# why culture sucks now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evW4hxR2Hg8

[00:00] Last month at Coachella, Justin Bieber
[00:01] did something that no artist had ever
[00:03] done before on the festival's coveted
[00:05] main stage. He did YouTube.
[00:07] >> Okay, so you guys know that one?
[00:09] >> [cheering]
[00:10] >> All right, let's get it going, man. I
[00:11] mean, he quite literally sat on stage on
[00:14] a laptop scrolling through YouTube
[00:15] videos, playing some of them, singing
[00:18] along with others, using his old
[00:20] internet content as fuel for a set that
[00:23] was entertaining hundreds of thousands
[00:26] [music] of people. Now, some people
[00:27] thought that this was actually pretty
[00:29] cool.
[00:29] >> the isolated clips look a little bit
[00:32] silly, but there is actually a method to
[00:34] Justin's madness during this portion of
[00:36] the show.
[00:37] >> Others wanted a little more from their
[00:38] favorite grown-up pop star. And while I
[00:40] find it interesting, it's hard for me to
[00:43] not see this as an almost post-modern
[00:45] performance piece in which Bieber is
[00:47] consuming himself as a digital product.
[00:51] >> [music]
[00:51] >> And in doing so, he both acknowledges
[00:53] the way in which his career is
[00:54] necessarily tied up with an algorithmic
[00:57] platform, while also seeming to indicate
[00:59] that the only new thing for him to do as
[01:01] a performer is a type of nostalgic
[01:04] pastiche for his own past and the shared
[01:07] past of the audience. I mean, more
[01:09] unconsciously, this might convey the way
[01:11] in which music as a creative platform is
[01:15] now inherently tied to its own modes of
[01:18] economic production and distribution. Is
[01:20] it interesting from a meta perspective?
[01:22] Sure. But to me, does it still feel
[01:25] empty as a creative act upon further
[01:27] interrogation? Yeah, I think so. But I
[01:29] don't think that this is Justin's fault.
[01:32] As the first domino to fall in this
[01:34] cultural tragedy was the first tower of
[01:36] the World Trade Center building. Hi
[01:38] everybody, [snorts] it's Tuesday,
[01:39] September 11th, 2001. Tonight I ask for
[01:42] your prayers
[01:44] for all those who grieve.
[01:46] I've directed the full resources of our
[01:48] intelligence and law enforcement
[01:49] communities to find those responsible
[01:53] and to bring them to justice. 9/11
[01:55] represents not just a geopolitical act,
[01:58] but a cultural breaking point in the
[02:00] history of the West. And the people who
[02:02] knocked these buildings down
[02:05] will hear all OF US SOON.
[02:09] >> [applause and cheering]
[02:19] >> BECAUSE AS GROUND ZERO WAS STILL BEING
[02:21] CLEARED, two cultural trends emerged
[02:23] that both contributed to the collapse of
[02:25] artistic novelty as well as the collapse
[02:27] of any notion of the politicizing effect
[02:30] of culture, the hipster and the
[02:32] poptimist. While at the time wearing
[02:34] skinny jeans and trucker hats while
[02:36] listening to The Strokes didn't feel
[02:38] anything like waiting outside in the
[02:40] cold to get a glimpse of Christina
[02:42] Aguilera on TRL, both of these movements
[02:44] led to a 21st century shift in which
[02:47] cultural products became little more
[02:49] than pure commodity with no remainder or
[02:52] semblance of any radical countercultural
[02:55] artistic potential. And this is still
[02:57] happening today. Rather than attempt
[02:59] creative innovation, Disney's MCU
[03:02] resorted to bringing Tony Stark back but
[03:04] like as another guy. He's not He's like
[03:06] a different guy
[03:08] as a last-ditch effort to save their
[03:10] dominance on contemporary cinema. And
[03:13] even here on the morally pure
[03:15] youtube.com,
[03:17] content increasingly involves people
[03:18] making videos where they're watching
[03:20] videos of other people watching videos
[03:23] that other people made and yelling at
[03:24] those people and then that person makes
[03:26] about them and they make a video about
[03:27] them and it's just a real I don't know,
[03:29] is that more of a or a
[03:30] circle jerk? Let me know in the comments
[03:32] if that's more of a
[03:33] situation or a circle jerk situation. I
[03:36] mean guys, we all know at this point
[03:38] that digital content including but not
[03:40] limited to [music] youtube.com is
[03:42] creatively driven by algorithmic data
[03:44] and not the other way around. And at the
[03:46] root of all of this is contemporary
[03:49] finance, a system that is destroying
[03:52] culture on purpose. Now, I introduced
[03:54] this in my previous video on
[03:55] financialization and prediction market
[03:57] apps, and I argue that it's the most
[03:59] current phase of capitalism. If you
[04:01] didn't catch that video, I'll link it
[04:02] below, blah blah blah. But, this is all
[04:05] worse than just a market-driven
[04:06] destruction of human art and creativity.
[04:09] Because the consumption of culture in a
[04:11] financialized media ecosystem is turning
[04:13] all of us into financial subjects with
[04:16] our senses of meaning and possibility
[04:19] increasingly constrained by the goals of
[04:21] weird little rich guys in one of like
[04:24] three US cities. And this means that the
[04:26] future of art and media could be built
[04:28] to serve the needs and desires of
[04:30] financial systems, not of human beings.
[04:34] Another not-so-fun thing about the world
[04:36] of financialized attention is that the
[04:38] very act of consuming content online is
[04:42] producing enormous amounts of data
[04:44] that's then used to sell us stuff we
[04:45] don't want and make money for people who
[04:47] are very uncool. It's made worse by the
[04:50] fact that this data is often leaked or
[04:52] stolen. And the number of data breaches
[04:54] is rising every year. According to the
[04:56] annual data breach report by the
[04:58] Identity Theft Resource Center, it went
[05:00] up by 211%
[05:02] from 2023 to 2024 due mainly to five
[05:06] mega breaches. And that's why I use this
[05:09] video sponsor Incogni. Incogni tracks
[05:12] down and removes my data from multiple
[05:14] websites, including online directories,
[05:16] people search sites, and commercialized
[05:18] databases. The process is fully
[05:20] automated for hundreds of known data
[05:22] brokers, i.e., companies that collect
[05:24] and sell your data without your consent.
[05:26] And because data can reappear on these
[05:28] sites, Incogni repeatedly removes it for
[05:31] you. And they also have a custom removal
[05:33] feature that can help take down almost
[05:35] anything [music] exposed about you
[05:36] online. You just send them a link, and
[05:38] your dedicated privacy expert is going
[05:40] to handle that for you. So, if you ever
[05:42] search for yourself and find something
[05:43] really weird that's out there, you can
[05:45] use this feature. That all helps reduce
[05:47] the risk of scams, protects your online
[05:49] and offline privacy, and lets you take
[05:51] back control of your personal data so
[05:53] you know how and when it's being used.
[05:55] So, why not protect yourself from online
[05:58] data brokers, online criminals, and
[06:00] weird little guys on the internet by
[06:02] checking out Incogni today. It's really
[06:04] easy. All you do is create an account.
[06:06] You share a bare minimum of information
[06:08] that they then use to track down
[06:10] profiles online. Then you authorize
[06:12] Incogni to legally contract hundreds of
[06:14] brokers on your behalf. They're going to
[06:16] remove your information from data
[06:17] brokers that are on their list and in
[06:19] any site that you send them with their
[06:21] custom removals feature. You know,
[06:22] whether they're using personal data to
[06:24] track you down or or your social
[06:26] security number to take out loans or or
[06:28] you know, health care companies using
[06:30] data to raise your premiums, there are
[06:31] so many potentially unfun outcomes of
[06:34] having all of your personal data on the
[06:36] internet. [music]
[06:37] But hey, if they can't find you, they
[06:39] can't get you. I started using Incogni
[06:42] last fall and so far they've completed
[06:44] 513 removal requests for me with 59 more
[06:48] that are currently in progress, and they
[06:49] did all this while I was I was just
[06:51] hanging out. I didn't have to do
[06:52] anything. Okay, so join me and take your
[06:54] personal data back with Incogni. Just
[06:57] use the code Burns at the link below to
[06:59] get 60% off of your annual plan or you
[07:01] can just go to incogni.com/burns.
