Is it just me romantisizing a past that has never existed or do people become more and more shallow and superficial? I feel the cultural commodification through capitalism has reached a critical level where things are being stripped of any meaningful content: "Political" movies just end with the liberal narrative of "yo, just a bunch of bad people in charge, you need to make a difference!". Modern art is being consumed exhibited in ugly deconstructivist glass buildings that are being visited not for the purpose to immerse yourself in art, but to simply seek superficial stimulus and social appreciation of your peer group of scarf-wearing and rectangular glasses-wearing friends with receding hair line.
Having a look at TV shows, there is an interesting development: They are arguably becoming more complex and even fit the criteria of being art with long, character-driven stories (Breaking Bad, True Detective, etc.) yet at the same time normies seem to watch them in the most consumerist way through "bingewatching" them as background noise while sometimes saying gibberish like "yo, just kill that dude already man!!!" when something exciting happens.
Looking at the behavior of some normie friends, I feel like looking at aliens. All they do in their freetime is watching stupid comedy shit and playing games on their phone which would not even keep a child interested for more than 5 minutes. And even when they feel in the mood for something "intellectual" they watch stuff like Interstellar just because it has "I fucking love science" tier shit in it and the conclusion is "it's all about love man" and then feel emotionally aggravated, even though it was all external stimulus, there was no internal stimulus involved, no reflection, analysis and diagnosis.
I'm saying while it's wrong to state that our culture becomes increasingly worse, it takes on a very scary consumerist commodificated attire, even high culture that's supposed to critique exactly that, which perpetuates shallowness and emptiness in people to the point of where I'm actually wondering if I'm still a part of the human race anymore.
One could argue that even Sophokles' Oedipus which has the obvious reactionary conclusion of "obey your gods and be humble otherwise you'll end up in deep shit" has more cultural value than anything that is produced today, because at least it was honest in its message, it didn't sugarcoat it.
Compare this to the average abysmal Marvel movie. It has nothing. No message, no content, nothing besides cringey self-referential easter eggs
Evan Martin
I sometimes think I'm not that kind of vapid normie because I read intellectual shit and whatnot. Lately I've realized that the main reason I is because without that I couldn't think that I'm better than all those sheep, and that I'd be perfectly happy spending all my free time watching shows on Netflix and playing whatever mindless vidya
Daniel Baker
This is some serious euphoria, fam.
Chase Garcia
There is nothing wrong with dropping a philosohy book for a fun game or an exciting show. I was mostly complaining about the way of how normies consume it, they don't immerse themselves into it, they can barely follow the plot and as a consequence the industry shits out stuff that gets equally dumbed down.
Even high culture can be "dumbed down" in a way by cutting out the message and critique that is inherent in modern art by commodifying it to the point where it is consumed rather than experienced. Like Che Guevara shirts on Amazon.
Samuel Cox
I'm aware that this is 4chan tier euphoria but I'm seriously just being honest, I'm not some condescending cringey nerd, I look at what people and I can't understand the shit they do in their freetime.
Jordan Hill
Read Spengler.
Gabriel Long
Why? Commodification of culture is something that is entirely modern and wasn't arround during the decline of the Roman Empire or whatever life cycles Spengler attributes to cultures and civilisations.
Connor Collins
k
Nathaniel Scott
is the Holla Forums version of muh fun
Chase Sanchez
All I watch on TV is Star Trek and The Walking Dead. I don't play any mobile games either. I feel alien for the most part because I find most entertainment to be unentertaining garbage.
Jayden Hughes
What's a "normie"? Is that new code for non communist or something
Adam Long
I feel you, man. I barely find anything entertaining anymore. Unless the activity is social like board games or pen and paper, or I learn something like in documentaries or tutorial or how-to vids, or the activity is creative such as caring for plants and animals or making something. Nearly all visual entertainment is pure shit with no stimuli beyond the pure visuals, and even they usually suck. And I can't for the life of me understand why people get home from work and spend what little is left of the day watching shitshows.
I may just be a cynical asshole, though.
Blake Foster
Yes, you're a cynical asshole
Josiah Thomas
I get where you're coming from. Big companies in control of entertainment tend to normalize art to the point of being mediocre due to focus testing and the pressure to put profits before artistic merit or letting someone have their own artistic vision.
That being said, it was always heading this way. The small, scrappy, movie studio that releases its own artistic vision was rapidly dying out in the 90s and it's only in the past decade where it has been more obvious with Disney and other gigantic media corporations grabbing everything.
