Tag: critique

penisball

So I was tossing and turning over night, agonizing over a specific question: is pop culture dead?

Of course, “pop culture” can never really “die” so long as there’s entertainment, fashion, etc. But has it fundamentally shifted in a way that requires new methods of critique?

Guys like Theodore Adorno were critiquing “pop culture” way back in the 1940s, claiming things like movies, music, etc. were massed produced commodities and were therefore not genuine (or whatever). But maybe the pandemic and the prolific use of the internet has changed the game.

Obviously these things have changed the way we interact with pop culture, but the question I’m concerned with is: “has the pandemic, and specifically the internet, changed the very nature of pop culture itself.”

(This is all from my dementia-driven perspective, btw)

Anyways, what made me agonize over this question is that everything feels a little passé. When people talk about reading tweets, I’m thinking “you’re still using Twitter?”. Even at 106 years old, I feel like I’m more “in the know” than most 20 year olds. It’s not because I’m “cooler” than them, it’s because they don’t give a shit. So how can “pop culture” be pop culture if it’s not popular?

Please help me. I haven’t slept in 27 days.

the matrix sucks (and so does it’s philosophy)

Honestly, I barely remember the Matrix. It was forgettable and bland, much like Keanu Reeves.

I’ve never seen the sequels and I never will.

Unfortunately it has left an indelible mark on our social consciousness, so I can’t but be reminded of it every time I look at the internet.

The philosophy of the Matrix has always kind of annoyed me. I don’t know if that’s the fault of the film, or by the malcontents that roam the web.

I’m vaguely familiar with Jean Baudrillard. I guess much of the film’s philosophy is influenced by his work, specifically Simulacra and Simulation. Never read it. But a quick Google search would suggest that there’s some overlap with my own personal philosophy which I discussed in “the joker sucks” series.

Since I never read Baudrillard (and probably never will) I can’t provide a valuable critique, but I’d venture to say that I’d break from his central thesis: that reality is somehow made “less real” by excessive use of “symbols”,“consumerism”, or “late stage capitalism”. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on that thesis)

Reality IS distorted by human perception, and human perception is, to a degree, culturally constructed. But reality is, by definition really, real…regardless of how our perceptions change.

So, in reality, “the Matrix” in the Matrix is actually Reality, and the “desert of the real” (with all the mythology and sinister forces at play) is actually the Fantasy.

None of this matters to the quality of the film AS A FILM, but when its philosophy is utilized as genuine cultural critique by internet malcontents, they completely miss the irony.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t know what the Internet is. Is it real? A pointless fantasy projected onto real physical materiality? The “Real” Matrix that we all must escape from?

I guess it’s just mental masturbation for me.

Anyways, shit’s boring. Lost my train of thought. Basically I’m saying the same shit in “the joker sucks” but I’m applying it to the Matrix because the two are overused memes from overrated films.

Also, recognize fantasy when you see it.

Again, sorry for my tiny dick