[07:05] Now, back to the other thing.
[07:07] >> [music]
[07:11] >> Let's get back [music] to 9/11. And for
[07:14] all my Gen Z audience out there, first
[07:16] of all, I respect your culture and your
[07:17] traditions. Um I have full solidarity
[07:20] with your causes. When the generational
[07:22] war comes, I'm going to be a traitor and
[07:24] fight on your side. Second of all
[07:26] though, I need you to know that 9/11 was
[07:28] a real game changer. Everyone got
[07:30] patriotic as hell, and kids in high
[07:32] school would legit want to beat you up
[07:33] if you questioned the spirit of
[07:34] bloodthirsty military retaliation pushed
[07:37] by Bush and Cheney. This is why you
[07:38] probably don't know who the who the
[07:39] Dixie Chicks [music] are. Now now the
[07:41] Chicks. In his book, Blank Space, A
[07:44] Cultural History of the 21st Century, W.
[07:47] David Marks writes that in the days
[07:49] after the attack on the Twin Towers,
[07:51] explicit leftist critique was silenced
[07:53] almost overnight. And this made it easy
[07:55] for Bush to tell Americans to go
[07:57] shopping at the mall as a way to fight
[07:58] against the terrorist. Gen Z again, I
[08:01] swear to you this is a real thing. And I
[08:02] encourage you all to go shopping more.
[08:04] Things were so bad that Michael Moore
[08:06] got booed at the Oscars for saying that
[08:08] the war on terror that Bush and Co. did
[08:10] after 9/11 was was bad. Something that
[08:13] pretty much everyone seems to agree upon
[08:15] now. We are against this war, Mr. Bush.
[08:19] Shame on you, Mr. Bush. In this era,
[08:21] leftist critique was now officially
[08:24] unpatriotic. While shopping for consumer
[08:26] goods made overseas, probably by child
[08:29] labor, was all of a sudden the peak of
[08:30] patriotism. The Gen Z cynicism that
[08:32] birthed both the grunge movement as well
[08:34] as massive anti-globalization [music]
[08:36] protest, like the one lovingly referred
[08:38] to as the Battle of Seattle, well yeah,
[08:40] that era was now over. You know, if
[08:42] Seattle was once the cultural and
[08:43] political center of a new generation,
[08:45] Goodnight, Seattle. things swung back to
[08:48] Giuliani's Manhattan, especially to
[08:51] MTV's TRL studios in Times Square. Also,
[08:54] this is my last note, this is just for
[08:55] Gen Z. While you might think of Rudolph
[08:57] Giuliani as that guy whose hair melted
[09:00] off his face once when he was doing an
[09:01] interview, probably pushing crypto or
[09:03] something, but for a brief period of
[09:04] time, that man was America's mayor. He
[09:08] was legitimately one of the most beloved
[09:09] figures in American political life.
[09:11] Everyone thought that he was going to be
[09:12] president one day, and now he's he's
[09:14] this guy. In the midst of this
[09:16] commercialized consumer wasteland, Marks
[09:18] notes that for a moment it seemed like
[09:20] The Strokes, yes, the rock band The
[09:22] Strokes, were going to be the return of
[09:24] something real and gritty to a city that
[09:26] now had more Bubba Gump Shrimp Company
[09:28] locations than it did sites of
[09:30] countercultural resistance. But Marks
[09:32] notes that the countercultural
[09:34] aesthetics of The Strokes were largely
[09:36] just that. You know, they were young,
[09:37] rich kids [music] from New York, some of
[09:39] whom were educated at elite boarding
[09:40] schools, a couple of whom had famous
[09:42] dads, and who were from a very early
[09:44] phase backed by major label money and
[09:46] promotional budgets. Marks quotes music
[09:49] critic Ryan Schreiber as writing that
[09:50] the Strokes were a band that seen enough
[09:52] publicity in 2001 to make bin Laden
[09:55] jealous. See you guys, I'm not kidding.
[09:56] Osama bin Laden was like a REALLY BIG
[09:58] DEAL.
[10:04] WE ARE NOW OFFICIALLY IN THE ERA of the
[10:06] hipster. And as Mark Greif notes, um
[10:09] also here quoted in Marks' Hipsters,
[10:11] blended rebel subculture with dominant
[10:13] class taste, creating a poisonous
[10:15] conduit between the two. Still quoting
[10:17] Greif, Marks writes that hipsterism was
[10:20] Bohemia without the revolutionary core,
[10:22] in which alternative consumerism
[10:24] replaced any genuine countercultural
[10:26] ethos. This led to a generation of
[10:28] millennials, of which I am one, who
[10:30] initially viewed Obama as if he was some
[10:32] combination of Trotsky, Che Guevara, and
[10:34] Michael Jordan. I went to a 2008
[10:36] election results watch party in
[10:38] Scotland, where I was living at the
[10:39] time, and when he won, all the cool
[10:40] Europeans were looking at me like, "Hey
[10:42] man, you did it. You really did it." But
[10:44] little did all those hot Germans and
[10:46] Danes know that I actually forgot to
[10:47] vote in that one, cuz I couldn't figure
[10:49] out how to do it. My parents were like,
[10:51] "You got to vote even when you're
[10:52] overseas." I was like, "How do you do
[10:54] that? I I can't do it online, it's
[10:56] probably not going to happen." Well,
[10:57] hipsterism was serving a largely
[10:59] depoliticizing role, creating a
[11:01] generation with good taste that wanted
[11:03] to live in cool places with lots of
[11:05] bricks and and have nice things. On the
[11:06] other side of the culture, the pair of
[11:08] poptimism and reality TV paving the way
[11:11] for a world in which commodity was all
[11:13] and all was commodity. You know, this
[11:15] turned things like marketing and
[11:17] commodification into art worthy of
[11:19] serious criticism. While Gen X had made
[11:21] selling out an unforgivable sin, it was
[11:23] now simply how one created a career in
[11:26] the arts and media. And I'll just say
[11:28] it, for anyone who's wondering,
[11:29] poptimism went way too far, way too far.
[11:31] Even at the time, I was pretty cranky
[11:33] about it, and I got told that I was
[11:34] wrong, and I needed to have more fun,
[11:36] and I was being a snob. And sometimes in
[11:37] life, you know, people tell you stuff,
[11:38] and you're like, "Oh, they're probably
[11:39] right." This is one where you're like,
[11:40] "No, I was right. I was just right that
[11:41] time. Sorry. Sorry." We saw the
[11:43] downstream effects of this shifting
[11:44] culture in 2008, and again in 2016. Now,
[11:47] in 2008, in the wake of a financial
[11:49] crisis, largely manufactured by Wall
[11:51] Street, the government quickly bailed
[11:52] out the very banks that created the
[11:54] crisis, while they left working-class
[11:56] people just out to dry on their own
[11:58] without any help. You know, it wasn't
[11:59] until 2011 that it seemed like there was
[12:01] some genuinely revolutionary response to
[12:04] Wall Street and Washington telling us to
[12:06] all [music] kindly eat It was the
[12:08] Occupy Wall Street movement, centered in
[12:10] Manhattan, in in Wall Street, which is
[12:12] in which is in [music] That's why they
[12:13] called it that. And then it was called
[12:14] Then it was just called Occupy, cuz then
[12:15] it went to other places, too. If you
[12:17] have stories from being a person that
[12:18] participated in that, let me know. Now,
[12:19] this movement, uh notable for being
[12:21] initiated by the Canadian magazine
[12:23] Adbusters, rallied around the phrase,
[12:25] "We are the 99%," [music] and utilized
[12:28] anarchistic structures of organization,
[12:30] which made decision-making at large
[12:31] scale a precarious, sometimes impossible
[12:34] task. There were also issues of how and
[12:37] for how many [music] hours of the day it
[12:39] was appropriate to have the drum circle
[12:40] going. Now, while one could draw a
[12:42] connection between this moment and the
[12:44] rise of politicians like Bernie Sanders
[12:46] and AOC, Marx notes that the movement's
[12:49] inability to [music] articulate clear
[12:51] political aims or achieve any tangible
[12:53] victories reinforced Mark Fisher's
[12:55] notion of capitalist realism. Also, at
[12:57] this point in the video, if you got
[12:58] distracted and I said Marx and you got
[13:00] confused cuz you were like, "Karl Marx
[13:01] did not write about Occupy Wall Street."
