Sun, light and not enough time to use it.
There have always been whole areas of the Internet where you just shouldn’t go; the comments on YouTube videos and some Reddit threads (I really like Reddit for finding interesting and weird stuff by the way but I keep it at arms length) but it seems like you’re now only two clicks away from someone with a bio like ‘crypto theologian’ on Irish microblog Twitter dot com. I read a sentence just now from one of these people (with hundreds of thousands of followers) ‘Wokeness is a mind virus optimized for propagation on the English internet‘ and just sort of stared at it while trying to untangle the thinking behind such a statement. It sat there, innocuous amidst a variety of bombastic predictions about markets and meek conspiracy theories and the assertion that ‘the market’ should moderate the ‘consensus on history.’ It’s all sort of mawkishly grotesque; like watching street mime and it’s all written to seduce people exactly like me.
It promises white men control, power, wealth and escape: In a talk to a San Francisco startup event, this person encouraged me to save, leave the city, conceal my identity, diversify my holdings. I may as well have been told to buy gold and bury it in a forest, such was the sentiment with which wealth and society was treated. It tells me that social justice is just identity politics playing out in the media; something being done to me against my will by ‘woke corporations’ for profit and promises that if I follow it, I won’t have to change, learn, make any concessions or confront my complicity.
It’s the very slightly less bad version of 4chan trolls but legitimised because they’ve read James C. Scott and get invited to speak at tech conferences. They use memes and laser eyes and are hooked on the inevitability of their vindication; this curiously masculine trait of just believing that if you can convince yourself that something is real, everyone else will believe you, and many men my age do. I don’t often encounter these people in real life and although I’m clearly bang on the demographic, I don’t have the qualities of a good mark; I’m not that interested in accruing wealth or in any way angry or bitter about the opportunities I’ve had in life.
Why have I written this? I don’t know. I suppose it’s just worth remembering that the Internet has created this place for angry white men to try and bait each other into their schemes for violence and hoarding and that probably accounts for most of it now. To be honest I also didn’t have much to say this week. I’m taking a coffee break (second breakfast) between a bunch of things and spent that time gawping at Twitter like a 2013 wastrel with nothing to do but refresh my menshies.
Short Stuff
- Great sounding retrospective of the work of Matrix on at Barbican. I wasn’t aware of their work before coming across the article.
- Claire Evans has written about Hic et Nunc, highlighting how it supports emerging artists in Brazil who might otherwise struggle to pursue their practice with lack of social nets and gallery support that we enjoy in Europe.
- On the other side of the… coin. Big hedge funds have now started to take the opportunity to reopen fossil fuel plants to mine bitcoin.
Ok, Giro’s back today. I love Bernal, was really excited to see him again after his struggled at the Tour last year so I really hope he wins. I’ve watched this rocket take over like twenty times; just the most amazing climb, overtaking everyone and putting in a ten second lead. Listen, don’t look at the hateful Irish microblog, everyone is very angry. I love you of course, but you know that, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth saying. Speak to you next week.