I would argue there's more to it, not less. The absurdity is the means rather than the end. The end is oligarchical gangsterism, like say Russia today or America in the gilded age (the other one).
These powerful people that publicly bow to the Trump, do the shitposting and get successfully elected doing it, and do things like incite mobs to terrorize elected politicians doing their jobs in the Capital Buildings; they're all looking ahead to when state power is reduced and they can do whatever they want, with no consequences. For some that would be rising the South again, for others enacting an Ayn Randian fantasyland, for others again it's just power and wealth and nothing deeper than that, etc. etc.
When you frame it in the lens of that endgame, a lot of the bits fall into place. Democracy is the obstacle to achieving more power. All the other somewhat apolitical absurdities, like the bitcoins and the nft's and all the rest of it, create an atmosphere of noise and confusion. Though it may be largely unintentional, the internet froth in general helps Team Shitposter move their ball.
Jeff's comment about oligarchical gangsterism sounds right to me.
In a more connected world, democracy is a problem if you want to acquire power and wealth.
Sure, the bad actors can do all the expensive nefarious stuff a la Cambridge Analytica to swing democratic elections, but they also launched meme wars, a gamification of popular opinion. Posters – whether that's Chad from Spokane or Dmitri at the IRA – are digital soldiers taking ground one meme, one mind at a time. Flood the zone with shit and any meaningful criticism, paper trail, or counter narrative gets lost in the effluent. Trust the plan. Hold the line. Meme Dog wins in the end.
I kind of rationalize it like this: we live in a society (fuck, restart this)...there are a bunch of people whose art is completely reflective of those people's culture and this culture believes that donald trump literally rode into DC on the hood of a fucking Panzer with single showering him like ticker tape while screaming bald eagles flew overhead. Some of these people sell this art of t-shirts and flags from roadside stands along Highway 67/167 between Marshall and Greenbriad, Arkansas, while others made it their desktop background as they bought tacticool plate carriers and joined the intellectual dark web. This latter group (rightly) realized that our financial systems were stacked against them and (thinking they admired the Winklevoss kids but really just being into Armie Hammer (eww, David)) leeched onto the crypto world. Once that happened, Elon Musk and Elon Musk's Massive Swaddled Dong were inevitable.
The current incarnation NFTs are the pet rocks of crypto commerce. Eventually they might become more substantial, but not for digital art. Rather, they will be used for boring stuff like car and house titles. But that won’t happen until they have the force of law behind them, so I’d watch what Wyoming and/or other states do to enable that.
This is one of those pieces/posts that makes one really sad but also, weirdly, is a kind of salve. Feels kinda nice to see someone expressing these thoughts, but the thoughts are depressing. It seems like the level of seriousness is, across the board, just pathetically low.
It all feels like an evolved form of “for the lulz” — like a nasty digital virus variant. A mindset that, despite everything, still sees what happens online as decoupled from real life, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.
So, NFTs, imo, are just a way to quantify units in an "attention economy." So is a cybercurrency, but that's fungible and traded as anonymous units. The value of Dogecoin tells you how much attention Dogecoin is getting. But NFTs claim to quantify the amount of attention-value garnered by, say, an image being featured in the NYTimes for being auctioned at a famous auction house for large sums? Or the attention-value of a fragment of an youtube video that the purchaser is now incentivized to promote? There's a lot of kinds of attention. The most irresistible forms of attention are those that most resemble a toddler with a dirty diaper reaching a hand in and painting mommy's windows doodie brown... unfortunately. It was not welcome when the tabloid Trump took over politics, it was not welcome when garish, cruel "reality tv" took over our idiot boxes... but so long as attention-seekers get attention, they'll keep doing what they're doing, and NFTs more than anything put a specific dollar figure on the amount of attention a person, group, or company can absurdly "whore" themselves out for.
Good piece, thanx. You might consider, that from early on, one of the main goals of netculture was to enter meatspace via "meme magic", which might be one of the central points of GameStop and these instances. Its a demonstration of nerd-power. Its more than vengeful nihilism, but doesn't qualify as protest. Its more like "Because I can" than anything else.
I would argue there's more to it, not less. The absurdity is the means rather than the end. The end is oligarchical gangsterism, like say Russia today or America in the gilded age (the other one).
