Why My Attitude to Emoji Did a 180

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I mean, the above is basically the essence of my turnaround. For many years I was of a much different opinion about emoji – I thought they were pointless, stupid, and I would have never used one even in a T9 text. On the internet I used the voraciously, though, but they were known as 'smilies' and seemed a totally different thing – plus most of them depicted smilies electrocuting each other or shooting guns or humping or spilling beer instead of : ) or ; ) like weirdos and dummies in chats might use. I suppose it's a pointless digression, but to me smilies and emoji are conceptually different things that share a similar purpose.

I didn't think about smilies/emoji much from 2005 (when the last forum I enjoyed browsing shut down) to 2013. In that time I still considered them childish things undeserving of a serious mind, fripperies that only made the appearance of communicating anything, creating a muted shorthand for the illiterate to toy with.

Then I picked up a relatively more modern phone and starting using apps and stuff (I am a very late and reluctant adopter of social media) and I found myself using them more and more. The famous emoji 'Face with Tears of Joy' rose like a monolith, and the rest is history. Now I catch myself wanting to use emoji in Facebook, texting emoji to friends who never abandoned a distaste of them (mostly to annoy them and amuse myself), and doing wicked Snaps with emoji making half the point.

I gave in. I joined the merciless social media march. I sold my credibility and the security of being a Skeptical Person, and dove begrudgingly in. Being simultaneously out of touch and trying to decide what 'in touch enough' was for me made for some strange years, which are ongoing. There is a surreal quality to using five different apps and platforms regularly to communicate with friends. It's bizarre to me. To the old me it would have been unthinkable, a grave and simultaneously frivolous mistake, to waste my time in such a way or even to care.

But it did change. And now, instead of wondering whether to write anything at all or which word to delete, I spend actual time to throw an emoji into a text. It's both weird and funny to me. I guess it's more fun to use them, even if only in a sneering way, but they are useful to provide connotations - they can even make sarcasm fly in text form, which is actually quite an elegant solution to a real problem.

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Februrary 2014: I Will Not Miss You

Jay Leno left the Tonight Show earlier this week. Could've been yesterday but I have been inundated with reports about Sochi 2014 - most of them concerning a little thing called the Winter Olympic Games. Already, the biggest opponents have attempted to hijack a plane in order to put some heat on the organizers... the odds of some kind of crazy shit happening in the open (let alone the stories we won't hear till March or later) are high enough to keep everyone placing money on the most outrageous tragedies, disruptions, and events. The Vancouver 2010 luge death might end up looking like a mild sprain, when all is said and done in Sochi.

An entire unit of the Russian Army is patrolling the Georgia/Russia border, and the stuff those guys are getting up to is no doubt quite interesting and compelling, but their opponents have sworn to engage in the sort of chaos-terrorism that military action has not yet been able to completely prevent. I am not reporting this to be gleeful or glib, but dozens of years of military retribution have only managed to stoke the flames of resentment. Even the Cossacks have been called in. While the hijacker/bomb-threat guy is getting beaten up by security personnel and interrogated to within an inch of his life, and incarcerated in a post-gulag gulag, the games must go on. Bookies are refusing to take bets on terrorist activity, citing a worldwide surveillance apparatus and generally bad odds of anything major going wrong (the latter excuse seems questionable to me).

Surely they will, but there is more trouble than just the threat of violence and bomb blasts. There is also bad press, blistering social media output, and international confrontation. A major ideological schism has haunted the Sochi Olympics since last year, and that is the spectre of Russian homophobia, which is not quite so much a regional thing in Sochi. For a while, in late 2013, it seemed as if a few countries might boycott the games, but abandoning the athletes on human rights principles was ultimately considered unthinkable. I am not an expert and I have not been following the issue closely, but I don't think a single country ended up boycotting the games for the beaten and dead gays of Russia.

The Gezi Park Protests And The Delayed Media Response

Any time there is a big ado and it is in spirit against corporatism or authoritarianism there is one easy media conclusion to make if you live in the West: you aren't going to hear a goddamn thing about it. Coverage of Occupy Wall Street was spotty enough and it happened in the West's back yard. But don't worry: when the internet isn't being creepy or fighting about fucktarded opinions, it is accumulating data and 1:10000 of its population is presenting information with as little bias as possible.