[13:03] Again, we're talking about this book,
[13:04] Blank Space, [music] by a guy named
[13:06] David Marx. So, even when I'm not
[13:08] talking about Marx, I'm finding ways to
[13:10] talk about Marx, I guess. But, as we
[13:12] know, ultimately this movement didn't
[13:13] work [music] out. You know, it was
[13:14] something more grounded in aesthetics
[13:16] and the presentation of radical politics
[13:18] than it was motivated by any coherent
[13:21] political program. A generation of
[13:23] depoliticized creative class aspirants
[13:25] simply didn't know what to do when they
[13:27] were in a position to actually resist.
[13:29] And to be clear, I'm critiquing that
[13:31] generation of depoliticized creative
[13:34] class aspirants from from within that
[13:37] world. I'm not That was I was there. I
[13:39] was one of them. I guess I still I'm not
[13:41] still one of them, but you know what I
[13:42] mean. There's sort of a parallel to this
[13:44] in January 2020 when those far-right
[13:46] patriots bravely stormed the Capitol.
[13:48] When they got there, they just like
[13:49] stood around and took pictures and and
[13:51] waved flags. I know some of them and
[13:52] some of them like killer calm or
[13:53] something. I mean, some of them did some
[13:54] stuff. Most of them just like looked
[13:56] like they didn't know what to do once
[13:57] they were there. Now, instead of the
[13:59] 2008 crisis and the following Occupy
[14:01] movement leading to a process of mass
[14:03] politicization and working class
[14:05] solidarity, our culture as a whole
[14:06] became even more consumed by the
[14:09] performance of illusory wealth. You
[14:11] know, we didn't want to think about the
[14:12] systemic financial reasons that our
[14:14] lives sucked. We wanted to revel in the
[14:16] culture of those who had succeeded via
[14:18] the monetization of the performance of
[14:20] their own humanity.
[14:23] >> radiation. You're going to die anyway.
[14:25] You understand that, right? Die with a
[14:27] good Snapchat.
[14:28] >> The Kardashians became famous for being
[14:30] famous and then became rich for being
[14:32] famous for being rich. They spawned an
[14:34] empire that changed the aesthetics of a
[14:36] generation and led to the boom of a
[14:38] certain type of influencer persona. You
[14:41] know, Marks notes in his book that right
[14:42] before Occupy Wall Street began, the
[14:44] show Keeping Up with the Kardashians
[14:46] featured a subplot in which Kris Jenner
[14:47] responded to her own bladder leakage not
[14:50] with going to the doctor, but with
[14:52] contacting a company that sold absorbent
[14:54] pads to try to make a brand deal out of
[14:56] the thing. Her philosophy was and still
[14:58] is, let's not make it a problem. Let's
[15:00] make money. And it's not shocking that
[15:01] there's a connection between the first
[15:03] family of empty consumption and the king
[15:05] of piss and Donald J. Trump, a
[15:07] failed real estate tycoon that leveraged
[15:09] his illusory wealth into reality TV
[15:11] stardom and then into into the into the
[15:13] world we live in into just creating this
[15:15] world that we live in now. Shout out to
[15:16] the ballroom. Got to build Got to build
[15:18] the ballroom, guys. You got to We got to
[15:20] have it. Me and all the homies are like,
[15:22] "Where's that ballroom at?"
[15:23] >> In both cases, we were presented with an
[15:24] illusory wealth, which was more media
[15:26] product than it was financial reality
[15:28] until, you know, at least in the case of
[15:30] the Kardashians, as already said, they
[15:31] turned the illusion into an actual
[15:33] economic empire. Uh I got a note here.
[15:35] This was also the era of ZIRP, uh zero
[15:38] interest rate policy, which Marx notes
[15:40] led to the economic model of companies
[15:41] like Uber, which used cheap money to
[15:43] undercut competitors even when their own
[15:45] business model wasn't and probably still
[15:47] isn't profitable. And it also paved the
[15:48] way for an era of ZIRP-type [music]
[15:50] content in media. But I I don't make
[15:52] two-hour videos, so I'm just I'm just
[15:53] zipping through I'm zipping through that
[15:55] ZIRP. This all coalesced into a new era
[15:57] of entrepreneurial poptimism, where the
[15:59] creative class became disruptors of
[16:01] various industries as they occupied the
[16:04] WeWorks of New York and San Francisco,
[16:06] fueled by Taylor Swift albums or or
[16:08] Spotify playlist that were called like
[16:10] hustle vibe, busy groove, lockdown
[16:13] focus, noise to die to. And hey, this is
[16:16] all a little reductive, but don't get
[16:17] mad at what I'm saying. Don't get mad at
[16:19] me for not being a fan of a very
[16:20] successful billionaire pop star. You
[16:22] know, she's okay. I bet she's okay. Cuz,
[16:24] you know, Marx also notes in that book
[16:25] that this is the era of the emergence of
[16:27] stan culture, you know, which merged
[16:29] with the ideology of poptimism and gave
[16:31] us things like the K-Hive or Pete
[16:33] Buttigieg doing that dance. But by 2016,
[16:35] it did seem like the disappointments of
[16:37] the Obama presidency, which totally
[16:39] paved the way for the Silicon Valley
[16:41] takeover of politics and culture, the
[16:42] failures of Occupy Wall Street, and the
[16:44] shock of Trump's 2016 victory and Brexit
[16:47] did create the conditions for a sort of
[16:49] repoliticization of large chunks of the
[16:51] creative class. Don't boo.
[16:54] Vote. The problem was by this point, we
[16:56] were all just very online, like online
[16:58] is where we lived. The computer became
[17:00] became the real [music] place. And
[17:01] becoming popular enough as a poster
[17:04] could turn you into a micro-Kardashian
[17:06] of your given niche, making political
[17:08] posting more like a new way to gain
[17:11] clout and notoriety than it was a way to
[17:13] to overthrow capitalism. Is this the
[17:15] first time I said capitalism in this
[17:16] video? It can't be. It [music] can't be.
[17:18] Now, when he discusses this, Marx refers
[17:19] to the work of journalist Taylor Lorenz
[17:21] and her description of social media as a
[17:23] revolution that demolished [music]
[17:25] traditional barriers. Well, Marx notes
[17:27] that a true revolution involves a
[17:28] reversal [music] of status, one in which
[17:31] outsiders don't just bypass traditional
[17:33] gatekeepers, but seize control [music]
[17:34] of the establishment. You know, cuz like
[17:36] if the radical leftists get to post on
[17:38] on the platforms owned by the
[17:40] we're still living in [music] an
[17:41] ecosystem where where primarily posting
[17:46] You know, this led to an era where
[17:47] online discourse grew way more
[17:48] left-leaning in its political
[17:50] sensibilities, you know? We had politics
[17:52] Twitter and [music] and BreadTube, the
[17:54] online left, things of that nature. But,
[17:56] that digital revolution struggled to
[17:57] gain a foothold in material politics.
[18:00] Although, I'll also say it, Bernie
[18:02] should have won. And of course, this all
[18:03] gets us to the era that I talked about
[18:05] in my last video on financialization,
[18:08] the world where we're using [music]
[18:09] prediction markets to bet on political
[18:12] races and war crimes and stuff like
[18:14] that. everything becomes [music] a
[18:16] tradeable digital asset. Again, if you
[18:19] did not see that video, go watch it. I
[18:21] mean, I guess finish this one first, but
[18:22] go watch that because it kind of helps
[18:24] here. It kind of helps [music] here. And
[18:25] again, I really do recommend this book,
[18:27] Blank Space, by W. David Marx. Um, it's
[18:30] good, you know? It's not perfect. It's
[18:31] weird that there's a B.J. Novak thing on
[18:34] the back, you know, the guy from The
[18:36] Office? I don't like that. I don't want
[18:38] I don't want to read things cuz B.J.
