You have to watch it. I don't even play video games, but it's great. This channel is consistently good, if you're into the whole pondering the sense and meaning stuff, of course.
Depends. At least a neat addition to your understanding of marxism and postmodernism in relation to pop culture, but potentially the beuty that is left-tube, philosophy youtube, or even the internet. It all depends on where you are falling from.
It disappoints me how many people commenting here seem to have got the idea of hauntology reversed. It's not that we are now nostalgic for the past, and that this is somehow unique to the present situation. Of course cultures of the past also did this. It's that cultures of the recent past also had an eye looking forward, imagining a different, and better, future. The argument Fisher and others are making is that culture today is unable to create a vision for a near future which we or our children may one day exist in that is any different than our world now, that lifestyle, living conditions, etc aren't going to be different, and that this lack of vision and direction for where we collectively want society to go is expressed through our media, art, music etc
not entirely true. there is a vision for the future. many visions in fact. information overload has obscured a lot of this. the lack of discipline in certain areas of life has also led to the blurring of these visions. again, we do not lack the ability to progress, we are just in a far more chaotic world of information at the moment, and who knows where that will go.
I don't know I seem to disagree with this hauntologie perspective look at Washington DC why are the Egyptian obelisk and classical architecture that looked back to Europe of past. It is because they admired that culture as human beings we read history and all have nostalgia for time and cultures we have never been to and that past helps us create in the present. Japan obsession with its samurai past. I went to Italy and was taken over by the Italy of old with its architecture and if I create I would take inspiration from it. And people on the renaissance took inspiration from Rome. So I see no problem looking fondly to the past to emulate it in the present for at the end of the day in trying to emulate you create something completely new.
@@rozamo2627 You completely failed to grasp what this person was actually saying. They were literally saying that the stuff you're talking about is not what Hauntology is about, your point is entirely irrelevant. No one has ever said that nostalgia hasn't existed before, the point is that while nostalgia has always existed there has also always been a new vision of the future but we seem to be somewhat unable to imagine a new future in the 21st century. The only thing we really imagine is more advanced technology but it tends to look exactly like things look today and it tends to involve people doing the exact same things as they do today. People in the 50s thought that by 2000 we'd only work 4 hours a day, these days you can barely convince people that working 8 hours should give you a living wage. The problem is seemingly right now we only have nostalgia and revival.
@@hedgehog3180 "there has also always been a new vision of the future" while there have been examples of futuristic or speculative fiction since at least ancient Rome, it only became prevalent during the industrial revolution. Before that, most people regarded the near future as a continuation of the present, maybe with some slight differences like new rulers or new religions. The enlightenment laid the basic structure for constant anticipation of futuristic ideas, by introducing new ideas about science, governance, economic systems, human nature etc. and it started developing really fast when the industrial revolution came around. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is generally regarded as the first real example science-fiction.
I understand Fisher's POW, but i have to disagree with him. Progress has never stopped, technology is only going forward and today we can imagine a future we could only remotely suppose back in the 80s. Today, with environmental, overpopulation and viruses and information spreading much faster than before, humanity has to actually face the future we just used to idealize back in the 80s. Virtual reality, robotics, nuclear fusion, self-driving cars and space colonization are becoming a reality, so now what? Back when future was so distant we couldn't see its problems, but now that we're getting closer to it, we are understanding how it works. It's like when you have a dream job vs when you actually get hired and start working on it. It's like when you have a project vs when you actually start modeling it and having to overcome the hardships that stop you from reaching your goal. Even if you like it, you have to face its issues, that it's not all fun and games, and having great tehcnology comes with a lot of responsibility as well. Responsibility can be a burden, which not many humans are happy to carry all their life - see the rise in "Return to Monke" memes and anarcoprimitivism, but that's a story for another video - and Fisher clearly couldn't bear it.