To be honest, the Gezi Park Protests are much more supportable than Occupy Wall Street. Why? I mean, sure, both protests had legitimate issues, but only in Turkey has it become egregious enough to erupt in violence. Occupy Wall Street, if you'll remember, was pretty tame. Innocent teenage girls getting pepper-sprayed, drum circles, the mildest police brutality since a drunk white dude got arrested after a hockey game, and the list goes on. Nobody was impressed. The media largely skipped and told the basics, so that apologists and the uncaring middle class could infer it was a bunch of a dumb goddamn hippies (while their 800 billion dollars in tax monies had long gone up the noses of the financial industry).

Turkey, however, is lit up with Mediterranean passion. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the sinister leader figure around whom these protests center, is sort of a hard-line 'Right-Wing Traditional Values Politician'. In the West he would be seen as a creepy, sinister vampire with a hidden agenda - the Right would generally hail him as Reagan Reborn or something nonsensical. In Turkey, a much more serious populace suffered Erdogan's fuckery quietly until he took a step too far and okayed a plan to turn the last park in downtown Istanbul (or Constantinople if you've been living under a rock for the last 600 years) into a goddamn mixed-use shopping mall.

Shopping malls are absolutely the devil, but they're not properly Satanesque until they eat up scarce greenery. I understand the irony of a Traditional Values Muslim Politician (who hates kissing, beer, and young people) destroying a natural place of peace, but that's the oldest game in the West, where so-called conservatives have bulldozed forests and pillaged history with such acumen that the general populace doesn't even care. In the West, however, no matter how powerful our corporate overlords, the last park in a city would never be bulldozed for a goddamn mall/condo construction project based on a preexisting militaristic building. Despicable.

So, quite rightly, ordinary Turks went apeshit and did their best to stop the destruction of an innocent park. The police responded harshly, shooting tear-gas everywhere and blasting people with water cannons. There were reports of civilians getting shot with bullets as well, in case things weren't bad enough. The military sided, unofficially, with the protestors. That was back on 28 May 2013. Since then the western media have made roughly 5% of a big deal about this news, probably in deference to stubborn Erdogan, who is 'our friend in Turkey' and likely portrayed as some kind of nonsense 'bulwark against radicalization'.

This struggle could overturn the Erdogan political dynasty, with unknown effects for Turkey, a vibrant up-and-comer in the world.  Erdogan has done what all Traditional Values Politicans do: he has attempted to white-wash the past while getting rich on corporatism and brutally enforcing his country. He is afraid of bad press, freedom, and pre-marital sex, but if he's a true Conservative Traditional Values Politician he is right now engaging in sex-tourism in a midwest-America bathroom stall – while signing away resource rights to a multinational corporation that promises to subsidize his police force. But, hey, 'police are heroes' so maybe this story should be kept on the backburner awhile.

When there are reports in the West, they are brief and vague. Nobody wants to say 'too much', it seems. It is almost as if censorship in Turkey has spread into North America. Imagine how crazy that would be. What would it mean about North American and Western media if they kept silent about the abuses, threats, and brutality Erdogan has caused in his decade-plus of rule? But then, this isn't the first time mass media have been slow on the uptake. In Turkey itself is the only case of 'true' censorship, wherein television news reports completely ignore the protests. For the rest: enjoy your scraps of information while 'fair and balanced' reporters and organizations figure out their shit.

What if spurned environmentalists could start similar movements in the West? There are certainly abuses of power, and huge problems with the establishment that will not recede peacefully, but instead worsen every year. I bet you that profits would win at the end of the day, protestors or not. Or, worse: another OWS. What matters about Turkey is the theme: if the fight is lost there then the 21st century will look grimmer for the anti-corporatist and brighter for the career politician and the politician's masters (be they religious or business). That's probably why the Western Media is so mum about this story: they already know the answer. Plus it's Shark Week and tornado season has begun.

Of course reporting will open up when censorship is broken, or a reliable narrative can be applied to the story that will not alienate Turkish political elites, or when the story is over. It's not about a park, and it's not the fault of protestors: the Gezi Park protests are ultimately about resisting authoritarianism. The actions of Turkish police have proven it. At this point a few in-depth reports have probably been published. My sympathies absolutely lie with the protestors, and I wish them victory, because if they win, Turkey will be that much better for it.

Whispers of Doom: Opinionated Media, The Age of Indifference, and The Death of Thought

There is nothing original about how opinionated news coverage is. It's tempting to say 'how opinionated the media has become' but it's an old story. Even in the best cases there's a subtle angle or two going on in a story; at worst: well you don't have to look far or read deeply. It used to be that only advertisements and special interest messages or full page buy-ins blended message and content into a delicious slurpee of fact and fantasy. Nowadays there is editorializing run amok. A story can't rest, a tragedy can't be digested, before it is processed into agenda and counter-agenda.