[18:40] Novak does.
[18:43] >> [music]
[18:46] >> Okay, before I say anything else, let's
[18:47] take a brief interlude so I can really
[18:49] hammer the point home here. Okay, so
[18:51] popular culture reflects the financial
[18:53] conditions under which it is produced.
[18:56] So, when we consume and internalize
[18:57] cultural products, we're unconsciously
[19:00] internalizing this very financial logic.
[19:02] In other words, the type of culture
[19:04] that's produced in a financialized model
[19:07] directly reflects the values of
[19:09] financialization. So, when that culture
[19:11] shapes our own tastes and values, we're
[19:13] being trained to provide consent for a
[19:16] system that is making our lives suck.
[19:19] [music] If that didn't make sense, just
[19:20] rewind 10 seconds because I want to make
[19:22] sure that we're all on the same page
[19:24] here before we keep going. Now, I
[19:26] introduced this logic in my video on
[19:28] prediction market apps. And
[19:30] financialization's increasing influence
[19:33] on our culture, it's not subtle like at
[19:35] all. Okay, to pick up a comparison that
[19:37] I brought up in that video. If
[19:39] neoliberalism produced rich guys like
[19:41] Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who made
[19:43] consumer products for humans and
[19:45] occasionally atoned for their sins by
[19:47] starting nonprofits or donating to
[19:49] charity, the logic of financialization
[19:51] produces rich guys [music] like Elon
[19:52] Musk and Sam Altman who make products
[19:55] that knowingly make our lives worse
[19:57] while also not even performatively
[20:00] giving back via charities or nonprofits
[20:02] or whatever. They just hate people. Like
[20:04] I really I really think we can just we
[20:05] can just say it at this point. The new
[20:07] billionaire types hate people. I
[20:09] actually I don't want to be
[20:10] self-promotional, but I did talk about
[20:12] this [music] in that video on Mark
[20:13] Andreessen. I did talk about this a
[20:15] little bit. Now, we can use the same
[20:17] framework to think about the shift
[20:19] that's taking place in popular culture
[20:20] because while traditional studio
[20:22] executives and record label heads seem
[20:24] to at least enjoy art made by humans and
[20:27] when occasionally produce things that
[20:29] might have [music] more critical success
[20:31] than commercial success, the people who
[20:33] now run these industries are a bunch of
[20:35] ghouls that only get hard if they're
[20:37] getting fin dommed by a leftist college
[20:39] student wearing a bunny suit and paying
[20:41] down student loans. Because all evidence
[20:43] indicates that they don't only hate art
[20:46] and culture, they also hate human beings
[20:48] as a general category. And I definitely
[20:50] think a lot of these tech people hate
[20:52] and resent artists especially. I didn't
[20:54] know what the Paramount Plus Germany
[20:56] offices looked like, so I sort of had to
[20:59] take a guess.
[21:00] Or think about how not that long ago
[21:02] Spotify employed human beings to curate
[21:05] playlist that were based on what was
[21:07] new, exciting, and creative in music.
[21:09] And now they pump out AI-created
[21:11] playlists that aim to maximize user
[21:13] engagement. And this relates back to our
[21:15] main point here. When Spotify puts out
[21:17] playlist with a certain type of music
[21:19] curated by AI, humans are then going to
[21:23] replicate that music in hopes of getting
[21:25] their music on the playlists that have
[21:27] been created by AI. So, basically,
[21:29] humans are making things to satisfy the
[21:33] financialized logic of these algorithms
[21:35] and not to satisfy some innate human
[21:38] urge for art or meaning or culture. And
[21:41] this is all on purpose.
[21:44] >> [music]
[21:48] >> Okay, you know how film and television
[21:50] mostly suck now? I guess music as well.
[21:52] I mean, there's still good things that
[21:54] get made or that slip through the cracks
[21:56] or that you discover on your own. But
[21:58] we're living through this era where it
[21:59] just feels like there's endless reboots
[22:01] and remakes and IP cash grabs and
[22:05] everything [music] is more a product to
[22:07] capture attention or get a new
[22:08] membership than it is a piece of art or
[22:10] even a piece of good culture. Okay, none
[22:13] of this is an accident. This is all
[22:14] happening on purpose because of the
[22:17] logic of financialization. There's a
[22:18] great book on this. It's written by a
[22:20] scholar named Andrew DeWard. It's called
[22:22] Derivative Media: How Wall Street
[22:24] Devours Culture. It's available open
[22:25] access, so I'll link to it down below. I
[22:28] could make a whole other video about
[22:30] this book. Maybe I should, but I at
[22:32] least want to reference it here to give
[22:34] some context. Now, in the book, DeWard
[22:36] acknowledges that he's using the term
[22:38] derivative in a double sense here. You
[22:40] know, he says that the cultural product
[22:41] itself is derivative of prior products,
[22:44] but also the formal characteristics are
[22:46] derivative of business decisions within
[22:49] the company that funded it. Meaning that
[22:51] media feels more derivative in as much
[22:53] as things are copies of copies and
[22:55] reboots of reboots. Media is also
[22:57] derivative because it's just a financial
[23:00] asset to be held by a business guy.
[23:03] Well, you wonder why is there so much
[23:05] fighting over who's going to take over
[23:06] Paramount and Warner Brothers and
[23:08] Netflix and all this sort of stuff?
[23:09] Because there is a financial value to
[23:11] this. Like, do you think that Ellison,
[23:14] Larry Ellison and his son, do you think
[23:15] they like good stuff? You think they
[23:17] like good art? You think they're doing
[23:18] this cuz of the love of the game? I
[23:19] mean, listen to Dworkin talk about this
[23:21] at length. He says, "What's different
[23:22] about film, television, and music today?
[23:24] In a word, it's more often derivative.
[23:26] The degree to which a popular story or
[23:28] song is based on a previous story or
[23:30] song directly or indirectly is much
[23:33] higher than it was in the past. The
[23:34] degree to which the formal elements
[23:36] within a story or song are directly
[23:37] connected to business decisions within
[23:39] the company that funded the story or
[23:41] song is much higher. You see this in the
[23:43] amount of pop and R&B songs these days
[23:45] that are remakes of songs from the '90s
[23:48] or early 2000s or or use samples from
[23:50] those songs. In one sense, sampling
[23:52] other songs from other artists isn't
[23:53] new. In another sense, if a record label
[23:56] owns a thing, let's say a TLC song from
[23:59] the '90s, that is a derivative asset
[24:01] that they can use to get new young pop
[24:03] star to re-record or interpolate or use
[24:05] a sample of, right? The point of it
[24:07] isn't the art. The point of it is being
[24:09] able to say, "We already own this thing.
[24:11] How can we reuse the thing that we own
[24:13] to make the most profit off the thing?"
[24:15] This means that the derivative or
[24:18] speculative value of the thing of the
[24:21] cultural object is way more important
[24:22] than the thing itself. Whether it's a
[24:24] movie primarily serving the purpose of
[24:27] selling toys to kids or a song that's
[24:30] purpose [music] is its ability to get
[24:32] used on TikTok or for commercial
[24:34] purposes. And there's some really good
[24:36] stuff in the book where he uses two
[24:38] examples in particular, the lyrics of
[24:40] Jay-Z and the jokes [music] and
[24:42] references in the show 30 Rock to get at
[24:44] this. And there's a part where he says,
[24:46] "To modify a famous Walter Benjamin
[24:49] quote, the work of art in the age of
[24:51] financialized securitization exhibits
[24:54] textual tendencies of speculation."