I've seen the trend of 80s revival and retrofuturism as less "stuck in a loop" or stagnancy and much more as the result of people realizing we're on a timeline now that we're unsatisfied with. Because of this, culturally, we have decided to go back to a more-optimistic, hopeful, or open-ended point in time to make new choices or corrupt the past timeline in order to escape it into a different present and future. We're using the tools available to us in the present to assert power we didn't have 30 years ago on the shape of culture and the world.
So what is the significance of a cultural revival, if there even is such a thing (possible) still remember a cultural revival of the fifties music in the seventies.. (i. e. Movie example: "american graffiti") but it is just a partial rendition, a limited exercise in nostalgia -thats all there is. You folks have to create your own time of culture... I am verry sorry, that present culture really...sucks quite a bit, with all the pc bs going on, all divided and conquered in the head by the social engineers of the "elites" you have to reclaim everything - now theyre taking the web away. 80ies revival? Oh that was a great time, i can fully appreciate it only in hindsight, back then i took it for granted, but thats normal. And btw. We used technology and computers back then already too, not as today, yes the web is significant, just as significant as its absence essential for the eighties was. Back to issue: you have to seize the present, create your own culture - and yes, that is perfectly possible. Sorry, but that is just a heuristic, cultural concept, that "stuck in a loop"thing, popular science lingo, a fad, Nope we are not stuck in a loop, but the effing fascist nwo coming up, if we all dont stop it, creating your bonafide own culture is vital part of it. While the eighties certainly had their problems, They did feel free, almost carefree, freedom of speech was not challenged as today, no SJW, the sexes got along just fine, as in the seventies, some fuxxed it all up by design, take it back, it is your culture alone!
It can be argued that the same thing happened in the 80s with all of the 50s nostalgia then. It's all pretty meta. My theory is that people were getting tired off all the gross hippie stuff from the 60s and 70s and wanted to look back to a more idealistic and clean cut era like the 50s. Same with now, people are getting tired of the negative emo and victim mentality and all of the divisive the SJW snowflake stuff. They want to go back to a more seemingly optimistic and constructive time like the 80s. Again this is just a theory.
...…………………………………………………………….although don't know what was gross about hippie culture but .your description is accurate for some people in the 80's…………..………………………………………..but many people were too young to remember the 50's so they couldn't really be nostalgic about the 50's…………..……………………………………...some just loved futurism and pop music and the combination of the two things that was presented to theme in the 80's...…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..if you were born in 1971 there's no way you could be nostalgic about the 50's so there must have been some other motivation for you…………..…………………………………………………………………….the sci fi movie sales proved that the young like futurism and the chart sales proved that they liked pop music so someone combined the two things they liked and it was successful...………………………………………………………………………………………………………….in 2019 as usual the record industry is trying to ram some type of music down our throats...……………………………………………………………………..that's hip hop and R&B combined and they don't care whether we like it or not...………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..in the late 80's we didn't have much of a choice whether to listen to what they were playing or not but now we have the internet so we don't have to listen to the FM radio so we don't care...………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..we can get any style of music that we want
Remember those movies? Blade, Underworld, Hellboy, Matrix, End of Days...Those late 90s, early 2000s movies has a certain vibe of "dark and pale city life". I call this vibe "Dark Millennium". And it was gone after iPhone and Iron Man became popular. I'm a writer/columnist and interested in such cultural talks. Maybe we can discuss this further.
grew up in the 90s and miss those times soo much, that dark unironically cool and futuristic feeling we had going into the new millenium... now everything is scared to take itself seriously, everything has to be ironic
RIP Mark. I was in his last class at Goldsmiths. His work is so relevant and eye opening. I recommend "Capitalist Realism" as a must read to anyone interested in philosophy or critical theory.
Ever heard of solarpunk? It's a relatively new aesthetic and cultural movement which attempts to, in a sense, counteract this kind of hauntology; avoiding excessive nostalgia for what's lost by trying to create something genuinely new. Solarpunk is rooted in the idea that bleak and apocalyptic visions of the future gone wrong - which emerge mainly due to the inability to imagine alternatives to the capitalist state system - need to be combated by hopeful and utopian visions of the future gone right. It imagines a post-hierarchical tomorrow based on ecological sustainability (the "solar" comes from solar power), political and economic decentralism, egalitarian cooperation, and cultural unity-in-diversity. It's also premised on the rejection of an opposition between ecology and technology, proposing that tech can be used to enrich both humanity and nature, as long as it's used in a mutualistic way, and not a parasitic way as it's used now.