These powerful people that publicly bow to the Trump, do the shitposting and get successfully elected doing it, and do things like incite mobs to terrorize elected politicians doing their jobs in the Capital Buildings; they're all looking ahead to when state power is reduced and they can do whatever they want, with no consequences. For some that would be rising the South again, for others enacting an Ayn Randian fantasyland, for others again it's just power and wealth and nothing deeper than that, etc. etc.
When you frame it in the lens of that endgame, a lot of the bits fall into place. Democracy is the obstacle to achieving more power. All the other somewhat apolitical absurdities, like the bitcoins and the nft's and all the rest of it, create an atmosphere of noise and confusion. Though it may be largely unintentional, the internet froth in general helps Team Shitposter move their ball.
Speculation of course. Open to counter.
Jeff's comment about oligarchical gangsterism sounds right to me.
In a more connected world, democracy is a problem if you want to acquire power and wealth.
Sure, the bad actors can do all the expensive nefarious stuff a la Cambridge Analytica to swing democratic elections, but they also launched meme wars, a gamification of popular opinion. Posters – whether that's Chad from Spokane or Dmitri at the IRA – are digital soldiers taking ground one meme, one mind at a time. Flood the zone with shit and any meaningful criticism, paper trail, or counter narrative gets lost in the effluent. Trust the plan. Hold the line. Meme Dog wins in the end.
I kind of rationalize it like this: we live in a society (fuck, restart this)...there are a bunch of people whose art is completely reflective of those people's culture and this culture believes that donald trump literally rode into DC on the hood of a fucking Panzer with single showering him like ticker tape while screaming bald eagles flew overhead. Some of these people sell this art of t-shirts and flags from roadside stands along Highway 67/167 between Marshall and Greenbriad, Arkansas, while others made it their desktop background as they bought tacticool plate carriers and joined the intellectual dark web. This latter group (rightly) realized that our financial systems were stacked against them and (thinking they admired the Winklevoss kids but really just being into Armie Hammer (eww, David)) leeched onto the crypto world. Once that happened, Elon Musk and Elon Musk's Massive Swaddled Dong were inevitable.
Excellent piece.
The current incarnation NFTs are the pet rocks of crypto commerce. Eventually they might become more substantial, but not for digital art. Rather, they will be used for boring stuff like car and house titles. But that won’t happen until they have the force of law behind them, so I’d watch what Wyoming and/or other states do to enable that.
This is one of those pieces/posts that makes one really sad but also, weirdly, is a kind of salve. Feels kinda nice to see someone expressing these thoughts, but the thoughts are depressing. It seems like the level of seriousness is, across the board, just pathetically low.
It all feels like an evolved form of “for the lulz” — like a nasty digital virus variant. A mindset that, despite everything, still sees what happens online as decoupled from real life, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.
Did the absurdity of trump make this “reasonable”?
Catch 22 via Monty Python, or the world as a Twitter playground? Orwell wasn’t prescient enough, methinks.
So, NFTs, imo, are just a way to quantify units in an "attention economy." So is a cybercurrency, but that's fungible and traded as anonymous units. The value of Dogecoin tells you how much attention Dogecoin is getting. But NFTs claim to quantify the amount of attention-value garnered by, say, an image being featured in the NYTimes for being auctioned at a famous auction house for large sums? Or the attention-value of a fragment of an youtube video that the purchaser is now incentivized to promote? There's a lot of kinds of attention. The most irresistible forms of attention are those that most resemble a toddler with a dirty diaper reaching a hand in and painting mommy's windows doodie brown... unfortunately. It was not welcome when the tabloid Trump took over politics, it was not welcome when garish, cruel "reality tv" took over our idiot boxes... but so long as attention-seekers get attention, they'll keep doing what they're doing, and NFTs more than anything put a specific dollar figure on the amount of attention a person, group, or company can absurdly "whore" themselves out for.
Good piece, thanx. You might consider, that from early on, one of the main goals of netculture was to enter meatspace via "meme magic", which might be one of the central points of GameStop and these instances. Its a demonstration of nerd-power. Its more than vengeful nihilism, but doesn't qualify as protest. Its more like "Because I can" than anything else.
Who knew quantitative easing would have such bizarre side effects.
I enjoyed reading parts of this.
Others I didn't get. I am a paid subscriber.
Haven't figured out how to do SideChannel yet.
I think these pieces would be better if you had a good editor like back in the old dayd at the NYTimes. Maybe your partner?
Stay safe.