I was going to write a comment on some current discourse, the usual diatribe of impulsive viral outrage invented by those who live online. A reaction to trending tantrums. The usual produce from memetards who vomit digital junk the algorithms, whether one follows them or not the social media feed insists we see it. Then the likes, shares, comments and responses by those who help to fan the flames of nothing. All the while behind the memes are children, mostly little boys or another Ian Miles Chong, so desperate for wealth and fame that they sit behind their screens and consummate junk. I wanted to write about the widespread indifference to footage of cats eating the flesh from dead Palestinians and the accuracy of trained professional snipers in executing their children with head and heart shots.
I just don’t think many really care about real suffering. Only entertainment or a narcissistic motivation speech about relationships. Phonk ‘music’ belching over a Ai generated image, or a gym bro showing Tren gains or maybe cats, though not those ones devouring child corpses in Gaza. The cute kind.
Imagine a world were the children make multi millionaires of influence, so famous they suffer no repercussions to idiocy and intentional insult, in fact that helps there brand to these children. The easiest examples would be the Paul brothers, who made their fame by performing to children who had screens in their faces, babysat by them. Mr Beast so terribly desperate for wealth and fame would say his heroes name one hundred thousand times into the camera in his ascent to super stardom. The children watched in delight. The role models and moral dignitaries of not just a generation but digital culture itself. Mr Beast and his heroes, the Pauls are now partners. Dreams do come true to those who grift.
The time of the influencer is waning, marred by deceptions and scandals but above all the bullshit products that digital performers shill are becoming well known scams or just junk. Honey browser, Feastibles, Prime energy drink or Athletic Greens, whatever your sector of the influencer realm happens to be chances are something that the top tier have promoted was just junk. The corporate cockroaches always survive and thrive, social media helped them to break into and profit from the under thirty-five market and helped isolate advertising into specific areas of interest and demographics that agencies could only have dreamed of generations ago. Now, it’s all very easy and the more the money comes easy to those who don’t work or who are gorged on inflated currency, so to are there spending habits.
Married to an algorithm and social media experience designed to keep eyes and ears on, blips of junk, the user is the product. The information age promised access to knowledge, where the user sought it out. Multi-media and search engines, both physical and digital information storage so that we could find what we looked for. Now the search engines are junk, granting preferences to government and corporations, not relevance but those who pay. That assumes anyone searches out information any more, instead it is all reactionary. Or searches for services, and shopping. The reaction age is upon us.
“Did you see this?”
“I hear that shitcoin was a scam?”
“Can you believe she slept with that many men?”
“He said Americans are retards?”
Gossip and conjecture all turned into a consumption friendly manure. Podcasters and long form video “essayists” know that there is a favourable algorithm preference in talking about trending or presently viral junk. Further adding to the pile of steam. Then Chinese weather balloons to drones or UFOs all of which can be revealed by Naruto running spectrumites. Whatever the case, in the present moment, those precious days or hours that contemporary junk is important to so many can generate gold, well not real gold just digital certificates for gold or more digital currency. Then, like the fidget spinner it is buried beneath many planking tards of viral impulses to be discarded and forgotten.
The economy is in ruins, for more reasons than just one. To rectify will require sacrifice. Few want that, so the can is kicked down the road and miraculously the same variations of the problem is suggested. The neoliberal status quo is in retreat, they can’t meme. The world is discovering a popular Right and in some cases nationalist liberalfascism. Though what is the status quo if not a form of modern fascism? The Right are online, podcasting and talking about the problems that the common person experiences. They listen to the proletariat. They offer solutions, hate, anger, indignation and have scapegoats. The mob in pain responds to this. The status quo is out of touch that they only know taxation, censorship and squealing. Those inside the aircon towers of government and corporate are perplexed by the common persons suffering, “let them eat cake.”
There was a moment that libertarians and anarchists had, to be better. To stay out of the digitally fuelled culture war. To educate on the many platforms the benefits of free market economics. The energy was there, but some decided it was expedient to compromise. To make alliances, to weaken the message, to talk culture war shit. The Right needed the validation of the liberty and antiwar people, not the other way around. The far Left is all but dead, killed by the Gordon Gecko socialists and welfare addictions. The field was clear but the greed to grift, shilling and algorithmic dependency ruined it.
So here we are, responding to digital brush fires. Like a fire brigade watching nonsense burn. Instead of seizing the moment, we now respond, react. The Mr Beasts of politics talk shit and swing from issue to issue while savvy politicians and the entrenched status quo adapt. They will survive and thrive, while the talking heads on their memeplatforms and podcasts become less relevant. Soon the consistency of being inconsistent will erode every ounce of credibility. The appeal to the contrarian will disappear while it appears that more and more are aligned with the status quo and the indignant, principled and those who really want peace and liberty shall be fractured or tainted by an association to coalitions of the moment, endorsing deceit and collectivism by any other form.
The bar has been lowered, chased down below tripping point just so that the terminally online are entertained. The maturity and intellect so terribly diminished that everything is now a child’s meme. Long form conversations meander between points of gossip, unfocused babble that is a reaction to whatever needs to be reacted to. The information no longer evergreen, just bubble gum, chew until the flavour is gone. Principles and information are sustenance, not every one has an obese mind so why feed them bubble gum. Many seek it, they are just not always online like digital junkies feeding that algorithm. Principles are more important than personality, preferences are personal. The time to make this clear is now.
And here I am, writing a reaction of sorts rather than being active and informative. Maybe life is a meme after all, which is why few really cares to change a damned thing.