I think it breaks out of the prevailing attitude of the future as a dystopia that is what underlines most 80s nostalgia, so I vaguely agree with Eoin O'Connor. I agree that it takes things though from other sources, but it kind of doesn't mimic a more popular narrative . (though you are def onto something with miyazaki comparisons because of the heavy nature vibes)
Also thanks for pointing this out to me. I think it can be rammed into our heads that things will only go to ruin, but it is good to have hope for how we can imagine the future to be.
This is a fascinating analysis -- it hadn't occurred to me that we have largely ceased to imagine new futures, but are instead trapped to rehash our past visions of what the future might be, or simply try to recapture the past aesthetic itself.
"the future had been cancelled". i feel reminded of the 2000s and the excitement about the internet. it felt like the first time the word "freedom" made sense to me. my online identities seemed independent from my location. pirating copyrighted material seemed like a trivially normal thing in my generation. i remember an older friend of mine buying weed on eBay. an on the horizon there were projects like Freenet that were promising to cement these freedoms against state attacks. censorship was going to die. nationalism was going to die. religion was going to die. much of it seems like a faint glimmer now, maybe i just lost sight of amazing things happening in this regard. but it feels like, now, posting with your birth name is normal. paying for access to media is normal. censorship is normal. and there come the hordes bringing the dark ages back. okay now it's a slightly hyperbolic. i'm not even that pessimistic, just .. disappointed.
sofias. orange No you are correct. The late 90s and early 2000s had the shimmer of internet opening us all up. Bringing us all closer. And oddly enough thru smartphones and social media it has now created a world where everyone is afraid to do anything wrong that can be filmed by anyone and then attacked by the masses (thought policing by threat of mob) , everyone veing trackavle 24 7, even thru the same devices being able.to be seen and heard by anyone else who wants to hack and turn on your mic or camera. Jesus could you even inagine something as simple as google being hacked, and everyones IP adresses (with corresponding Street Adresses) released alongside everyones google history?! The world we know would nearly collapse into something totally diff tomorrow
Just found your channel yesterday, and I'm already treated to a new video. What's amazing to me is the way so many of our works hinge on nostalgia, but are marketed for people who could not possibly be nostalgic for the characters, ideas, or moods presented. I almost feel like we're beyond being haunted, that we are just ghosts. Not just the future, but also the present has been subsumed by the past, and we're just experiencing it eternally, smeared across everything.
Because Gen X lost its connection to the nuclear family and community gave way to individualism and digital proxies. There is no sense of synthesis or organic transmission of culture. So Gen X without the anchors of traditional forms of identity attainment are stuck in a loop of symbols and artifacts, which are only approximations for culture. So cultural progression will be stunted until a sense of mastery has been achieved, which is unlikely within the old paradigms they operate within.
I think fisher once called it the ‘oppressive weight of the past’ I took it to mean the idea that the past now is just inescapable. The old long to return to a place they once were and the young long to return to a place they never knew.
This topic articulates a notion I've had about scifi since the start of the 2010s. That is, that the future died in the 90s. The late 90s is the last point in time where culture was able to create and explore the future. After that, sci fi became mostly about the past in relation to the future, instead of the future itself. You can hear it in the experimental music and art forms just prior to and after the new millennium. This desperate last plea for the notion of the future and then... silence; the the processing of culture through remixes. A blended nostalgia smoothie of everything great created in the last 100 years, processed to sell
I would argue that the emergence of the iphone and other apple products inspired a future of slick and smooth aesthetics and intuitive interfaces for a while which is unique.
