The Real Bad Actors

Why Authentic Performances Matter When Life and Media Blur

Art critic/unlikely Internet microcelebrity Dean Kissick wrote The Rehearsal thinkpiece to end all Rehearsal thinkpieces. What I was most intrigued with, though, was his analysis of how, in a world where life and media are losing their boundaries, performances and appearances matter more than ever.

For a long time I felt I never had a satisfying explanation of why the neoreactionary Dimes Square scene is fascinating not only to me, but also to the press. Finally I feel I found the smoking gun, the bloody glove, the hair on the bed: after almost a whole century of artsy types en masse pretending to be progressive minded and tolerant, with increasingly preposterous and thinly convincing posturing, it is refreshing to see a bunch of NYC gentrifier rich kids rip off the mask and fully own their evil energy. It’s a more convincing performance than, say, Lin Manuel Miranda promising to “listen.”

This is the culmination of two Internets that have been dueling since the first modem screech: the cynical, message board Celine-level nihilism of chan culture and the legacy-media backed didactic neoliberals that became more and more peformative about their holy roller crusade.

After almost a whole century of artsy types en masse pretending to be progressive minded and tolerant, with increasingly preposterous and thinly convincing posturing, it is refreshing to see a bunch of NYC gentrifier rich kids rip off the mask and fully own their evil energy.

Yes, leftie art got a huge injection of steroids in the ‘60s, but the woke moralism that seems to animate both legacy media and the only new media that legacy media has acknowledged from the ‘90s till 2020, has its roots in late ‘70s sitcoms that dispensed with loveable bigots like Archie Bunker and brought in mustache-twirling bigots like Dabney Coleman for sitcom dads to spit on.

That was the root of the neoliberal messaging that got more and more performative as time went on. As far as the actual media and reality fusion, that started in the ‘80s, when the line between news and entertainment disappeared. The media may have largely disliked Reagan’s politics, but the idea of a film actor dominating TV ratings more than Dallas, well, that’s where you get Band Aid, Live Aid, USA for Africa, Hands Across America, all of it prologue to the Gulf War in 1991 (the first made-for-TV war).

The Internet facilitated the blurring of politics and media, but as time went on, every aspect of life became fodder for the content cannon. What a perfect breeding ground for hack pop psychology and the performatively positive social media posts of the early to mid 2010s. As more and more falsely genuine people forced smiles on their faces for likes, many saw through the mask and the term “toxic positivity” was born.

BLM got the ball rolling on hashtag activism (after a false start from Occupy Wall Street), but the MeToo movement was the most emblematic of the LifeMedia era. Many wrote confessional posts of how they were abused, harassed, etc.

Then Amber Heard. It is far from a secret that this has been a horrible year for the center-left MSM, between Joe Rogan winning the people’s approval against Neil Young in the Spotify war and its increasingly muddled COVID reporting and messaging. But Amber Heard’s massive unpopularity with most people online (and weak support from the paint-by-numbers major media outlets) was the coup de grace. A lot of it had to do with how her courtroom testimony seemed unconvincing (ironic of course because she was an actress).

Starting in the ‘90s, with the OJ Simpson trial, and exploding after the MeToo movement, the US court became the Court of Public Opinion. This is all fine and dandy against a cartoon ogre like Harvey Weinstein. But this backfired for neoliberal feminists when Johnny Depp proved more charming and funny than Heard, who scanned as attention-seeking and narcissistic.

Realism Confidence has a deep analysis of how the news cycle around celebrity trauma confessions ultimately brings awareness more to celebrities (most recently, Paris Hilton) than it does to the systemic causes of abuse and misogyny. This leads to a Catch-22: convincing performances may not seem like enough, but performances are all that are legible in our current media climate. Systemic awareness cannot proceed without systemic change to the media landscape.

Amber Heard’s massive unpopularity with most people online…had to do with how her courtroom testimony seemed unconvincing (ironic of course because she was an actress).

This systemic change does not seem to be coming anytime soon, obviously. All streaming media outlets are grabbing documentaries to beef up their libraries. These cash grabs are always a double-edged sword. Legitimate documentaries are swept up along with narcissistic, self-serving influencer docs that are engineered to light up the algorithm’s buttons. Odious though the latter may seem, they are the symptom of our times, not the cause. Are people who do not create content even visible as human beings anymore?

The fusion of reality and media not only explains why horrible people who appear brutally honest are captivating (Trump may be remembered as a horrible president, but he will also go down as the most fascinating performer since Marlon Brando). It also makes the most convincing argument for why wokeness exists in the first place. Particularly the emphasis on representation in the media. To older people (like myself) it may seem unimportant for minorities to have media representation. But when life = media, the problem becomes clearer.

This is why it is important for actual, honest, three-dimensional representation (Atlanta), as opposed to “diversity-as-insurance policy.” From the latest Freddie de Boer:

You get why they’re including the part where She-Hulk looks directly into the camera and recites a slogan stolen from a sign from the first Women’s March written by a junior from Vassar, right? It makes the stuff they make exempt from criticism. These are no longer shows or movies but rather volleys in the culture war, which makes ignoring their immense flaws not just permissible but a duty for all right-thinking people. We’re already living in the hell of TV shows essentially written by Twitter; nothing is more depressing to me than pointing out all the moments that showrunners stick in their work that’s designed entirely to elicit squeals from social media.

The issue most people have with diversity in the media is not the opportunities afforded minorities or LBTQs, but how it reads as a sterile, corporate HR initiative.

As a quasi-Marxist, I find myself adoring the usual late 19th century-early 20th century thinkers. Marx (natch), Freud, Darwin. My current guy is Nietszsche. Like most leftists, I initially focused on his anti-God rhetoric. That is also the launching point of my current fascination with him. I am not a fan of the political views either of the host of this podcast or his guest, Astral Flight Simulator, but they take an interesting detour discussing Nietzsche. I pressed pause and pondered, coming to the realization that, while Nietzsche was not the first thinker to be hostile to religion, his major contribution to philosophy was pointing out the hypocrisy of Christian sheep LARPing as Jesus. Instead they should just own their selfish natures and become Supermen. Before life and mass media merged, reality merged with religion, the mass media of its time. No great mystery that new media is filling the God hole, or that it is even swallowing God itself. Leftists aren’t the only ones online who are performing for their phones. Many of the NRX Dime Square people are traditional Catholics (tradcaths) but many people see this more as an ironic trend than a sincere movement. No matter: Christianity is shrinking in the US. While I do hold the Nietzschean hope that we can use the vacuum to realize more authentic expressions of self, I have a hunch Christianity will be renewed for another season.

Random Links

• A Twitter thread has been making the rounds detailing how Hollywood is crumbling because of the recent repeal of anti-trust legistlation. The pinko commie side of me laments this. The film geek side of me acknowledges that this very anti-trust legislation was the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood, which was the inarguable best example of how capitalist systems can create amazing art (as long as producers follow their gut, not focus groups or social numbers).

• TikTok is pivoting to radio? Podcast studios are focusing on video? Expect to read about these two trends in many new media books that are published in the future. And don’t be surprised if they mention this TAFS episode directed by Eugene Kotlayarenko as a sterling example of the latter trend.