[24:56] Which basically means that the type of
[24:58] art and music that gets produced under
[25:00] the era of financialization will itself
[25:03] creatively point towards speculative
[25:07] assets and value. Like an example here,
[25:09] and there's charts in the book where he
[25:10] shows this um and the frequency even
[25:13] blew me away a bit is how much Jay-Z
[25:15] wraps about specific consumer products
[25:18] at a certain point in his career, at
[25:20] another point wraps about consumer
[25:22] products or consumer services that he is
[25:24] an owner or an investor in. And the way
[25:26] in which the purpose of the music
[25:28] becomes the spreading out of economic
[25:31] opportunity in the future by mentioning
[25:33] those products. And remember, this is
[25:35] the rapper who famously said, "I'm not a
[25:37] businessman, I'm a business man." Like
[25:40] he he just says the thing. This is why
[25:42] De Ward writes, "For the musician
[25:44] speculator, word choices within lyrics
[25:46] are converted into fungible assets.
[25:48] Multiplied by hundreds of rappers and
[25:50] thousands of songs, the textual
[25:52] marketplace becomes [music]
[25:54] speculative." It creates a sort of
[25:56] intertextual ecosystem where the art
[25:59] itself is primarily reflecting various
[26:02] speculative economic opportunities, and
[26:04] then other artists might talk about
[26:06] those same things maybe to be derivative
[26:10] of a more popular artist, but also to
[26:12] participate in the potential derivative
[26:15] value of those things. I mean, we can
[26:17] also see the way in which this applies
[26:19] to music via the logic of streaming
[26:21] services. So, think about all of the
[26:24] playlist on Spotify that blew up at one
[26:26] point that were like music to chill to,
[26:28] zone out lo-fi beats, music to feel
[26:31] nothing to, whatever those things were
[26:32] called. Initially, they were put
[26:34] together because some data showed that
[26:37] that type of music kept people on the
[26:39] platform for a while. But then what
[26:41] happens is actual human artists want to
[26:43] get on those same platforms, so they
[26:46] start creating music to fit that mold,
[26:50] right? The algorithm determines what is
[26:52] important or valuable, and then art
[26:54] starts reflecting that thing. The point
[26:57] isn't to make a good song, the point is
[26:58] to make a song that will be on this
[27:01] playlist that has the highest amount of
[27:02] engagement. Or the way in which some
[27:03] younger artists now make shorter songs
[27:05] because the point is to make the song to
[27:07] potentially get used in TikTok videos by
[27:10] other creators. I mean, this is why we
[27:12] might think about clickbait in terms of
[27:14] YouTube. When we think about music, we
[27:16] could use terms like streambait. And to
[27:18] get back to De Ward's book, the entire
[27:19] argument is that financialization, the
[27:22] logic we've been talking about in this
[27:23] video and in another recent video, has
[27:25] produced this. So, De Ward describes
[27:26] financialization as the growing
[27:28] influence of financial markets, firms,
[27:30] and instruments is premised on
[27:32] speculative risk management, extractive
[27:34] logic, highly leveraged debt, and
[27:35] short-term profits. He also argues that
[27:38] financialization is the key structural
[27:40] force, perhaps the key structural force,
[27:43] shaping cultural production and
[27:45] circulation today. Which means that we
[27:47] only still have a culture industry at
[27:49] all because of this type of financial
[27:51] value. Uh De Ward writes that
[27:52] contemporary popular media texts now
[27:54] function as risk-hedging derivatives
[27:57] through which capital accumulates in
[27:59] diversified cultural hedge funds
[28:01] operated by a handful of transnational
[28:02] media corporations disciplined by even
[28:05] bigger financial firms. And in the book
[28:06] as well, he points out with maps. I love
[28:09] maps. They used to call me the
[28:10] cartographer. They've never called me
[28:11] that. But he uses maps to show how all
[28:13] of these decisions that shape the
[28:15] culture that we get to experience are
[28:17] made either by some people at a few
[28:18] studios in Hollywood, some tech dudes in
[28:20] this one like block in Palo Alto, or the
[28:22] finance firms on one block in New York
[28:25] City. Like, that's who's controlling the
[28:26] whole thing. He ultimately gets into how
[28:27] this is a capitalism problem, and we
[28:29] can't fix this in a serious way until we
[28:32] just deconstruct capitalism and get
[28:33] something new. He does, though, talk
[28:35] about why things like cultural criticism
[28:38] are more important than ever. This is
[28:40] something that Mark writes about in his
[28:41] book as well. We don't need this
[28:43] poptimist era of of let people enjoy
[28:46] things, which we've had for a while now.
[28:47] We need to, in a sense, get more snobby,
[28:50] more hierarchical, more critical in our
[28:52] ability to analyze and criticize these
[28:54] works. A, so that we're better at
[28:56] reading cultural texts, so we have
[28:58] better media and artistic literacy, but
[29:00] also so that we can unpack their
[29:02] underlying messages. And there's both a
[29:05] radical potential in doing this sort of
[29:07] media criticism and in also making
[29:09] things that reflect logics that are
[29:11] counter to this. I want to read one more
[29:13] long quote from de Word. "Financial
[29:15] logic is embedded not just within the
[29:17] organization and management of the
[29:18] cultural industries, but within the very
[29:20] form of cultural text. Derivative media
[29:23] is structured by speculation. It is no
[29:25] longer the case that products and brands
[29:27] are simply incorporated into popular
[29:29] media text, commodifying the text, a
[29:31] process that has been occurring for over
[29:32] a century in the era of
[29:34] financialization. The text is now
[29:36] designed to facilitate the speculative
[29:39] process of buying and selling product
[29:42] placements, branding opportunities,
[29:44] cross-promotion, corporate synergy, and
[29:47] other economic relationships." I mean,
[29:49] damn, [music] that's that's real. That's
[29:51] like real stuff. I think you should read
[29:53] this book. A big theme of this video is
[29:54] like read read books. I don't have this
[29:56] book physically out again cuz I said it
[29:58] was available [music] open access as a
[29:59] PDF, but buy a copy, too. Why not get a
[30:01] copy of the book? Again, there's so much
[30:03] more that could be said here, but I
[30:04] think de Word's book is a really good
[30:07] companion piece to Marx's book because
[30:09] it offers a type of really in-depth
[30:11] economic analysis that I think makes
[30:14] Marx's cultural analysis even more
[30:16] forceful. Okay, but there's one last
[30:17] elephant in the room or or influencer on
[30:21] the screen or or creator in the
[30:23] thumbnail we need to talk about, and
[30:25] that's this this platform and this
[30:27] thing, right? Cuz I'm I'm currently
[30:29] making this on a platform [music]
[30:31] on a type of streaming service that's
[30:33] more popular than all of the big ones.
[30:36] So So maybe maybe this is time for
[30:39] Michael to get a little self-reflexive
[30:41] and critical. It's not going to be fun,
[30:44] but uh let's get into it. Yeah, we got
[30:46] to talk about this all applies to
[30:47] YouTube now as well. In case you didn't
[30:48] get it, we got to talk about how this
[30:50] all applies to YouTube, and we got to
[30:51] talk about how I guess I'm a part of the
[30:53] problem, but then so are you for
[30:55] watching it. So, we're all in this
[30:56] together.