What do you think about shows like Black Mirror or Westworld? I see modern day takes on the future as a much bleaker and darker world than initially anticipated in SciFi. We are beginning to see how techno capitalism is harmful. The concept of retreating more and more into a simulated hyperreality or world is becoming the real thing.
@@godiebeard I think you're right that there was a sorta futuristic vision like that for a while but it didn't exactly lead to any major works of sci-fi. Like what were the highest grossing sci-fi movies in the 2010s? Well it was the rebooted Star Wars series. I can only think of a few fully original pieces of sci-fi which imagined the future in a new way and I think the biggest one is Mass Effect but it didn't really question capitalism or imagine new ways of living and it was based on the designs of Syd Mead not the slick future that was seen in iPhones and other consumer electronics.
Also maybe this is why Cyberpunk is seemingly becoming more and more spot on, like the world is actually starting to kinda look like what we saw in Cyberpunk, giant glass skyscrapers with massive internet integration and shiny lights all over them. Extreme surveillance and being constantly surveilled with little ownership over our own things. Zeerrust was a pretty constant thing but like most cyberpunk works were only really wrong about what the computers would look like but not really the cities or how we live. If the future has been cancelled then it follows that visions of the future also can't get outdated anymore, we'll never imagine a new future where Cyberpunk looks hilariously and awkwardly dated.
I find this discussion really interesting but at the same time, I can't help but think that the whole idea of imagining the future and ongoing "progress" is both very unique to society under capitalism and Eurocentric. Like can we not say the same for a peasant or serf working in the 1500s imagining progress? What about an aboriginal tribe that have kept their way of life for 1000s of years because progress to them in the way we see it is unnecessary, harmful and not sustainable. I doubt a tribal member would imagine their descendants lifestyles being any different to theirs; two hundred years down the road. Is their vision of the future ruined?
The best example of this for me is seeing a nightclubbed absolutely packed with 18/19 year olds dancing to ABBA and the Smiths. They're a cultural sensation.. again.
The Smiths were the epitome of musical genius. It's not about nostalgia.. It's just great music that saves us from the carefully-manufactured-for-utmost-profit pop of today.
This is an interesting critique of the neoliberal "end of history" phenomenon. Our inability to imagine anything after capitalism serves as both a creator of fundamental apathy and capitalism's greatest defence. If there can be nothing better than capitalism, if imagination about another future cannot exist, then capitalism remains the end state (until it eventually decays or the planet simply become uninhabitable).
Japan in the 80's was very capitalistic yet futuristic (look at the recent Plastic Love city pop phenomenon). I don't think it's entirely down to capitalism, because it's possible to have a futuristic capitalistic society. One other difference between then and now is that America is demographically completely unrecognizable from just a few decades ago, which could play into it.
@@avatarion you missed the point: it's not that culture didn't have a vision of the future then ; it's that It doesn't now. Capitalism has corroded and destroyed visionary thinking: we are incapable of conceptualise a "way forward" that isn't stricly limited by the boundaries set by the system, either directly (for example, the profit motive) or indirectly (climate change and environmental distruction). So then we resort to going back to the last. Other comments explained It Better than me but here's the gist. Also, Why do you think demographics have any Role in this phenomenon?
There may be a simpler explanation for this phenomenon. People in their 30s tend to be a target audience for movies because they go the most and have the money to spend. And nostalgia for one's childhood seems to be almost innate in humans. Thus big media such as major motion pictures and TV shows will try to profit off this by recreating imagery from approximately 30 years earlier. Right now, this means recreating the imagery of the 1980s and 90s. But back in the actual the 1980s and 90s this would have meant appealing to nostalgia of the 1950s and 1960s. And indeed you see this in many films from that era. Think of movies/shows like Back to the Future, Stephen King's It, Stand by Me, American Graffiti, A Christmas Story, Forrest Gump, MASH, The Wonder Years, Happy Days, etc. Stephen King's It is a particularly good example of this trend because both versions of it, the one from the 90s and the one that came out last year, each take place about 30 years prior to their own release date. And not only are these films intended for audiences in their 30s and 40s who are nostalgic for their childhoods in those decades, but the people making the films are also likely making films that remind them of the time they grew up in. Not to say that this explains everything, but I think it is definitely part of the reason for this trend.
