I’m hoping this wraps up what’s apparently been a muse-induced spat of writing the last few days as I’m in danger of falling victim to the problem I’m aiming to speak about. I’m attempting to communicate, right? I’m trying to turn impressions and vagaries and electrical and chemical impulses into lines you can read, walk, or snort. You don’t start reading me and think I set out to repeat the same words over and over repeat the same words over and over repeat the same words over and over and expect you to sit there on autopilot for several pages. You’re gonna perk up if I use certain trigger words that may speak to a pain or emotionality I’m doing a terrible time explaining like a proper robot.
Every single utterance or move we make is an attempt. You cry in all directions until someone figures out if it’s not time to wipe your ass or feed you, there’s something deeper going on that requires the insight of a doctor or seasoned childcare veteran. You extend your arm to shake hello, wave goodbye, or say, “Hey, I’m a douchebag on a bicycle about to cut you off, I dare you to run me over!” Big or small budget films relay your small-town sensibilities or a complex array of thoughts regarding timeless philosophical constructs. Your many professional consultants contributed their lines towards an authentic dialogue.
Then we make it weird. We claim “meta-narratives.” We talk of “subversion.” We “appropriate” and “genre-bend” until enough people are so confused or elated new princes get a papier-mâché crown of the thousand and one “with-it” gospel pages and apologetic trite.
In ignoring our basic humanity and capacity to communicate, we invent ever-”complex” narratives striving for a personal identity. Is anyone really capable of dressing “post-grunge?” Why hide behind “camp” when you’re just feeling silly unless you couldn’t figure out your confusing feelings towards John Waters. Instead of learning how to act isn’t there more dignity in hyper-attention to detail in your local theater production and wafting condescension towards those who simply can’t appreciate your steampunk take on Bye Bye Birdie?
For me the most jarring is in dealing with comedy. I hate apologetics for comedy shows that don’t seem to make anyone laugh. As if “comedy” is this supernal demon hanging in the air that we aficionados can just recognize because a famous enough name has appeared, so bask. I can certainly appreciate different styles of comedy and respect when and why certain jokes or topics don’t hit everywhere all the time. But to ignore whether anyone’s laughing? Even anti-comedy seeks out the ironic smirk or to be creative in how dead you can really make a joke.
To that end, I ask the same things of every piece of music I listen to, every article or book I read, and of every show or movie I watch. Do you have a message? If not, why the fuck am I engaging with you? Do you have a metric by which to judge whether it got translated? Comedy, therefore, is simple. Did you laugh? Did the audience? No? IT’S NOT FUCKING COMEDY. It’s not about mass appeal so much as it is about some form of a+b=c, not someone leaning on the A on a keyboard for an hour and claiming to “subvert” music.
We live in such a diverse pool of implacably bizarre and random people, you will always find an audience. So will the Nazis. Do the Nazi’s have a point? Are they maybe just lazy and stupid and it’s a really long and boring road to discuss how sexually appealing you find their uniforms to be? The worst movie in the world may well in fact be directed by a Nazi, for a Nazi, and no doubt there will be some film historian who notes how this “little known gem goes wholly unnoticed by the mainstream” for its capacity and willingness to brave the judgment of uncritical minds too weak to wrestle with the Nazi that lies within all of us. You know, because the message certainly isn’t about the irrational eradication of a minority population, it’s to make pansy moviegoers squirm…
This is part of the reason I heavily try to emphasize I’m speaking to YOU. Me, to his friends and people who seem to not go out of their way to run rampant with what I’m saying. I’m not trying to get you to “interpret” whether or not I’m suicidal when I decide to take up the topic at length. You should know by the end or I’ve done a terrible job. That’s not to say everything I talk about is always straight-forward or easy to follow, just like I rarely dig up the specific meaning of lyrics or care to go to Comic Con and bug a writer about whether some character is a strict representation of some Freudian concept. But it does mean that if you have a question or seek to challenge something, I’m obligated to get more specific, find better words, or concede I was talking out of my ass and didn’t notice.
That stems from a personal responsibility towards seeking out and hopefully discovering “truth.” The truth in the moment. The truth of my perspective or feeling. The truth as it’s been dictated by forces before us. As many layers as seem interesting and relevant. The all-consuming Truth that allows for the endless ditches we can dig to bury our opinions and lines of connection tying our experiences together into the fabric of “culture.”
