Monopoly of Appearance
What you're reading is an attempt to delve deeper into the 12th aphorism featured in Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle'. If you missed the last one, you can find it here.
Here's the actual passage:
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than “that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.
Normally, my rants are tempered but this one is likely to venture into 'turbo autist' territory. Apologies in advance.
If you are a 20-something resident of modern India, chances are that you have been accosted by any one of the following adverts on YouTube:
- Zomoto ads featuring some particularly distasteful culinary spectacles
- Ankur Warikoo on full-grindset mode
- Any damn FMCG ad (I personally get triggered every time I see Pantene)
This is a non-exhaustive list and I'm sure there are other abominations that have been catapulted at your psyche with little to no regard for your well-being.
I personally find these ads so disgustingly intrusive, that I got Youtube Premium for my whole family so they never have to deal with this kind of B.S. If Google is as 'smart' as it's purported to be, it should know that:
- I have chosen starvation over food delivery apps before and will do so again
- I have little regard for 'startups' and am in no mood to take advice from an incompetent IYI
- I'm a Meera herbal powder supremacist and will die one.
Why were these ads being hurled at me?! Rant's over. Let's get to the meat of it.
Seeing is spectacular
These ads (read: spectacles) simply appear before you. The overlords at Google have no qualms about whether these ads are relevant to you, and will happily throw them your way as long as someone is ready to foot the bill.
This is nothing new. I'm sure you've heard and read countless features that routinely throw terms and phrases such as 'The attention economy', 'You are the product' etc.
What does not get talked about as much is the passive acceptance that comes with it. After all, if you hate these ads so much, why not get YouTube Premium? (This is not a promo for Youtube Premium, I just don't know of any other method that works across all devices).
Launching IPBAs
I coined this acronym. It abbreviates to 'Inter-psychic Ballistic Adverts'. I think it sounds very cool.
If a stranger were to appear at your door and demands to be let in, it is unlikely that you would comply. However, if someone were to call you or text you out of the blue, chances are that you would respond (unlike me who never responds and liberally blocks unsolicited calls). Simply being on 'the network' seems to imply that you are able and willing to get yourself interrupted by anything that wishes to do so.
An ad on YouTube is no different from an unsolicited knock or a permissionless message. It simply appears in front of you, and you normally have no recourse. In fact, you simply accept it as a fact of life. In our techno-feudal society,. repeated acceptance eventually elicits a behavioral change that is likely to adversely impact your wallet or your health, often both.
I find this affair perverse. Sure, Youtube is free and ads are necessary to subsidize all those eyeballs, but the fact that someone can conjure a spectacle and insert it into your life, all because you dared to visit Youtube is stupefying. Just, wow.
Monopolising Appearance
This brings me to one of my (many) pet peeves: the ubiquitous LinkedIn selfie. These are blatant intrusions that seek to build an association in your head (I personally block everyone who does this).
Thanks to networking apps and smartphone cameras, the spectacle is now hypersonic. It travels great distances in record time and crashes into your psyche with all the flair of a BAC Concorde (RIP, you will be missed).
Erect crash barriers. Turn off screens. Build psychic moats. Heck, even hire Praetorian guards! (Write to me if you want to know some good candidates). Being open-minded is merely an exhortation to offer your malleable psyche to the masters of persuasion.
They can try and 'bend the earth to their will' if they want to. I believe it is our duty to stay put, even in the face of seemingly unavoidable changes.
If any of this sounds relatable, please write to me. Part of the reason I write this is to seek out more people who feel the same way I do about the modern Internet.
If you enjoyed reading this, you might like my cleverly disguised rants on LinkedIn too.