[31:00] >> [music]
[31:02] >> Now, it would be weird to make a video
[31:03] like this without formally acknowledging
[31:06] that this platform [music]
[31:07] and the medium of digital video creation
[31:10] more broadly is just as shaped and
[31:12] tainted by financialization as the
[31:14] previously mentioned mediums. And it's
[31:16] something that's been written about at
[31:17] length in this book, The Influencer
[31:19] Factory, A Marxist Theory of Corporate
[31:21] Personhood on YouTube, written by Grant
[31:23] Balmer and Katherine Ginness. If you
[31:25] have longed for a materialist economic
[31:27] analysis of the weird people and content
[31:29] [music] on this platform, um then I very
[31:31] much recommend this book to you. Now,
[31:33] one of the primary claims in the book is
[31:35] that YouTube influencers, as a class,
[31:37] are capital personified, meaning that
[31:40] they both internalize and then perform
[31:42] the financial logic of contemporary
[31:44] capitalism. You know, we see this in the
[31:45] way that Jimmy Donaldson as the
[31:47] performance art piece called Mr. Beast
[31:49] [music] uh is less a creative individual
[31:51] and more a platform for a variety of
[31:53] brands and products from merch to
[31:55] chocolate bars to weird Amazon TV shows
[31:58] that are actually remakes of Netflix
[32:00] shows, but ooh, whatever. Uh to
[32:02] children's lunches newest venture,
[32:03] financial services. Yeah, he quite
[32:05] literally is just going for it. Not even
[32:07] not even trying to hide it. We're just
[32:08] doing Beast Financial Services now. I'm
[32:10] sure that'll be great for the kids. We
[32:12] also see this in the less offensive
[32:14] brand of someone like Emma Chamberlain,
[32:16] who parlayed the intimacy of her just
[32:18] talking to my camera content into a
[32:20] coffee empire including
[32:21] direct-to-consumer sales and physical
[32:23] locations as well as things like her
[32:24] current partnership with West Elm, a
[32:27] thing I know about because I was reading
[32:29] about her for this video, and then all
[32:31] of a sudden getting ads for Emma
[32:34] Chamberlain's partnership with West Elm,
[32:36] [music] and I'll be honest, it looks
[32:38] pretty good. Again, the end game here of
[32:40] being a YouTube influencer is just the
[32:41] circulation of consumer goods and
[32:43] capital. Though, to be clear, let's be
[32:45] real here. I would much rather drink a
[32:47] coffee with Emma Chamberlain in a cozy
[32:49] West Elm furnished living room than I
[32:50] would eat a Feastables in some warehouse
[32:53] in rural North Carolina while watching
[32:54] Mr. Beast tell some poor person that if
[32:56] they stay inside a circle all day, they
[32:58] can finally get the prosthetic limbs
[33:00] they've always wanted. Balmer and
[33:01] Guinness use examples like Donaldson and
[33:03] Chamberlain, among others, to highlight
[33:05] the way in which this influencer economy
[33:07] consists of capitalist posing as
[33:09] creative humans. It's similar to Marx's
[33:12] previously mentioned example of the
[33:13] emergence of a creative class that was
[33:15] able to self-identify as artist while
[33:18] doing marketing campaigns for oil
[33:20] companies and airlines. And while it's
[33:22] tempting to focus a critique like this
[33:24] on the particular super successful
[33:26] influencers who have used YouTube to
[33:28] create their own financial empires, this
[33:30] only distracts us from the way in which
[33:31] more middle-class YouTube creators and
[33:34] their audiences are also further
[33:36] facilitating this system. This is where
[33:38] you're like, "Does he get Does he know
[33:40] that he's he's the guy he's talking
[33:41] Yeah, I I get it. I get it, you know? I
[33:43] get it." As this whole thing can trick
[33:45] YouTube influencers into thinking
[33:47] they're doing something creative and
[33:48] artistic when in fact, they might just
[33:50] be passively facilitating the flow of
[33:53] capital. And this is why I absolutely
[33:54] hate the term creator. Um, if you ever
[33:56] describe me as a creator, I'll come to
[33:58] your house and make your dad cook me a
[33:59] meatloaf while your mom serenades me
[34:01] with Natalie Imbruglia's Torn on your
[34:04] childhood karaoke machine. And you?
[34:06] You're not allowed to eat anything. You
[34:08] just get to watch and listen. Mm. And
[34:10] this is all the logical endpoint of the
[34:12] creative class spirit that emerged in
[34:14] the early 21st century, which is again
[34:17] just about becoming props for the
[34:19] circulation of capital. And as Balmer
[34:21] and Guinness point out in their book,
[34:22] the creative endpoint of all of this is
[34:24] not building upon online success to
[34:26] launch a creative career in the arts and
[34:28] entertainment or help other people make
[34:30] cool stuff. It's it's a warehouse. A
[34:32] warehouse full of mass-produced consumer
[34:34] goods ready to be shipped to the most
[34:36] committed followers of these
[34:38] influencers, you know? Every Everything
[34:40] else, all the stuff, is just a way to
[34:42] get to the warehouse. The warehouse is
[34:46] the point of the whole thing. As always,
[34:48] this is most apparent in the work of
[34:49] Donaldson, who often uses things shot
[34:52] inside of warehouses to get us to buy
[34:54] things that are stored in warehouses.
[34:57] And I think it's not unfair to just
[34:59] acknowledge that these mega influencers
[35:01] could be funding their own creative
[35:02] projects, making movies, supporting
[35:04] younger artists, but instead, they're
[35:06] selling shitty candy bars and and
[35:08] mass-produced coffee. Now, this all
[35:10] connects back to what De Waal gets at in
[35:12] derivative media when he analyzes the
[35:14] speculative logic at play in both rap
[35:16] lyrics and 30 Rock references. But
[35:18] rather than Jay-Z rapping about bottles
[35:20] of Ace of Spades, it's influencers
[35:24] talking about their new products, or in
[35:26] some cases, just talking about other
[35:28] influencers. Okay, surely someone has
[35:30] already commented or is about to do so
[35:32] and say something like, um, "Hey, dude,
[35:35] isn't that what you and all the YouTube
[35:37] people I like do when you take breaks in
[35:40] your videos to then tell us about your
[35:41] sponsor?" Now, to an extent, sure, you
[35:43] got me, but, um, the thing is that it's
[35:46] actually way worse, one might say more
[35:48] insidious [music] than that. Now, in my
[35:50] discussion of De Waal's derivative
[35:52] media, it's talked about the notion of
[35:54] intertextuality in the modern media
[35:56] ecosystem. You know, this is where
[35:57] sitcoms reference other sitcoms
[36:00] and and rappers shout out their favorite
[36:02] consumer goods and the new superhero
[36:03] blockbuster teases potential spin-off
[36:05] series with other characters in that or
[36:07] or something, you know, that sort of
[36:08] stuff. The point is for culture to serve
[36:11] as the space for the flow of capital in
[36:13] the spirit of further financialization,
[36:15] or you know, the further creation of
[36:17] derivative media. Private finance
[36:19] created the modern media ecosystem, and
[36:21] now the media produced by that system is
[36:24] further reinforcing the goals and the
[36:27] logic of finance. We don't do it cuz we
[36:29] like it.
[36:31] We do it cuz we run out of options.
[36:33] >> And I think this whole process is
[36:34] actually less subtle on YouTube and
[36:37] other social video platforms than it is
[36:39] on more traditional media platforms.
[36:41] Because the intertextuality is happening
[36:43] at least a couple ways over here on
[36:45] YouTube, right? So, in one sense, it's a
[36:47] way that influencers and creators on
[36:51] this platform make money via the
[36:52] integration of products into their
[36:55] content. You know, what what brands
[36:56] quite literally call integrations. But,
[36:58] it's not just that. We also see an
[37:00] intertextuality in the content reaction
[37:03] ecosystem. Where it's become more
[37:05] profitable to make content that's
[37:08] critiquing other creators or content
[37:10] that's owning or debunking other
[37:12] creators, especially those that are more
[37:14] popular than yourself. As this content
[37:16] encourages increased platform engagement
[37:19] and time spent on YouTube, right?
[37:20] Because if I make a video that's like,
[37:22] "This this guy this guy sucks. This guy
[37:24] is real bad. This human being who has
[37:27] has family, people he loves, probably
[37:28] works hard, probably cries sometimes.