As if there were not enough conflict in the world, and as if easy conclusions were not bountiful [and cheap] enough already, there is the great fight in mass media. No wonder the narrative of the contemporary is blurry: it is being constantly retouched by a cabal as neurotic and sinister and widespread as 40's Stalinist revisionists. They are your friends and your enemies, and they have your neighbor's ear if not yours. You will hear what they say, one way or another, and it may occur to you that it can't matter anymore what you think.

Naturally there is still room to read between the lines. For the claustrophobic, it is not recommended to try: the story there is generally not encouraging either. Everything surrounding it is manic, fallacious, and consistently problematic. User Comment Rodeos are a good joke but really, what an exercise in futility – in the name of some laughs, hopefully. There has to be an 'at least', and that is that we can watch the corrosion of debate and solidification of mistruth, and at least laugh about it.

I am late to that party, but even I can tell it contains some excellent observations by noteworthy members. Stephen Colbert, for one: host of the Daily Show for the 21st century. Generally the news isn't jokeworthy, and turning it into something laughable takes direct confrontation of its most negative features. Held only in context, it's kind of macabre to laugh when 'people are dead/dying'... but if you follow that rabbit hole all the way down you will lose your mind. What matters about Colbert, for instance, is that his stance is based on perspective as well as overwhelming satire. Still, I admit I am no expert, so it could be something else with his show.

What does a politics/satire late night show have to do with news media, worldwide? Only very little: an example of the brighter side. Mostly the news media that exists is corporate in nature and consumerist in action. Generally, Western media is overwhelmingly capitalistic as well, but even to bring that up anecdotally is grounds for suspicion and/or derision, which only makes it truer. When the Rana Plaza Building collapsed in Bangladesh it didn't take long for the apologists and exceptionalists to hurl their agendas into the fray. 'It's a recession, so you know what? The solution is a growing global market, stupid hippies, and that requires affordable labor.' or 'Before you pontificate about these 500 dead garment workers, just remember that many were working women – an economic and feminist victory for that country.' or 'If you think you should feel guilty about that 29 dollar t-shirt made by a worker paid pennies an hour think about these even poorer places where subsistence farmers aren't even exploited by billion-dollar multi-national corporations!'

These are the kinds of things that develop from an overly opinionated media. The story itself was buried in the rubble of a society scrambling to indemnify itself against all charges of complicity. The careful thoughtfulness which can only come from an understanding of things is ever eclipsed by the need to feel strongly about things, to feel superior to or protected from problems, and [for 'a lucky few'] to exploit strong feelings for profit or power. This is nothing new, and is probably a fundamental limit on any possibility of a human solution to the problem. What plagued us as suspicious tribes slaughtering each other in the Neolithic will plague us with nuclear weapons, drone strikes, surveillance, social unrest, and terrorism in the present.

Yeah, I'm getting all of this from a handful of unqualified public user internet commentary, some TV shows, and the odd newspaper. I sometimes cover user comment posts - it seems like a frightening low, come to think of it. Still, all of these things say something about contemporary society. Even the agendas, approached critically, sometimes reveal a little about their motivations. Still, it is not the done thing to wonder about the world. All minds bog down with immediate concerns: on that account there is either no blame to spread or too much to imagine. However, it is and has always been important to open one's eyes now and again, to accept the surprise of being wrong, and there are [in the media alone] too many entrenched positions for that to be true.

As a lowly member of the public, I feel from the media world little other than indifferent contempt – with few exceptions. I don't understand how everyone doesn't feel that way. Companies/governments/media outlets talk down to me all day, in advertisements and productions in every form of media, their lackeys on the street, the social mores they've normalized, the behaviors they encourage, police, cause, and propagate. If I think differently than I ought to, things will seem grimmer than they have to, and maybe that's unhealthy. 'Being happy is being healthy, so even in inclement times, you should focus on you, and be happy!'

Of course, feeling uncomfortable about this situation is absurd, abnormal, or paranoid. The cues are everywhere and they tell me to continue to consume the media, maintain or improve my standing in society, and that things are getting better every day. 'The future is coming, along with the following exciting products and services...'

