go on Instagram to get more likes? Now we've become caught up with how many followers we have and how much content we're producing and how many likes a selfie gets as opposed to a landscape scene. We are obsessed with attention of the reality show sort. We want it to last but only from week to week so we can forget what embarrassing event happened on last week's episode. There's more drama to come. Stay tuned. I spent the two weeks prior to Nov 8 reading up on how to restructure a blog and how to post content on Instagram to gain a greater following. I used to only care about how true the writing was. But now I know it's about what gets read, and by whom. Great if my high school teacher, whose approval I still find myself seeking, reads it. Greater still if my mom reads it and texts me about it. But you hit the jackpot when it gets tweeted by someone you've never heard of but is trending on Twitter. It's not about captain Ahab anymore and perhaps it never was. We live in the land of Kardashians and Trumps. Until Justin Bieber subscribes to a paper edition of The New York Times, not a lot of millenials are going to. But then he has to post a selfie of himself reading the Times with a Starbucks drink of the minute  in order for it to work. And even then, I'm sure some blogger would write a piece of snark, crying that the Times has now become bastardized. We have become watered down. Our culture of advertisements, media and marketing has to be talked into something. We don't make decisions of our own accord anymore.  This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Just look at the now defunct circus of our most recent election. Clowns, elephants, donkeys and a pile of shit to clean up. Now we watch as the clown car keeps filling up with our nation's most colorful mimes. The trouble with these mimes is that they talk. He promised to drain the swamp but instead he's filling the tent. That's our White House, by the way. The newest rendition of Cirque du Soleil: Washington Style. Last week a client came in looking for red silken tablecloths that were made in China for her victory party. I would've assisted her but I was caught up bubble-wrapping the 6 Baccarat crystal Champagne glasses for her comrade. It would have been a shame for them to shatter. 

No comments: