The 1980's are roundly praised for absolutely no reason. Everywhere you looked six months ago people were going on about the 80's without actually knowing much about the 80's. This 'retro-movement' is by all means a strange thing. People who haven't seen Gremlins in theaters walk around citing Ghostbusters and E.T. as if they've never seen a fluorescent windbreaker. The 70's had better everything and the 60's were strange enough to win any contest for oddball decade. So what does the 1980's have left that its sound, its appearance, and its (utter lack of) soul are praised by clueless jags?
The first point is that the people who grew up in the 80's are becoming adults, and by extension tastemakers. Some of these people are making music and film, or TV and literature, or whatever, and consumerism needs its 'movements' even if such things don't have meaning. The generations that were born in the 80's are clueless and willing to attach themselves to any movement to gain friendship and acceptance, because they are not quite yet adults. Folks born in the 90's are sort of alienated but since they don't have even faint memories of the 80's it is far easier for them to look upon the time with rose-tinted glasses.
Finally, a crowd of people as far removed from popular tastemakers as anything, American Republicans, praise the 80's for Reagan and Bush. Anyone who has followed American politics from Nixon to Obama knows that there has been little reason for public trust and acceptance. Anyone who is willfully ignorant of this will praise Reagan for gutting the economy and being a tool of special interests. This set a pattern that is more or less still followed today, and more knowledgeable places than PUBLICATO can tell you all about it. So even people who are not hip, and who consider hip people to be a crowd of fornicating, godless sinners praise the 80's.
Operation Just Cause, the Iran/Iraq thing, Contras, Noriega and lasers in Panama... the list of strange and shadowy 80's events goes on. That's not even including domestic issues, global music, fashion trends, computer games, and the incredible spread of corporatism and globalism during that time. You'd have to be insane to look to the 80's and enjoy anything about the aesthetic (except for Robo-Cop, Blade Runner, John Carpenter's The Thing [NOTE THE RECENT REMAKE], Prefab Sprout, American Psycho, Michael Jackson, but I digress and contradict myself). If you're still willing to try, and think the list of 80's saviors is indestructible, I have a stinging rebuff for you to swallow.
Everyone worth a damn knows about Leonard Cohen and his minimal songs with masterful lyrics... most people know that he released a decent album in '88 called "I'm Your Man" which, despite being made in the 80's, was pretty decent and almost managed to overcome its production, which is synthy and generally aged a lot worse than The Cohen himself. Then there's this which is probably the one and only time Cohen is unable to overcome production. When you think of the 80's, set this song to the bombing of Panama, the crack epidemic, or anyone wearing a bright pink jacket in an acid rainstorm and cry, because the world ended in the 80's and all that misguided nostalgia is people burying their heads instead of dealing with the present.
It's easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses if you were too fucked up to realize what was happening, or too young to understand it, or you were simply born in a later time and it is a mythical place for you, but the 80's aesthetic was roundly panned as soulless and shitty for a lot of reasons. M83's newest release is probably the final bit of sub-popular 80's worship before the inevitable backlash and death of this rather unbelievable fad. M83 is years past its prime itself, so this final affectation is rather ironic and fitting. By 2013 only clueless people will "OMG I loooove the 80's baby!" mindlessly. Goodbye, 1980's, until the 2030s. You will not be missed and you have not been missed and your best achievements will still be safeguarded and the fact they took place in the 80's will be a footnote.
I can't exactly trace when 80's revivalism began, but judging by the attitudes of some of the hip girls I know I'd say it began, in the underground, between three and six years ago and hit sub-mainstream maybe a year and a half ago, and maybe a few months ago it became a thing that even the most culturally retarded person could indulge. People are going to be tired of it in a few months, because true hipsters are already making fun of the 80's again and have moved into the 90's where they will literally starve to death or the 70's where the drugs will kill them.
10/16/11
Occupy Everything
It started in New York about a month ago and I was a smug bastard thinking that they were all hippies and idiots. I felt for them but on the other hand they were 'neo-hipster, marxist-lite scum' who didn't understand economics or politics. I called my sources and they told me exactly what I thought, that these people would disappear in a week if not a few days and that their incoherent protest would mean nothing. Yet the reason for this puerile protest was entirely valid and concrete. People, I thought, are either too angry or too defeated to voice their complaint precisely and effectively.
I was a little more right about that part. I've been mostly working since the protests started, I've been unable so far to attend the local protest, and I have heard only a few scattered reports and read a little about the issue since it started. But I have been paying attention. At this point, with the protests spreading and dissatisfaction being aired around the world and income equality becoming a talking point that the ignorant or hostile factions cannot slap down into silence, it seems like these protests are hopeful. They certainly point to a vitality that has belonged to lifestyle activists for the past three years and now finally belongs to everyone. In 2008 there were few protests, most of them astroturfed (and badly) or so far across the spectrum that they were close to insane, frothing rambling.
Imagine my relief when I see on the TV crowds of people of mixed ages and origins, all united, across the world, in protest against... well they're in protest against a lot of things. Mostly coming from America is the "99% rhetoric" which targets the super-wealthy and their stooges, and also the financial sector, lobbyists, and many of the other diseases of affluence that have sickened American democracy since its inception. In Canada, the branch plant of America, the protests are similar. The word 'oligarchy' is being thrown around a lot in conjunction with 'corporate' and people might understand what is meant by those words.
My hope is caused by the fact that the protests attract a good cross-section of people, and are opposed only by the ignorant or politically entrenched or apathetic. In other words this is a confrontation between a system that has succeeded only superficially and its adherents and, on the other side, the people who have been forced to subsist under that system, many of whom have suffered, many of whom have made incredible sacrifices, and many of whom have been spat on for most of (if not all of) their lives by 'the bootstrap crowd' and anybody with hard-fought comfort.
It's the age old combat between those who glean the spoils of life off the backs of those who are born into lesser stations. Has modern wage-slavery finally been unmasked? Is the structure of the world going to change? Is commodities trading going to be outlawed in favor of concrete economics? Are world governments going to concede that they have become accustomed and comfortable with oligarchy? Are America's taxpayers going to be reimbursed for the incredibly reckless and unsustainable policies of its government for the last decade? Is the financial bail-out going to be rectified? Is Greece going to be allowed to fail so that its oligarchs can be exiled in shame? Will the money system and its vice-like grip on human life and potential finally be broken? Will this be the renaissance where our species overcomes its petty tribalism and begins to plan for a great future? Or are we going to face yet another vast heartbreak that the global, soulless hive of moneyed villains will mock us about for decade after hopeless decade? Will 2011 influence the coming century? Will we be able to do great things without the deadly crutch of ideology?
It's clear to me that after this point there are a few roads: 1) the tyranny of sums and figures will continue to oppress a strained and breaking world, or 2) some type of financial civil-war will break out, or the world will begin to change for the better in a concentrated effort or 3) business as usual with slightly more awareness on the part of the populace, and increased spite and tension.
There are probably many, many more possibilities but I see the above three as the most likely. 1 and 3 resemble each other but there is a significant difference between how they might play out in terms of impact on majority politics. 2 is what might have to happen, with a large scale flight from monolithic credit systems and centralized financial power into personal and communal responsibility and smaller economic plays. World hunger is caused in part by ignorance, warfare, and politics, but when this year's crop harvest is speculated on as if the food supply is a roulette wheel for the rich, then... well what? What happens then? What has been happening for more than 20 years? Why subsidies? Why bail-outs? Why silence?
And I for one am glad that the silence has been broken, and that the clamor is spreading. And I laugh at those sneering bastards in tailored clothes, drinking champagne as they watch the under-classes raise hell. Their time will come.
I was a little more right about that part. I've been mostly working since the protests started, I've been unable so far to attend the local protest, and I have heard only a few scattered reports and read a little about the issue since it started. But I have been paying attention. At this point, with the protests spreading and dissatisfaction being aired around the world and income equality becoming a talking point that the ignorant or hostile factions cannot slap down into silence, it seems like these protests are hopeful. They certainly point to a vitality that has belonged to lifestyle activists for the past three years and now finally belongs to everyone. In 2008 there were few protests, most of them astroturfed (and badly) or so far across the spectrum that they were close to insane, frothing rambling.
Imagine my relief when I see on the TV crowds of people of mixed ages and origins, all united, across the world, in protest against... well they're in protest against a lot of things. Mostly coming from America is the "99% rhetoric" which targets the super-wealthy and their stooges, and also the financial sector, lobbyists, and many of the other diseases of affluence that have sickened American democracy since its inception. In Canada, the branch plant of America, the protests are similar. The word 'oligarchy' is being thrown around a lot in conjunction with 'corporate' and people might understand what is meant by those words.
My hope is caused by the fact that the protests attract a good cross-section of people, and are opposed only by the ignorant or politically entrenched or apathetic. In other words this is a confrontation between a system that has succeeded only superficially and its adherents and, on the other side, the people who have been forced to subsist under that system, many of whom have suffered, many of whom have made incredible sacrifices, and many of whom have been spat on for most of (if not all of) their lives by 'the bootstrap crowd' and anybody with hard-fought comfort.
It's the age old combat between those who glean the spoils of life off the backs of those who are born into lesser stations. Has modern wage-slavery finally been unmasked? Is the structure of the world going to change? Is commodities trading going to be outlawed in favor of concrete economics? Are world governments going to concede that they have become accustomed and comfortable with oligarchy? Are America's taxpayers going to be reimbursed for the incredibly reckless and unsustainable policies of its government for the last decade? Is the financial bail-out going to be rectified? Is Greece going to be allowed to fail so that its oligarchs can be exiled in shame? Will the money system and its vice-like grip on human life and potential finally be broken? Will this be the renaissance where our species overcomes its petty tribalism and begins to plan for a great future? Or are we going to face yet another vast heartbreak that the global, soulless hive of moneyed villains will mock us about for decade after hopeless decade? Will 2011 influence the coming century? Will we be able to do great things without the deadly crutch of ideology?
It's clear to me that after this point there are a few roads: 1) the tyranny of sums and figures will continue to oppress a strained and breaking world, or 2) some type of financial civil-war will break out, or the world will begin to change for the better in a concentrated effort or 3) business as usual with slightly more awareness on the part of the populace, and increased spite and tension.
There are probably many, many more possibilities but I see the above three as the most likely. 1 and 3 resemble each other but there is a significant difference between how they might play out in terms of impact on majority politics. 2 is what might have to happen, with a large scale flight from monolithic credit systems and centralized financial power into personal and communal responsibility and smaller economic plays. World hunger is caused in part by ignorance, warfare, and politics, but when this year's crop harvest is speculated on as if the food supply is a roulette wheel for the rich, then... well what? What happens then? What has been happening for more than 20 years? Why subsidies? Why bail-outs? Why silence?
And I for one am glad that the silence has been broken, and that the clamor is spreading. And I laugh at those sneering bastards in tailored clothes, drinking champagne as they watch the under-classes raise hell. Their time will come.
10/6/11
Surprises of the Bitter Kind
Well the recent news about Steve Jobs passing away is truly surprising. I hardly follow the news but I was reading about Jobs earlier this week. He seemed a very interesting person and while not the first of the first-wave technologists to pass away he was a major figure in that scene.
Will Apple become an even more soulless consumer-vampire without him? Will they continue to innovate or will they simply vacillate without Jobs' leadership? The news is saddening but what's worse is that it draws out the cynic in me: why would someone with Jobs' Buddhist past become a shameless corporatist? Or was it always more than that? I'm sure there are many more balanced and knowledgeable perspectives about it, but I have to wonder.
It's sobering news and it happened so quickly. I remember reading the wikipedia entry maybe four days ago and thinking, "Well that resignation stuff has pretty obvious undertones." Seems I was correct but I was thinking this news would drop in a year or so. The man was a leader, think what you will about Apple (especially the Apple of the last decade), but without Jobs it would've been another IBM or some stolid corporation with little to add to the flood of technologized junk into the global consumer markets but expertise and fabrication. Instead they offered some glimpse of progress.
With the release of the iPhone 5 coming up and announced pretty much right as Jobs was dying, it seems like we have a juggernaut of a company that may just be losing its stride at this time. There are several prominent iProducts but they are all iterative, and if there is no corporate vision these will be the products Apple continues to sell and improve until they cease to exist, as well.
Well I can't find a Steve Jobs twitter account, so my usual celebrity death spiel will not be played. Instead a subdued close and a good idea for a Halloween costume.
Will Apple become an even more soulless consumer-vampire without him? Will they continue to innovate or will they simply vacillate without Jobs' leadership? The news is saddening but what's worse is that it draws out the cynic in me: why would someone with Jobs' Buddhist past become a shameless corporatist? Or was it always more than that? I'm sure there are many more balanced and knowledgeable perspectives about it, but I have to wonder.
It's sobering news and it happened so quickly. I remember reading the wikipedia entry maybe four days ago and thinking, "Well that resignation stuff has pretty obvious undertones." Seems I was correct but I was thinking this news would drop in a year or so. The man was a leader, think what you will about Apple (especially the Apple of the last decade), but without Jobs it would've been another IBM or some stolid corporation with little to add to the flood of technologized junk into the global consumer markets but expertise and fabrication. Instead they offered some glimpse of progress.
With the release of the iPhone 5 coming up and announced pretty much right as Jobs was dying, it seems like we have a juggernaut of a company that may just be losing its stride at this time. There are several prominent iProducts but they are all iterative, and if there is no corporate vision these will be the products Apple continues to sell and improve until they cease to exist, as well.
Well I can't find a Steve Jobs twitter account, so my usual celebrity death spiel will not be played. Instead a subdued close and a good idea for a Halloween costume.
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