Shifting Paradigms

Duct-Tape Bananas, Ragebait & Some Personal Breakthroughs...

“Comedian” by Maurizio Cattelan (2019). Personally, I prefer my bananas on white to come with a spot of music.

While I’m still plotting that video exploring the right’s failings in arts and entertainment and prospective points of success, I’m finding myself increasingly disinterested in the topic, and that came to a head recently. The news is out that an infamous conceptual piece sold again for millions. Last night, having been to above my head with talk of it, I penned another of my venomous screeds, admonishing those who keep giving this work “power” instead of doing quite frankly anything else. And when I awoke, I found myself in the unusual position of a bit more disagreement than such outbursts normally court. I vented with peers, who also gave me some more push-pull as well. I deleted it so I could focus on work instead of wasting anymore hours on X than I already had.

And then a certain feeling came wrenching through my gut.

It wasn’t the piercing of an echo chamber, nor the indignity of being “wrong,” because to be blunt, I’m not. Unless you’re kicking down the door with a Bren Ten screaming “FREEZE” on your alleged money launderers, or you’re publicly and consistently countersignaling this nonsense with actual art you value, it is a waste of time. If you are doing these things: great, bitch all you like. If not, you are part of the problem.

Moreover, this banana living rent-free in the zeitgeist’s head for half-a-decade did contribute to its increased value. In the same way hate-watching delivers dollars and relevance into the hands of companies that spit in your face, the fact “Comedian” has remained something of a icon for the Dadaist insanity of modern fine art has unfortunately blessed it with a substantial reputation. A right-time, right-place expression of bizarre banality that pissed off enough people and ensured itself a small place in art history. If you want to feel better about yourself, say you helped “prank” a millionaire into buying a banana on a wall. But by that virtue, aren’t you now the “comedian” Cattelan titled the piece after?

The sensation, in truth, had nothing to do with the blowback, or the banana. It was the feeling of becoming something I loathe and detest: the angry pundit.

Title Card for The Hole (1962, Hubley & Hubley)

Earlier that night, after fits and starts in my writing, I sat down for an animated short film. 1962’s The Hole, directed by husband-wife duo John & Faith Hubley, the former a legend of style icons United Productions of America (UPA). It was an improvised conversation between construction workers, animated in the Hubleys’ unique mid-century modern styles, and performed by jazz artist Dizzy Gillespie and long-time Hollywood heavy George Matthews. It was a slow burner at first, one that grew into an exchange equal parts funny and furious, with kitchen-table Cold War conversations soon dominating the proceedings. And all throughout it, I was enjoying myself, and was floored by its finale. As a chaser, I dug up an old abstract Jordan Belson short, 1959’s High Voltage. All the Cold War talk made it feel like staring at three minutes-worth of nuclear fallout, and I felt the palette had finally been cleansed. I was thinking straight again, I felt like I was gonna.

And then I saw that “Comedian” had sold for $6M and the rightoid social media ecosystem was banging the same useless drum they had for five-plus years.

And then I made that post.

And then I saw the reaction.

And then I realized: I had just wasted whatever energy cultivated the night before on screaming at strangers screaming about a banana on a wall into the black hole that is internet discourse and social media.

And Christ, do I regret it. Not because I fear reprisal or conversation, but because of the futility of it all. I am at my best when learning or creating. It’s how I make my money, it’s how I keep sane, and it’s how I cut my teeth and improve my talents. That one post triggered a flood of realizations, about the abject insanity of social media, of the absolute vacuum of productivity made by scrolling through feeds of shit you don’t need, things you can’t buy, and opinions you’re better off without.

How many hours have I wasted on that godforsaken site, trying to convince people who are either not there, already on side, or too thick to think? How many mad ramblings have I vomited into the ether, never to see the light of day again after their 48 hours of circulation, if they circulate at all? Sure I’ve made friends there, but those friendships can be reached via email and phone and Discord. There was once a time when it was easy to grow your platform, but now you’ve got a million angles of attack to pierce this ineffable black box we call “the algorithm.” Not to mention that the very platform upon which I’m writing this is still effectively suppressed over on the only platform I have a substantial following on, which has reduced cross-pollination.

Then another thought: how many people, who could make the world a better place, who could get up and really make something terrific, are permanently trapped in this cycle of outrage and low-effort dopamine? How many are just thumb-flicking their way through life, venting outrages without a hope in hell of effecting any change?

Even if not a single soul currently using social media was that inebriated by its nature, the thought of at least hundreds of thousands of people like that scared me shitless. Even if it was impossible for the common man to become terminally online, the potential to become that angry, gamer-chair bound man, forever shrieking at a computer screen or a phone, is almost cosmic in its horror.

That revelation wasn’t the only part of the gut-wrench, though. The other part was a good old-fashioned case of “we’re not so different, you and I.”

Am I fully justified in wanting to focus my attention on actual positive change instead of wallowing in a conversation I’ve seen spinning its wheels for years? You bet your ass I am. But at the same time, there are people who, given the sudden shift in the political winds, may genuinely only just now be hip to a lot of weird cultural shit. And part of my problem was assuming that everyone is already on the same page. The pundit’s excuse is that they’re getting paid to bang the gong, but the truth of the matter is that not everyone’s a pundit.

That said, I do still think that we’re stuck in a system that hinges more on the engagement gained through negativity than through positive impact, and that’s the last part of this: I played the game that I hate, and I won the only prizes there were. Like the protracted reeing over bananas on walls led to its inflated value, to what end does being an angry schmuck online actually break people out of their continuum?

The honest answer is that it doesn’t. It’s just more blood for the blood gods, more white noise to pollute the information superhighway. It’s too easy to let the venom get to you and to give it free rein on a platform where no one can come to your door and personally split your skull over an opinion.

Insert overused R.E. Howard quote here.

It’s too easy to be an asshole online, and the fact of the matter is, it only pays to be one if you go in wholesale, and make it your main M.O. And as vicious as I can get at times, it truthfully isn’t my M.O. I’m not here to be the next “Comicsgate King,” nor an internet bloodsports gladiator, nor the next TurkeyTom video in your feed. I happen to enjoy the arts and entertainment. I wouldn’t be making movies, music or other forms of fiction if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have cultivated such a wide base of knowledge if I didn’t. And I think, in conjunction on my recent election treatise, this is the final nail in the coffin for me really getting up in arms about these things politically and sociologically.

The video’s still coming, but the tone and style of everything has changed, because I realized that all the old ways are not working anymore. We’re not in the old world anymore, we’re not living thru “The End of History.” It isn’t the 200X, it isn’t 201X, and it sure as hell ain’t 2020-2023 anymore. I’m not interested in what I already know, I’m not interested in playing ideological favorites, and I’m not interested in being an angry idiot online. I’m interested in the future. I’m interested in building and believing in it rather than sign its death warrant on a daily basis by not working towards it. I’d rather be productive and fulfilled, even if it means I miss out on “discourse” and hot topics, than be screaming into the void, because in the end, it’s not worth energy expended.

To quote Mark Twain (however apocryphal the attribution itself may be): “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Although by that definition, maybe this was all just a case of heartburn. I’ll pop some TUMS and get back to work.

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