There will always be 'incidents' and your betters and heroes in politics, business, and the media will cover those. You will know what to think the minute you hear any story, without hesitation or reflection. You might have overblown fights with complete strangers about something trifling you disagree on, but you'll never question why. The irrelevance of opinion [and opinions' sources] is the only thing in doubt. There might be opinions published in and around the news that are unacceptable because they are one-sided and/or myopic, but at least they're only kinda presented as truth, in the sense that they are argued convincingly but never based on facts.

Oh well. Agree to disagree. The headlines will confirm what you were thinking anyway. Whatever you do: don't search for cures - your old friends are waiting for you.

The Character Assassination of Robert B. Ford

It was, all in all, a great week for Toronto. The possibility of a downtown casino had been quashed by the premier, another condo development had been announced (this one will replace the aging, unsightly, and low-density Fort York), and the numbers proved what citizens had known for ten years: public transit was highly popular, perhaps too popular. All the city needed was another news story or an influx of tourists, and the golden summer of 2013 could begin.

Nobody could have expected that the greatest news story of all time would descend, causing a vortex of mad news that would spread across the world. A truly world-class story would emerge from the general rubbish of Toronto news (three parts middle-class entitlement to one part crime/poverty stories) and take the world by storm – even better: it would lead to worldwide news coverage.

Noteworthy Rob Ford hater and inveterate populist newspaper The Toronto Star had been at the forefront of research into the newest Rob Ford Media Fiasco. However, when the story became too hot for the Canada/US border it was broken by a New York based internet company, Gawker. One gets the impression of a sweating editorial meeting at the Star, shirtsleeves and pantsuits, the editor in chief wearily smoking a cigarette and shaking her head - 'They scooped us, Jesus Christ, that was our story! One more fuck up like this and we're done!' Never mind, of course, that if the Toronto Star had reported on the story first it would never have become a world-class piece of news.

It was the hottest piece of Canadian hearsay since that fuddle-duddle about Laureen Harper, which many still do not know and got to be so hot it involved the RCMP. Even the Laureen Harper rumors failed to capture the world's attention – most likely since they only existed in Ottawa, where they were firmly proved, before the media was scared with warnings about tangling with the Prime Minister's Office and the RCMP. Well, move along, old story. Here's a golden one: Rob Ford smokes crack. Allegedly, because the drug dealers who have the video aren't letting it go for less than $100,000 at least, and double that for U.S. media outlets. Nobody's bought it yet, but those young entrepreneurs are proving that you don't need education or ethical high ground to make the news! Truly they are sending a good message in the Recession Era for self starters everywhere.

What do you think of that? That's absolutely world class, and the media is acting like it's shameful. In a country where senators are getting away with fraudulent misuse of taxpayer money, and the government generally looks down on the populace, the private enjoyment of privately-funded crack cocaine by a family man and Mayor of Toronto seems to be the Goliath of news. In reality it isn't even that newsworthy at all: Canada is a real country and things happen outside of Toronto. However, there is an element of schadenfreude in all this: Canada hates Toronto and the most vocal parts of Toronto hate Rob Ford. Everyone wins with a story like this.

Toronto should embrace this man, but establish firm limits on his ability to gut downtown or mass transit. Rob Ford is a brilliant statesman in the new mode: what matters is politics as a game. Promise the people what they want and then go forth, and do what you want. Words to live by. In America he would be a millionaire CEO, a Senator, or a Governor. Since it's America, he probably wouldn't have strayed far from powder cocaine. In Canada he is a Michael Bloomberg - a Canadian Billionaire and a Mayor, and possibly a Man Who Smoked Crack. This is truly world class, and Toronto owes him for his services, for the media exposure, and for the good times.

Most importantly, Rob Ford is a tenacious fighter and a winner. He has faced incredible backlash since before he was Mayor. He was the dissolute son of a rich man, they said, and just another byproduct of the broken North American Democracy. They thought he wasn't built of the right stuff, but as it turns out, Rob Ford is. Every failure of optics has been overcome, from the anger management issues, to the balance issues, to the aggressive cameraman issues. Nobody in Canadian politics is man enough to deal with Ford, and that fear is what contributes to the largely biased and negative coverage.

In a daring show of solidarity with the poor addicts of the world, Rob Ford smoked crack. He is rich enough to enjoy powder cocaine, but he wanted to let the world know that rich people can get down with rocks too, we're all generally the same - some of us are just rich enough to govern the rest. Isn't that the American Dream come to life in Center-Right Socialist Canada? Rob Ford is truly a contender in politics, unlike generally all other politicians, he isn't afraid of crime, drugs, or poor people. If his people are smart enough to spin this story the right way, he will be Prime Minister in ten years, and then the fun can really begin!