Gavin Evans
That being said it's very symbolic that one of the last independent, nerdy filmmakers that gets supported by the big studios is Quentin Tarantino who makes movies that literally only consist of self-referencing inside jokes about B-Movies from the 70s. The movie itself is not the actual content, it's just a bunch of Easter Eggs mashed together in a nonsensical stream exaggerated visuals.
Matthew Rodriguez
It's a bastardized vesrion of normalfag..
Angel Green
The normie seeks no change.
This is with media as well, they have been given salted slop and that is just enough to feed that "must consume new ideas" part of the brain, but it's slop so it never really changes it just fills the void.
Normies are bad consumers for they don't think about what they just consumed past a FEELING userly expressed on a 1-10 chart, the normie also never tried to obtain new infromation and are content with their slop.
A good consumer should be semi-aware at what they are consuming in art at all time, and if they enjoy the work try and think more critically about it while searching for new ideas in art.
Jason Bennett
To add I don't think companies are to blame for this cultural stagnation.
More indie shit has come up as of late where anyone can make a film, book, album ext and this is enough for people who don't want slop.
But normies want soemthing and slop is enough so when given slop they enjoy.
I honestly think if you get into more world cinima or the arts in general you need to be exposed to it at a fairly young age most cinima fans I know were raised on films compared to the normie who watches transformers and thought it was really good beacuse action.
Films like old boy I feel are a good gateway into more obscure tastes, it's just crazy enough to challenge the idea of what films should be like for fresh minds while being fun enough to keep most people engaged.
Hollywood and Disney pumping out shit films was not an attempt to try and make minds numb so they would consume they understood most minds are numb already with art and caparalised on that.
William Hill
This conundrum, namely how could a more "liberal" age produce artistically more amount of trash than all the other eras in western history combined,which were elitist and autocratic,was explained aptly by Adorno.
It is not that there is a greater freedom of expression, it is the opposite in fact, the creation of an industry of culture shitting out things meant for consuming and not for the sake of art/artist.
There should be no doubts that modernism with the advent of capitalism constitutes a great decline in the aesthetic realm. Reactionaries get this right, but they blame it merely on the mores of the times, as if the average person has any control over this industry.
Aaron Long
I'd check out the actionists as well if you want they do some talking points about how every sub culture tends to be normiefied so normies can enjoy it.
Punk for example there was a MC Donald's add with a punk girl to show how edgy they were yet famaily friendly.
Samuel Cook
"It is not that there is a greater freedom of expression"
Yeh dude like 50 years ago everyone could make films it was so easy, and everyone could have a radio station, and make albums, and video games and books.
Every art form has been made easier to make with technology, the industry itself is bad but the indidppendant scene for any art is booming.
The industry is cancer and should not be taken seriously or acknowlaged. This is not even a price issue you can get a shitload of great indie films online for free or dirt cheap along with music (sound cloud) and free radio stations that are online or even download podcasts.
Average person just does not know how to access this or know where to look due to lack of connections but I'd love to try and make these things more well known.
Carson Miller
Look at youtube, everyone is a creator, yet virtually nothing OC in youtube is of any value artistically.
The power to create sameness and uniform shittiness is no power at all. Sure you can make an indie film that can become a hit or be a great film. But we all now that's the exception and not the rule. And society/economy operates according to those rules.
Christopher Richardson
But again you are acting like most people.
The problem with YouTube is it premotes vapid cunts who act the same and no longer supports INTETNETING of finding new people.
99% of YouTube is trash but there is a massive underground scene still, admittedly a lot take note from Sam hyde but are still very detached from him and others.
These people only have like less then 20,000 subs a few I know have less then 200.
The problem is FINDING the indie people but they exist.
Samuel Allen
I'd even say 2 people from Holla Forums make some good videos as well.
Leftypol is what 500-1000 people? Yet they still have a handful of people who make videos and a few of them do some really good ones.
Kevin Baker
In short industry is cancer and should be ignored indie scene is good but hard as fuck to find.
I'd also personally like to make more people take pride in their art so they don't just shitpost and consider what they upload is worthy of existing and if they want that art to repucent them.
Ian Rogers
This so much, its an axis of "normies like what I don't like" For nazis its d'egeneracy for liberals is cultiral apropiation or mysogyny and for ccommies is consummerism
