Games

I really need to flesh out my thoughts on this at some point. But in the social media age especially you get to see a lot of people who’s entire life defined and like “milestoned” by their consumption and interaction with consumer culture.

Their endorsement of brands is the closest thing they have to patches on a battle vest. Your interactions with the world are literally instances of consumption and therefore it’s possible to be so far gone that you need to list out ~~everything~~ every product and property you’ve ever enjoyed and to qualify them as being perfectly aligned with your “identity”. Identity in quotes because if these people even have any culture they can’t fucking see it and they just know they have to point at things and say they’re theirs. It’s Persona, their conservativecore game™, of course.

Someone in my friend group got basically cooked by Twitter over a few years and left the groupchats recently, but there are so many instances of this. I really remember a lot of like distressingly chuddy Tintin edits?

I have a lot of thoughts on consumption-as-identity-as-consumption. I’ve had to visit Dubai for work a few times and good lord has that given me perspective. So many moving parts. Accessibility is a good thing. Being proud of having everything be accessible is a good thing. A lot more people in wheelchairs out in public than I’m used to seeing in Beirut. But when “everything” is 80% buying shoes and buying hamburgers, what are we facilitating really? If I see more types people being included in public because “public” is 70% air conditioned malls staffed by people who earn peanuts… Am I expected to clap for the open mindedness of “Now even people in wheelchairs can purchase products!” and not ask any more questions? (This is a tangential topic that’s kind of like rainbow capitalism for our region)

I know this might seem unrelated and this is just a late rant but god I fucking hate capitalism and how it sinks its mycelia into culture and taste and fucking everything you could ask to enjoy. I don’t want to look at more people being accepted and immediately assume it’s to make more sales. I don’t want to look at every single cultural or political moment, good or bad, and immediately think of the optics. I don’t want to understand the word “hobby” as “consumption community” anymore. Can we not live in the real world for a second? Fuck!

Propaganda sure is the answer. The question is if these people can be reached IRL. I am kind of fed up with not doing anything for change.