Definitely a Big Deal

Oh certainly the election in the United States of America is a big deal. It's a big deal, alright? I wasn't really following it like some others, but I hear it was a close race. Congratulations to the candidates, both of them, for not going too low. For not spending too much corporate monies, you know? I'm sure things will be better from here on out.

For one thing, every newscast is going to have to find something else important to report on every day without pause during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 24 hour news cycles are going to have to wait for the first big event. Basically, the media needs to find the next thing to drive into the ground/beat like a dead horse. Don't worry, news junkies! The media is good at finding something else.

I for one am happy that I won't have to hear about the election anymore. I was thoroughly tired of it. I was tired of people asking why, in my country, we should still care so much about the Emperor of the United States of America. Sorry. Wait... I'm leaving that terrible joke in there, as chastisement for all the hours and minutes I've had to spend listening to dummies talk about how politics are going to play out. Everyone who said, "Listen to these economic woes, this territorial instability, or that ongoing war" – bless you. Nobody listened, unfortunately, because big money was rolling around and two titanic monopolies were fighting about the 'future'. I took notice, but alas, I rarely take notice of the news.

I was tired of being asked who I thought I would win. I was tired of the sharp sensation that Romney might have an edge, even though it was all optics. Madmen would vote Romney into power. Madmen would suggest that one candidate was more Reaganific than the other (they were both equals in that regard). Oh there were so many 'experts' and talking heads, and dumb quacks, and vicious moments. I really wondered about it. So many Jon Stewart quips and bits some good, some bad, some reused by Colbert or improved by him... All for what? Yea, the elections here are less exciting. Our government's fist is empillowed and our people are indolent and selfish. It is like any other country, but our politicians have less money and less power than a Goddamn President, baby!

The president, be he a wise man or a fool, cannot by himself fix the job market. Even his policies cannot undo what was done or enacted by his predecessors. The president's foreign policies, no matter how balanced or cautious or brutal cannot end foreign grief and heartbreak and vengeance. The president, male or female, is no magician. The president, honorable or despicable, is not a coat-hook for your dreams, your identity, or your aspirations. So be thankful that someone got the job, and that you don't have to hear about campaigns for another few months (the joke is that some kind of politic is going to be news in about six hours, let alone six months or four years). Work on developing your own person. Work on developing your own community, think on what your country really means to you. Wherever you are, think on who really owns it, and who suffers for it and who pays for what – and above all, who spends the money.

For the record, I think both candidates had fair points to make. I think Romney was interested in making his points very badly, and Obama was a touch more eloquent and balanced in his point-making. I don't think either had valid platforms for fixing real issues, and I think their parties are at fault. I think this campaign, whatever else, should teach people that simple, dumbed-down, mass democracy built around polarized 'hot-topics' and sub-human 'brand politics' creates the America poor Obama has to continue running. A country, mind you, filled with partisan hatred, fear, poverty, ignorance, racism, problems... upon problems... upon problems, and then inequality, and then all the other petty possibilities that come from a populace which follows such a dreamlike, expensive, overblown and maniacal 'campaign season' to their (I stress 'their') own cost.

To which I say, excellent. You paid for it, you enjoy it. I wish I'd seen less of it, so the result would be more of a surprise. Lovely Americans, have a great second Obamian Term, and stop bitching about it so much. Romney shouldn't have sourced his logoed garbage from China, and if the results of the election anger you in any way, you should think on that point very carefully. Hopefully you realize the point.

In the meantime, everyone, search for your heart's content for the overblown, ridiculous, and spiteful American Response. We are in for social media's darkest, stupidest hour. And let us not forget, as well, that broadcast television newscasts will probably STILL take a full week to shut up about the events of the last twenty-four hours.

Bookishness Reloaded

50 Shades of Grey and its ilk have been on the bestseller lists all year. Really long now and I'm wondering about it. They've basically made it a place for them to hang out. I don't know how any serious watchers of the bestseller list feel about it. I don't even know if there are serious watchers of the bestseller lists. I suppose, ultimately, there should be a few, and none of them should be surprised by what generally hangs out there. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with what hangs out there.

The whole 50 Shades debacle is the latest of an entire series of its kind. The ecosystem of modern publishing doesn't strike one as exclusively healthy – but there's nothing wrong with it, per se. Or so one thinks, ultimately the nonfiction lists aren't really super hopeful either. But there's also sometimes interesting stuff. Whether or not it's brewed by committee, exploits the zeitgeist, and has 'buzz' and 'word of mouth' and 'traction' are the great indicators of sales. Commercial success nullifies critical success and proves the naysayers wrong, inept, and out of touch. Or it should/might/doesn't, depending on how you feel about unlimited free market, incorporated.