[37:30] This guy is a bad person cuz he said a
[37:32] thing on on Twitter or something I don't
[37:34] like. This he's bad." Right? When I do
[37:36] that, you're more likely to then say,
[37:37] "I'm going to go see what that guy's up
[37:39] to." And maybe you go and you watch one
[37:40] of his videos and you're like, "Oh,
[37:42] Michael's my guy. I'll kill your whole
[37:43] family." And
[37:44] >> [music]
[37:44] >> and in doing so, right? That content has
[37:47] spurred you to both stay on the platform
[37:50] and engage with other stuff on that
[37:51] platform. And when I make that video, I
[37:53] know that that guy might make a video
[37:55] about me. And we're going to have, you
[37:57] know what I'm saying? You know what I'm
[37:58] saying? You get it. And just to be
[37:59] speculative for a second, it seems like
[38:02] this is precisely why this content is
[38:04] algorithmically successful. Like, the
[38:06] algorithm gets that that sort of stuff
[38:08] is going to use intertextuality to keep
[38:11] people on platform, to keep them
[38:13] engaging, to get them to comment and
[38:15] watch more stuff. I'll give you an
[38:16] example here. My least successful videos
[38:19] from an algorithmic perspective are the
[38:21] Burns after reading videos. These are
[38:23] videos where I ask viewers to go off
[38:25] platform and then go spend money with
[38:27] bookstores that are not connected to the
[38:29] YouTube commerce ecosystem, and into
[38:31] spend hours reading books and thinking
[38:33] about books, things that they don't have
[38:35] to be online to do. [music] Now, I'm not
[38:38] saying that someone at YouTube knows
[38:40] this and is intentionally punishing
[38:42] those videos, but I am saying that
[38:44] content [music] that reflects the logic
[38:47] of the financial system that we live
[38:48] under performs better than that which
[38:51] critiques or questions it. So, I guess
[38:54] my real advice here to up-and-coming
[38:56] YouTube creators is just embody the
[38:57] logic of financialization if you would
[38:59] like to be successful. But, let me say
[39:01] it really quickly, and I did talk about
[39:03] this in my last video. Watch that if you
[39:04] haven't yet. I think that there's a way
[39:06] to do this better. I think we can use
[39:08] this platform in better, more human
[39:10] ways. I'll talk about that more. It's a
[39:12] thing I'm always thinking about, but,
[39:13] you know, check that video out if you
[39:14] have not already. Oh my god, I just did
[39:16] an intertextuality. I
[39:19] thought I was That wasn't even like a
[39:21] That wasn't an intentional moment of
[39:23] irony. That was me realizing as I was
[39:25] doing it that I was doing the thing.
[39:29] >> [music]
[39:31] >> Okay, so what the do we do with all
[39:33] of this? Is this just another leftist
[39:35] YouTube video that drags you through
[39:37] depressing economic and philosophical
[39:40] analysis only to leave you with no hope
[39:42] and nothing but a hollow plea to like
[39:45] and subscribe. [music]
[39:46] For once, that's actually not what we're
[39:48] doing here. Okay, so let's return to
[39:49] Mark. I'm W. David Marks, not Karl Marx,
[39:52] but honestly sort of Karl Marx, too. So,
[39:54] we started with the idea that 9/11 led
[39:57] to the decline of cultural innovation
[39:59] and originality in the 21st century and
[40:01] that this cultural decline [music] was
[40:03] the natural outcome of a new financial
[40:06] model called financialization. Now,
[40:08] there's so many ways that we can
[40:10] critique and analyze financialization. I
[40:12] think I'm going to keep doing it in some
[40:13] upcoming videos, but today I want to
[40:15] talk in particular about how artists can
[40:18] respond, or just people that like art
[40:20] and culture can respond to this moment.
[40:23] And to do so, I want to just look at the
[40:25] final section of Marx's book, which is
[40:27] titled "Restoring Cultural Invention."
[40:30] Now, I really enjoyed this whole book,
[40:31] but the conclusion really kicks ass. Um
[40:34] patrons, I'll maybe illegally put those
[40:36] pages over on the Patreon. But what he
[40:38] does is makes a quick call for how we
[40:40] can restore cultural invention. And
[40:42] while it's not explicitly political, I
[40:44] think we've seen enough to know that we
[40:47] need cultural invention to shape the way
[40:51] that people think and act and feel about
[40:53] their own humanity so that [music] we
[40:54] can have larger political and economic
[40:56] invention. Let me read you this line.
[40:58] It's so good. Marx writes, "The first
[40:59] step in reversing cultural stagnation is
[41:01] to accept that artistic invention is a
[41:04] social good. That artistic invention is
[41:07] a social good." And like so many other
[41:09] social goods, we shouldn't expect the
[41:11] market to optimize for its production.
[41:14] We shouldn't expect the market [music]
[41:16] to optimize for its production. Wow,
[41:19] David. Wow, David Marx. He writes, "We
[41:21] have to make an effort. Creators need to
[41:24] try to make radical new forms of
[41:26] culture. Even their failures and
[41:28] half-steps will be more interesting than
[41:30] overly market-tested premium mediocre
[41:33] pop." Damn, David. The is he doing,
[41:36] man? God, I like that. I mean guys,
[41:38] listen to this He writes, "If
[41:39] you're an artist, find peers who share
[41:42] these aspirations. If you're not an
[41:44] artist, encourage aspiring artists to
[41:46] make art, not [music] immediately
[41:48] indulge in commerce." And one way to
[41:50] think about that last line is like, I
[41:52] know at this point in my life, I have
[41:53] less time for political activism than I
[41:56] would like. [music] But sometimes I have
[41:59] disposable income. So what I can do is
[42:01] use some of what I do have, money, to
[42:04] help others spend [music] time doing
[42:06] activism or supporting political
[42:08] organizations. I think in the same way,
[42:10] if you aren't an artist, but you just
[42:12] really like art, you can support artists
[42:15] and the work that they're doing. Um, you
[42:17] can spend your money and your time
[42:20] paying for art, supporting artists,
[42:22] going to shows and readings and
[42:24] galleries and concerts and all that sort
[42:26] of stuff, right? Cuz it's fun. Cuz it's
[42:28] fun. I mean, here's one last line that
[42:30] he says, "Cultural invention doesn't
[42:32] require government funding or mass
[42:33] persuasion. It begins inside small but
[42:36] influential creative communities." The
[42:38] goal then is to create more of these
[42:40] communities and support them. The goal
[42:43] is to create more of these communities
[42:44] and support them. I mean, I know I'm
[42:46] doing the YouTube thing now, but like
[42:47] shout these communities out. Shout them
[42:49] out if you're aware of them. Shout out
[42:51] these communities. Marks keeps going
[42:52] here. Um, you should read this book for
[42:54] yourself. Go to the library or get it at
[42:56] bookshop.org via my reading list. But,
[42:58] I'll give you some bullet points that
[42:59] really stood out to me. I already
[43:00] mentioned this, but the idea that we
[43:01] have to view cultural invention as a
[43:04] social good. We might think of art and
[43:07] culture as something that happens alone
[43:08] in people's rooms or studios or in these
[43:11] small little communities, but like it is
[43:13] good for society. It is good for people.
[43:15] It is good for humanity when we have
[43:17] cultural invention. [music] Marks also
[43:19] argues that we need smaller creative and
[43:21] artistic communities. I'll read another
[43:23] line from the book. He says, "The
[43:24] internet, this place, makes it far too
[43:26] easy for creators to chase virality
[43:29] rather than cultivate smaller
[43:31] self-sustaining communities." Wow. And
[43:34] he argues against the creation of
[43:36] personal brands and writes that those
[43:38] who want to create something lasting
[43:39] must resist the pull of instant exposure
[43:42] and early buyouts. We need creators to
[43:44] disappear into their own worlds for a
[43:46] while developing ideas away from
[43:48] corporate influence and mainstream
[43:51] assimilation. Not everyone will have the
[43:52] discipline to do this, but those who do
[43:54] will shape the future of culture." Damn.