I think the question should be thought why is a nostalgia for one's childhood "innate in humans". I don't think that's the case. I think it is a symptom of our current reality in which adulthood kinda sucks. We miss our carefree childhood days where mommy and daddy took care of us etc. Adulthood by contrast is filled with anxiety and alienation due to the present social conditions of adulthood. But it could be otherwise!
I was thinking this the whole time. So many simpler and more obvious explanations for what we are observing. And this video acts like we haven't always been obsessed with our past. The video completely ignores the way early hollywood was OBSESSED with recent Western history such as the wild west frontier. People are always looking to the past and the movie studios have gotten extremely skilled at playing to the masses, hence the constant nostalgic revivals we see. I honestly think videos like this are more symptomatic of narrow minded intellectual culture and its rabid obsession with trying to pin things on capitalism/neoliberalism. It's like intellectual activity is so constrained by what's been laid down by people like Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard that more simple and obvious explanations for phenomena provided by other disciplines are ignored (or even a cursory moments thought based on actual experience and observation rather than application of handed down theory.)
That type of feeling is not exclusive to our time, it has been present everywhere throughtout our history, lots of literature works with this theme, Richard Wagner, for example, in his autobiography talks with such warmth about his childhood that you can almost see yourself there. Adulthood has always been the same, responsability and care is the minimum you should have as one and if i may, i think it was even harsher the more we go back, so i think our ancestors did miss their childhood way more than we do. I think our generation has a problem of alienation from reality, we try to apply our ideal concepts to the world, and let me tell you, the world isn't gonna change because you think it should. Unless what you think is true, not for you and your friends but for all, and for that there is a long way of one's self development to go, and most of the time we are completely wrong. During our childhood we don't even have real conceptions about the world, we just live and let live, so it's definetely a better time, but as an adult you must learn to order your inner chaos to be able to transcend your own human condition and produce something of real value for yourself and the people around you.
i think human culture has always been hauntological, think of renaissance, age of enlightnenment, art nouveau, art deco...the technology is the game changer, because i think it accelerates the gain and spread of knowledge, amongst other. we always rehashed or revitalised past culture, we do it now and consume it very fast, almost each decade we revitalise something. i also think we will do this indefinitly, albeit in a very different maner. but i do not think we are condemned to focus mainly on revitalisation. as hauntological beings we will complicate it even further and it brings comfort knowing that
So retrofuturism is a part of the nostalgia cycle? Thank you for this. It's really given me new insight into one of my favorite genres, and a new word - hauntology.
Of course, '50s nostalgia was rampant throughout the '70s and '80s, as seen in everything from Happy Days, to Back to the Future, to the music of Elton John, Billy Joel, etc.
I call it "Timepunk" it's what happens when you give kids and young people unlimited access to the past 100+ years of popular culture and allow them to pick and choose the things they like and dislike, and to use those things to constitute their own personalities and create the broader cultural landscape
“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.” - George Sand
The 80's actual aesthetic was taken from The Memphis School and Biba and Retro-Art Deco... These ideas were old when they first became general in popular culture!
Another excellent RU-vid essay. Really enjoying the Cluck phenomenon. As for my thoughts- probably in a world of accelerating change this constant referencing of the past is an attempt to slow things down. Also given that in the digital age nothing decays (as was said in this essay) and everything is always available for replay, rehashing is a useful way of extending an interesting moment in time. I for one need time to digest images, sounds and ideas. Which is why I'm grateful I can always replay Cluck's RU-vid clips!
Culture = shared practices. Every new technology changes how people act, thus changing culture. Look at texting, RU-vid, and online dating. These have created huge changes in shared practices, thus creating "new culture". Just because there are throwbacks to nostalgic moments doesn't mean we live in a repeating future. Nostalgia may be driven by the fact that things are changing TOO FAST and people are looking back to simpler times.
