How Duracell Might Outlast Human Culture

We Cannot Talk About Cultural Stagnation Without Talking Ad-Based Revenue

A few minutes ago, I decided to have fun and ironically watch a Jim Breuer stand-up clip on YouTube (put there on my front page because I ironically watched one of his specials three weeks ago). There was, of course, a pre-roll ad for Duracell.

Sure, fine, I mean I’m not paying premium anyway. I’m not on Jim’s Patreon or whatever. But, since an overwhelming majority of Internet culture is based entirely on advertising revenue, especially delivering user data to advertisers, it is this that I blame for cultural stagnation.

The Internet has been buzzing about how culture is dying. Here is the timeline of articles discussing it:

May 9th: Lit crit Christian Lorentzen writes a Substack saying that culture is boring because actual works are themselves becoming commercials.

August 29th: Times columnist Michele Goldberg discusses (and largely agrees with) an upcoming book by W. David Marx (Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change) which posits that the Internet has prioritized popularity and fortune over artistic integrity and durability (she disagrees with Christian Lorentzen’s Substack).

August 30th: Grimes tweets that the decline of journalism is the cause of the decline of canonized art.

August 30th (later that day): Taylor Lorenz responds to Grimes blaming it all on the Internet killing a shared monoculture.

August 31st: On Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick believes that culture can be canonized, but it’s being preserved by hordes of extremely online, fractured fandoms that have their own lore and narratives.

September 2: Max Read @ Read Max largely disagrees with Goldberg and Marx, but admits that Lorentzen might have a point about the blurred line between commercials and artworks.

Yes. To all the above the answer is yes. But if we are trying to get to the root, all of the above are like killers working for the mastermind of Charles Manson. Ad-based revenue is the Manson in this scenario and surveillance capitalism is the swastika on his head. In the wonderful book “How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” Jenny Odell takes great pains to make the distinction between criticizing social media and criticizing capitalist social media. I am saying nothing new by comparing anti-Internet hysteria to anti-television hysteria in the 20th century, but the parallels are too perfect and symmetrical to ignore.

It is no accident that The Sopranos kicked off the Golden Age of Television. The Sopranos was on HBO, a subscription-based service that answers to viewers, not advertisers. Breaking Bad and Mad Men also ushered in the Peak TV era, even though they were on AMC, which has commercials. AMC also relies on subscriber-based revenue, having the plum deal of being included in most basic cable subscriptions (though they have had major disputes with providers, especially Direct TV).

Lately, the Internet has also been more interesting thanks to Substack and Patreon, which also rely on subscriber based revenue, not ads. This not only makes better content for patrons, but it frees creators to make better content. As opposed to the majority of user-generated content portals that are entirely advertising based. Users are not paying money for TikTok or Twitter, but it does need attention from viewers for ads, promoting attention-seeking behavior instead of anything substantial.

Much has been said about how the outrage cycle is used to grab eyeballs on Instagram, etc. for advertisements. That is absolutely part of the story. I suspect that a lot of this is also related to the blue dot effect (the more we look for threats, the more they appear). The Millennial preference for the minimalist aesthetic has been written about extensively. Another quality that is highly sought after is smoothness. I don’t deny that many Echo Boomers are virtue signalling when they call out Celebrity X or Influencer Y for being racist, sexist, whatever. It is not impossible though that many are genuinely upset by the discomfort they feel at any film, movie, tweet, that challenges them or makes them uncomfortable.

A quick look at TikTok can help us look under the hood of all this. There are still plenty of memes on there affectionately parodying 90s sitcoms. Many 90s sitcoms (Friends, Family Matters) overflowed with well-meaning platitudes and inoffensive jokes, which of course proved an easy path for commercial breaks. To this day, there are many legitimate grievances on Twitter regarding racism and all the social ills. The nitpicking, however, is a blue dot effect aggravated by anything that reduces the comfortable sitcom-level atmosphere of self-deprecating jokes and inspirational quotes.

Advertiser love and promote this sensitivity and comfort. Corporate wokeness is far from new. In the second to last paragraph here, I mention how businesses have never had an easier time shucking and jiving by using political messaging as an easy crutch as opposed to relying on clever jokes or compelling writing. In the Vietnam era, Pepsi and Coke targeted hippies along with sitcoms like M*A*S*H and The Mod Squad.

As cola and campus resistance began their torrid love affair, the broader anti-war movement got weakened from a strong, unified front against capitalist imperialism to a mushy, quasi-Christian bowdlerization emphasizing peace and harmony. The biggest example of this, of course, being Up With People.

Up With People was a cult nonprofit organization that peaked in the 70s, when they played several Super Bowl halftime shows. A diverse, quasi-Christian singing group that toured the world and was inclusive to minorities and gays (did they have any straight people [rreeeow]), they sang songs about peace…and yet played Nixon’s inauguration. They sang about racial harmony, but did a fine job bypassing any class issues or structural inequalities. As platforms like Twitter and TikTok keep mixing with woke sponsors like Nike and Starbucks, all social media dissent is turning into a wet lump of Up With People mush.

Is there another option? Yes. True multiculturalism has great potential that the Internet could actually enhance. True multiculturalism that actually includes other cultures and respects and explores their viewpoints regardless of their own cultural prejudices. I am watching the show Mo on Netflix (no relation) and at some point, the titular character confronts his Palestinian mother, asking her to accept his Mexican girlfriend. On the surface, this seems very multicultural, but it actually is more of the same: American exceptionalist propaganda that is actually meant to promote the post -WWII ideal of America as a melting pot instead of actually exploring another culture, warts and all.

All of these shows - She Hulk, Abbot Elementary, RuPaul’s Drag Race - have the same audience: affluent, college educated whites that want to assuage their guilt of white privilege by watching animated superheroes twerk. Needless to say, this is a demographic that advertisers love.

But of all the people I linked to at the top of this maelstrom, I agree with Christian Lorentzen the most. Art itself is becoming marketing. Or, to put it differently, CIA propaganda. Since the ‘50s, the CIA has taken great pains to make America seem like a multicultural nation where anyone can make it. Is it any wonder, then, that the Internet (created and used by the CIA) would want to smooth out any rough edge artworks that challenge, provoke, energize people?

Speaking of energize, that reminds me, I have to buy batteries.