[43:56] Damn, that's good. Also, this is why
[43:58] it's cool that some people on this
[43:59] platform and others have created
[44:01] audiences and made the space where they
[44:02] can like go away and make really cool
[44:04] [music] things and come back. Others
[44:06] have created those situations and it
[44:08] seems like they just take a lot of money
[44:09] and make crap. But what are you going to
[44:10] do? What are you going to do? I think
[44:12] with YouTube especially we can remember
[44:13] that when everyone is responding to
[44:15] something, it's not a community. When it
[44:17] just becomes a commodity in an
[44:18] ever-changing ecosystem of constant
[44:20] chatter, that's not a community. And we
[44:22] got to rethink community cuz we've just
[44:24] been using that word and I don't think
[44:26] it means what we think it means
[44:27] sometimes. So, if you can do this like
[44:30] build your own little community to
[44:31] create and talk and build and read and
[44:33] watch and just become human together. I
[44:35] mean this all makes me think we need to
[44:36] ask ourselves like what does it mean to
[44:38] prioritize community and creativity over
[44:41] all the other You know, what does
[44:42] it mean to build something sustainable?
[44:43] Is that still possible? If so, how can
[44:45] we do it? No, seriously, how how can we
[44:47] do it? You know, how can we create the
[44:48] space for artists and activists and and
[44:50] scholars and thinkers and poets and
[44:52] painters to just to step away to unplug
[44:54] from the thing, right? Because we know
[44:56] that if artists and creative people
[44:58] don't get to unplug from the algorithmic
[45:01] the algorithmic is going to
[45:03] shape their minds in a way where they
[45:05] are going to replicate that stuff, you
[45:07] know? The platform world cannot be the
[45:09] only world or even the primary world
[45:12] where artists exist because if we're
[45:13] only consuming the financial logic of
[45:15] the system, we're just going to be
[45:17] reproducing that system, right? I mean
[45:19] okay, once I saw this interview that
[45:20] blew my mind. It's when I first started
[45:21] my own channel and it was with [music]
[45:23] some editing guru who like worked for
[45:25] Mr. Beast. And it was like a thing that
[45:26] you a lot of people do on YouTube is
[45:27] they go to film school or they love art
[45:29] and they're like I want to create this
[45:31] scene or do a cool thing that Scorsese
[45:33] did once and that's not what you should
[45:34] do. You should be looking at the data to
[45:36] see what works on YouTube. And it's like
[45:37] what the Guys, we can't we can't
[45:39] do that. Like of course people click the
[45:41] stuff that they're given that the
[45:43] algorithm rewards, but is that really
[45:45] going to be what what limits our
[45:46] creativity? Is that going to be what
[45:48] affects what we make and what we
[45:49] experience and what communities we
[45:51] build? Cuz of course think about how
[45:52] many of our relationships and
[45:53] communities are grounded in a shared
[45:55] appreciation for some form of art or
[45:56] culture. And if all the art and culture
[45:58] is just algorithmic crap, then the best
[46:00] we're going to have is shallow
[46:01] communities founded with a shared love
[46:03] of algorithmic crap. Finally, something
[46:05] that Marks says here that I like a lot.
[46:07] He says that we need to
[46:09] >> [music]
[46:09] >> not give people what they want. Yeah, I
[46:11] didn't start there. We need to not give
[46:13] people what they want. Because again, if
[46:14] we've been shaped by a financialized
[46:17] culture, what we might want, you know,
[46:19] like a like a country album from Post
[46:21] Malone or or for Captain America to come
[46:23] back, well, those things might be
[46:24] terrible. You know, and art
[46:26] should challenge us. It should question.
[46:28] It should destabilize. Uh and the second
[46:31] to last page of the book, Marks writes
[46:32] that relying too heavily on data to
[46:34] shape creative decisions misunderstands
[46:36] the nature of culture. The role of true
[46:38] creative inventors is not to follow
[46:40] taste, but to invent what will excite
[46:43] and challenge people next. There is
[46:44] nothing elitist about resisting the
[46:46] immediate desires [music] of the
[46:48] audience. In fact, it serves the public
[46:50] better in the long run.
[46:52] Let's Let's go. I feel like a jock now.
[46:54] I'm like, let's let's go. Let's do this.
[46:56] >> [music]
[47:01] >> And guys, I'll break kayfabe for a
[47:02] second to say when I was finishing this
[47:04] video, which is which is which is late,
[47:06] I picked up a book that I'd had for a
[47:07] while, but I never actually read before
[47:09] by J. Hoberman called Everything is Now.
[47:12] It's about like the art scene in New
[47:14] York in the '60s and the avant-garde.
[47:17] And as soon as I opened this book, I was
[47:19] really mad at myself for not reading it
[47:20] earlier into the process of researching
[47:22] for this video. Cuz listen to the first
[47:24] line of this book. He writes, "Cultural
[47:25] innovation comes from the margins and is
[47:27] essentially collective. Cultural
[47:29] innovation comes from the margins and is
[47:33] essentially collective. Cultural
[47:35] innovation comes from the margins and is
[47:37] essentially collective. Art is not
[47:39] produced by one artist, but by several,
[47:41] as surrealist painter Max Ernst
[47:42] maintained. It is to a great degree the
[47:44] product of their exchange of ideas with
[47:46] one another." He goes on to talk about
[47:48] how creating new forms of art together
[47:50] [music]
[47:50] in coffee houses, at bars, at openings
[47:52] and readings, you know, fueled political
[47:54] organizations. He He He says this line
[47:56] right here. He says, largely free of
[47:58] established institutional support
[47:59] drawing sustenance from urban detritus
[48:01] artists produced work that was taboo
[48:02] breaking and confrontational.
[48:04] Consequently, artists often clash with
[48:06] the police, the courts, the law, and
[48:08] authority in general. Wow. Wow. I I
[48:10] haven't even finished it yet, but I'm
[48:11] going to add this to my reading list.
[48:12] This is another [music] one that I like
[48:14] a lot that helped with all this. And you
[48:16] know, it just inspired me cuz I think
[48:17] that that scenes are still possible.
[48:19] [music] That we can do stuff different.
[48:21] We got to do it collectively and because
[48:22] we don't have, you know, the coffee
[48:24] houses of the '60s. I guess we got to
[48:25] figure out how to do it online. Well,
[48:27] hey, let me tell you something real
[48:28] quick. Next month, I'm going to talk to
[48:29] you on a video about how there's
[48:31] actually a name for a system which
[48:34] creates this world of humanity and art
[48:37] and culture. That word is
[48:40] Hey, in the meantime, if you want to
[48:41] support this weird little scene and the
[48:43] people that make stuff with me, go to
[48:45] burnstheory.com and consider signing up
[48:47] for my Patreon. We have a learning
[48:49] community over there called Burns Theory
[48:51] where I visiting guest lectures that
[48:52] talk about philosophy and theory and
[48:54] things of that nature. I'm doing talks
[48:57] and office hours over there. You of
[48:58] course get extra content [music] and
[48:59] stuff like that with no ads. If you hate
[49:01] that thing. I also started up a Discord
[49:03] which I know that that sort of digital
[49:06] community isn't the same, but it's
[49:08] something.
[49:09] >> [music]
[49:09] >> And I've liked it so thus far. So,
[49:11] please jump on the Discord if you
[49:12] haven't already. And you know, there's
[49:16] in-person events coming. I did a thing
[49:18] yesterday. I filmed something yesterday
[49:19] with some friends [music] of the channel
[49:20] which was really cool. Shout that out.
[49:22] And also, if you're still here at this
[49:23] point, please shout out people creating
[49:25] things
[49:26] >> [music]
[49:26] >> that you feel like are real art. Please
[49:29] shout out whether it's YouTube people or
[49:32] filmmakers or visual artists or
[49:35] musicians [music]
[49:36] or anyone, you know. I'm going to shout
[49:38] out my boy Eddie, Eddie Villanueva who's
[49:40] a part of this community [music]
[49:42] who um often does drawings that are kind
[49:45] of inspired by some of the videos and
[49:46] streams and I find them really
[49:48] beautiful. So, check out Eddie's work if
[49:50] you haven't already. I'll make sure that
[49:51] we we [music] link to his Instagram down
[49:53] there. Um okay, I'm going to go start a
[49:54] scene. I'm going to go start a scene.
[49:56] I'm going to start a new movement. I'm
[49:57] going to start a revolution. I'm going
[49:59] to I'm going to do it all. I'm going to
[50:00] do it all. And they're not going to be
[50:02] able to stop me cuz I'm bringing guns.