Very true. Cannot fathom why people whine about historical cultures that were bona fide autocracies. Inf act new cultures and subcultures are being created at a much faster rate because of easier information transmission. Some may be getting extinguished too, just as quickly, but there doesn't seem to be an 'cultural deficit'.
How are these new futures? That's what's being talked about, no one is saying that new art isn't being made anymore, the argument is that we've stopped inventing new futures.
Rivialism and hauntology are so prevalent today because those that grew up in the 80s are finally at the stage where it’s cool again. My brother was big into he Beatles in the 90s but nobody talks about Elvis or the Beatles anymore. Also industry thanks to Neoliberalism and the desire to reduce risk and social upheaval focus one franchises, repeatable success. Original is too risky, preferring to reincarnate and reanimate movies that appeal to the childhood fantasies of the Netflix generation, eg. Stranger Things. (To be fair Netflix is much better at satisfying the audience than Hollywood). All the super heroes movies that dominate the Box Office - easy almost riskless investment that can be regurgitated and amalgamated into various forms. Movies like the Matrix and Ghost in the Shell are almost passé now. At the time it was mind bending, now everyone is so used to these ideas. Movies aren’t the medium of social inspiration or change anymore, they’re mindless entertainment, not thought provoking but mind numbing to the reality of the world.
It's telling that even when we do look into the future, the most popular literature produced involves a capitalist authoritarian dystopia or an apocalyptic wasteland.
Such a great video and super important too! It's a subject that I've been reading up on a lot lately for a video that i'm working on. I think the concept of Hauntology is scarier than any horror story I've ever been exposed to. I think the prospect of being stuck in a 20th century limbo is way more terrifying than any ghost, demon or ghoul.
This was extremely useful as an in point to Fisher and ties together some things I have been considering but was unable to quite link up. Thank you so much.
The past did a great job at imagining the future, so in essence we are seeking to go "back to the future". The future we imagined and even at some extent promised ourselves would occur. Since largely that future never came to be, it appears that now, for the most part, there is little to no insentive or desire to think and imagine a future.
Thank you for finally articulating this in a way that clicks with me. This has been a focus of mine for a while now, and I thought to make this a thematic feature in a work of science fiction if I could ever find myself capable of producing it or with the proper collaboration of others.
shit like ready player one genuinely disgusts me. not only is it a story which doesnt exist without references, but the references -- taken out of their original context -- become meaningless.
I didn't watch it, but I read the book. First 30 or so pages caught my attention, as I felt an expectation of interesting dystopia or very late capitalism. Notion of people spending a lot time in virtual reality, thus not doing anything productive and living on the edge of poverty with bare minimum of needs satisfied made me think critically a lot about universal basic income, though I used to be fond of this idea. Unfortunately the rest of the book was just list of useless references. I didnt know most of them, but I guess even if I did reading this ode to nerdy pride of knowing 50 year old shitty tv productions by heart would be really tiresome. Such a disappointment.
but does it? At the end of the day it's one which give the "avatar" meaning and to every person will have a different meaning. I guess that's part of what makes eastereggs so popular. Saddly there is not a good story making little nods to that idea. Imagine if they did it using the concept of hauntology and avatar/easter eggs having personal meaning, I believe that even relying on heavily on references they could make something special and interesting.
The movie was just awful, it had virtually nothing in common with the book. I grew up in the 80s and it was one of the very best times of my life so all the references appealed to me.
I'm happy to have found this. I've been thinking a lot about just this but haven't found anyone talking about it. The conclusion I arived at was that this phenomenon is more like a mourning for the past. It's not that we can't create new things which makes us long for the past but our love and longing for the past makes it difficult to come to grips with the loss of Golden ages, and that makes us want to relive it.
Mark Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" also touches on the trappings of the current cultural moment, and is worth a read if anyone is looking for another book suggestion. What I always liked about Fisher was his compassion and how he resisted blaming young people for the problems of the day and instead tried to understand how they responded to the world that grew up around them.