The funny thing is, in this era dictionaries have actually created entries on mots célèbre that have no longevity or ultimate worth. I'm looking at you, 'frenemy'. The news crowed joyously about frenemy and friends getting into Webster and Oxford for the better part of a week, probably more than 12 months ago now. What increases the hilarity factor is that the conservative book set (most publishers, consumers, etc) actually sees the potential for twitter literature as a good thing. They might shit if it was considered to switch to a pure paperless market (which is sort of a scary idea when one considers it), but they will fill their own pages with the sort of meaningless colloquial twaddle that has no fundamental role in language. The white noise of language and of literature, and the much hyped 'echo chamber' effect of Twitter is involved somehow. Publishers bank on books that are too big to fail and they go to town whenever some book becomes so important that everyone needs a copy right now. They aim to remain relevant as opposed to fundamental. Language skills and general output are fucked enough without a neoliberal approach to neologisms.

So if you really think about the situation as it stands, the publishing ecosystem is a bit like every other large-scale market ecosystem: some smaller companies, independent organizations, and identities cling to the vestiges with varying success; by and large it consists of gigantic entities producing essentially a monoculture. So what? The incredible size and awesome power of these entities is something that should inspire us, their offerings are delivered with unthinkable force to vast numbers, on a scale that was relatively recently unthinkable. This is no minor business, even this allegedly 'dying' publishing industry.

There exists more written word than can be reliably processed by any one person. This condition is hardly new or revelatory, but it seems worth mentioning no matter how many thousands of years it's been true. Seeing as the human world still exists, and written word is still very essential to its development and even survival, the immense pile of written work should not merely be considered refuse. Some of it obviously stinks, but it's necessary.

Still. At this advanced stage the offerings aren't always on the level. The fact that one book hangs onto a bestseller list for months, in one country, means that not enough books are being shared, or that the market isn't dynamic enough, or anything because its actual value cannot be the ultimate monetary sum represented by its time on the bestseller lists. All of which is beside the point, I know.

Modern Hopelessness - User Comment Rodeo

I read an article awhile ago while I was looking around for interesting anti-consumerist agitprop. Mostly I was just trying to feel better, but of course there are a million problems and only a few dozens of mostly ideological solutions so I wound up feeling completely fucked. But you gotta believe in something! That or you begin to volunteer and first try to solve your stubborn local problems, remembering the enemy for later. While, you know, scraping a living together and trying not to end up on the streets, without a roof over your head or a pot to piss in. Odds are if you're young, you're over-educated and underemployed, and everyone is shitting on you because you want a good life, not even The Good Life as sold to you by the multinational greed-ignorance system. Or you're an entitled youth with an iPhone and you used to really like Dubstep but now it's more EDM and mostly it's weed, beers, and bros.

I sort of like Adbusters. All of their articles are alarmist, which gets a bit old, and which excuses severe lapses in discipline and research. Best part is, the alarmist tone is often warranted. Anybody not actively living in deluded ignorance can see that there are a lot of things wrong with the world and that, as a species, we might be fucking ourselves over. In fact, we probably are, and the problems stack up while the disbelievers go around like business as usual. Racism, sexism, ageism, exceptionalism, cronyism, patriarchy, oligarchy, police states, xenophobia, terrorism, war mongering, corporatism, you name it – there are issues for everyone. Pick your side and hold a fractious conflict against your opponents while the world withers. Throw stones, hurl insults, utter blanket statements about shit you don't really know much about. That's the game right now and we're doing a great job wasting the years playing it. There's this huge amount of angst everywhere, seemingly residing in less than 5% of the population. So it goes without saying that Adbusters is not popular and possibly stigmatized by whatever evil ghosts rule the world.

There was one online article that was kind of interesting. It was written in the same mildly alarmist hyperbolic style and touched on reality in a way that complements the dread of modern society that some people feel. Ironically, to be on point, the article has to focus on the hollow spectacle of western culture – which means it discusses a lot of supercilious bullshit amongst the mentions of economic woes, class warfare, and impending monolithic doom. Pretty much worth the fifteen minutes it takes to read and dismissive of 'feel good' movements in the west. The comment section drew me further into the puzzle... I didn't have time to read it all, but it didn't take long to find some real beauties lurking among the rank weeds.