As such, it becomes something of a contradiction, or simply non-starter of a sentiment, when you “seek subversion.” Subversion is handed to you. Dress like a “weirdo.” Talk like me. Opt for honesty. You didn’t invent black because everything around you seems blindingly white.
It feels very foreign to me the idea that I am acting like me when I write or speak. When people describe me, that’s all they do. They just say, “He just is so explicit!” Nothing follows. Not condemnation. Not support. “He’s just so himself all the time, can’t he just be normal?” Again, not disbelieving in my ability to order coffee without a Kafka-esc comment or attend a performance proving unable to allow the attention to get away from me. But something important is translating and it’s making them uncomfortable. Though, I sincerely doubt I’ll be paid the fawning deference of altering their consciousness and subverting their conceptions of themselves.
In the search through media and mediums, if the exercise isn’t about finding ways to identify parts of yourself or frame things explicitly not to do with you, what are you doing? Lamely dragging your ass into a faux subculture that absolves you of a real identity. Watch out nostalgia addicted Pokemon playing gamer nerds trading in the meme economy looking for every excuse to work in a reference to Rick and Morty. But even they’ll take a backseat to the people who put up real money to wax poetic about their “different eyes” regarding the countless pieces of art they’ve consumed.
I make it a point of pride to reorient and explain away as much as I can when I get an “overwhelming” feeling. I’ve watched my reasoning degrade into what may as well have been literal shit I futzed about with in the yard. As a society, it’s how we feel about each other and the things we engage with the world that is our shining light. It’s the feeling of justice, not the DNA results. It’s the impassioned speech! that dictates your moves, not that you should have left the building when they introduced themselves as a “Neofascist with communist leanings.” They aren’t interesting, just convoluted and confused.
It’s in the glory glory hallelujah of Feeling that we constantly pretend to get the message. I feel the Lord wants me to become...I feel the LOVE for my...I feel the hatred from so and so....I believe in our cause because otherwise I’d feel hopeless, and if you feel hopeless, well, no one really knows, but it’s bad, trust me. We felt our way over a cliff in the election. We’re feeling around in the dark for the next Enlightenment. We’re terrified of ever truly feeling anything real again because we feel we’ll only be able to cope as well as the endless queue of our depressed and anxious friends and everywhere we look is someone trying to betray or deny JUST HOW FULL OF FEELS I REALLY AM!
And the cure, so simply, is to pull your head out of your feeling-laden ass. Actually attempt to communicate. Stop acting like you’re part of a brand management company hoping to keep your friends and family buying. You know I literally give zero fucks if you decide I’m no longer worth your time. That’s important to me. That’s called mutual recognition and respect. And you know it because I almost can’t help myself from reminding you every time I get bug up my ass about how widely we’re failing as a society kissing the ass of the loudest feelers. Every time we apologize for shitty translations and wasted opportunities. Every time we’re silently riding the ignorant populist wave that carries the wrong asks for our attention.
It would feel less dramatic for me if people were at least honest about it. I’ll probably make reference to it until the day I die, but reading how the creators of Lost were like, “Yeah, we just did shit at random” was such a stark point of betrayal to all of the useless dialogue and speculation and fervor that show stirred up. As an audience you have a responsibility to at least try and respectfully listen, but on both sides of the equation it was idiots throwing shit on a wall and reading the hidden messages. All but condemning the idea of effective deliberate communication reducing the medium to rattling cages.
Whatever my message may be at any one time, it’s not for the people who can’t laugh or who can’t be patient or who can’t concern themselves with details. That’s why I speak to YOU. That’s why I make jokes and comments I’ve seen you laugh at. Whatever piece of me you take into the rest of your worlds, I can’t translate for them. When I build up my business ends or research tools, it’s for people who can appreciate them, not for ten thousand upvotes on /r/dataisbeautiful or to be distributed freely to any twat with an ignorant agenda I’ve just helped make more efficient. I like YOU, not how I feel about you. Because it’s mostly endless frustration you’re not throwing your lives away to help me make a field in the middle of nowhere the coolest place to live ever, and devoting yourselves to blogs once a week so I can even pretend to know who you even are anymore.