This is currently the best video essay I've ever watched and I'm grateful for it as it articulated ideas and feelings I've had for a long time. Thanks to you I've discovered the whole aread of hauntology analysis and started reading Fisher (then tumbling down the rabbit whole). Thanks a lot for this
Really loving this channel and all your big brain content... I've noticed a really big trend in making PS1-styled video games this year, another example of this retrocoding like with pixel games. In cinema, we've seen recent classics like the Lighthouse which emulates silver age cinema, and Spiderverse which emulates retro comic books. Though it may seem like we are in a relative creative stasis, I think drawing from the past and crossbreeding different art forms and inspirations has always been a tool for innovation. Even futuristic breakouts from the past draw from other eras, like Star Wars with Samurai Japan, and I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) Dune with older middle eastern civilizations. I haven't really consumed a lot of futuristic media from recent times, but it seems stories like WallE, albeit released over a decade ago, have been successful in creating new unique futuristic identities.
This video's meditations on the perception of past, present and future made me think of Fukuyama's concept of "The End of History". In my opinion, the extent to which it haunts public consciousness can hardly be overstated. Basically, most people have come to believe that a version of the future that is radically different from the current situation cannot be conceived and is hardly even imaginable. (hence Fredric Jameson's famous quote) So if we think that the present is bad and are convinced that a different/better future cannot be built, what can we do? Find solace in the past, perhaps even try to bring it back - it must have been better, right? Translated into political terms, this state of mind can explain the rising popularity of ideologies such as conservatism and fascism (an ideology obsessed with the past) and provide an explanation for the otherwise awkward phenomenon that the poorer a region is, the greater the popularity of these is (For instance, the fascist wave sweeping over Eastern Europe).
Irony is too delicious here :) I live in Eastern Europe, have spent my whole life here and what I am talking about is unfolding right before my eyes. Are you from Eastern Europe, too, I wonder. Or are you someone who has gotten all his knowledge of the world from PJW's channel and accuses others of ignorance.
First of all, to put it as brief as I can, fascism is an authoritarian ideology that is (at least to a certain extent) left on economic issues and hard right (or patriotic-conservative, as you like to put it) on society issues. Apart from its liking of the past, other key features of its include its rabid hate of genuine left-wing ideologies and its distaste for individual human rights. But perhaps you can come up with a definition of your own, to demonstrate how I do not understand it ;) Second of all, cliches such as "right wing populist" do not reliably describe what someone such as Orban is nowadays. 15 years ago he was hard right on economic issues, almost a Friedmanite. Now he is employing social policies that my own austerity-crippled country could be yearning for. Definitely more to the left than he used to be, at least in economic/social aspect. Third of all, of course most people in this part of the world like invertedcommaspatrioticconservative ideas and vote for invertedcommaspatrioticconservative parties. Otherwise, the invertedcommaspatrioticconservative wave would not be a thing I would be talking about. Fourth of all, "as much as I might hate it" I am describing what I see with my own eyes as objectively as an imperfect human being could do. Situation is bad enough for me to need to "smear" invertedcommaspatrioticconservative political forces and ideas. Peace out.
The one thing I could take away from your last comment is - apart from the oh so pleasant patronizing tone of yours - that apparently the military uniform of the leader is the key factor deciding ideological leanings. But of course. What you fail to grasp is that I have been primarily talking about sentiments among the masses, rather than about party programs . But since you were trying to defend certain parties by labeling them populist - well there you have it. They try to answer to these sentiments. It is a process rather than a static point - token right wing parties of Eastern Europe moving little by little away from classical rightism towards the f-word over the course of recent years (Then again, since you mentioned textbook fascism, how would you describe FIDESZ' beloved coalition partner) Funny enough, in my country the same is applicable for the biggest mainstream "left-wing" party. But as I said, I was focusing on mass sentiments. What I see around me in my country is that the 80 per cent, as you put it, tend to be mentally equipped with the all the invertedcommaspatrioticconservative paraphernalia (xenophobia, homophobia, obsession with the past, distaste of human rights etc.), while simultaneously cherishing warm feelings for the social/economic policies of the communist era, and also not being the hugest fans of democracy. Did we tick all the boxes already?
Oh boy, where do I even begin. This comment is such a hodge-podge of all the cliches that can be heard from your lot and at the same time does not address any of the points I made in my last post except for the ironic opening remarks. You act as if I claimed there is a classic totalitarian fascist regime anywhere in Eastern Europe - there is not, of course. (btw expansionism is not an integral part of fascism, isolationism is as easily compatible with it, see Spanish Falangism).What I actually claimed - that "major parties of Eastern Europe are moving little by little away from classical rightism towards the f-word over the course of recent years", you did not disprove. What I also claimed - that the prevailing popular sentiments can only be described as (near-) fascist - you did not even attempt to disprove, you only said "Well, people are like that because..." Followed by a tirade in which ethno-nationalism and conspiracy theorism could easily be detected. Is it a coincidence that these two are characteristic features of the rhetoric of an ideology-I-should-not-because-I-am-a-leftist. Other than that, I only have a few questions. What ideology is being pushed? As far as I know, the only ideology shaping the world today is neoliberal capitalism. Free movement of labor ("open borders") is necessary for the functioning of capitalism. In any case, if anything is being pushed it has nothing to do with leftism. How do you explain the fact xenophobia is more prevalent in Eastern Europe (look up the stats on the attitude towards refugees/immigrants) although there are virtually no refugees, no prior migrants and no terrorist acts happening here? How do you imagine a scenario in which native people become minorities in Eastern Europe. The only possible scenario I can think of is all the local people except for a single Gipsy man emigrating to the West. In any case, that is far likelier than hordes of migrants coming here. What migrant in their right would go to the east of the former Iron Curtain?
Fukuyama was over positive though, and fell pray to the postwar revisionism which came at the end of the 20th century which assumed because the great western powers were not in conflict, we were seeing an end of events. That people were on the whole comfortable. This completely overlooked genocides in Africa, completely overlooked resource depletion and modern day imperialism
I don’t think that were stuck in the past and can’t create our own future/culture. It’s just that every decade seems look at the 2 decades before it as inspiration. If you look at popular 80’s culture you could see that there was some fascination with old 50’s, like with movies with Grease as an example. Right now our culture is looking back the 90’s for nostalgia, you can see it in fashion and music. It’s natural for humans to see the past culture as boring so as a way to revolt what happens is the opposite of what the past culture wasn’t becomes the new. The Romanticism of the 1800’s was followed up by Realism which the polar opposite of Romanticism. The colorful and neon 80’s was proceeded by the grunge styled 90’s.
Here are three points that it seems like Mark Fisher didn't consider: 1) I can think of quite a few counterexamples to the notion that "the future is cancelled". We might not have the optimistic outlook of the 60s anymore, but is Black Mirror not a hugely popular and influential show about possible futures? 2) I'm not sure the nostalgia Fisher observed can be explained only in ideological terms. It might also (at least partly) be an aesthetic backlash - now that technology can perfectly portray reality, it is just more interesting to see things that are imperfect (pixely computer games, grainy footage, cheesily over-the-top color palettes). Not to mention the very matter-of-fact economic reasons for why blockbuster movies tend to recycle cultural material in 30 year loops... 3) Just looking at high risk, high-reward industries such as blockbuster cinema, computer games or pop music might not be the best way to find creative and daring new kinds of fiction or new uses of technology. What about meme culture, for example? Not very high brow, sure, but incredibly up-to-date, relevant, and continuously developing with endless layers of intertextuality. (Other examples might be phenomena such as Vine, or the very unique visual language of RU-vidrs.) I really quite enjoyed your presentation of the concept of Hauntology though, and I definitely think that it can be a useful idea.
Agreed with 1 and 3, had similar feelings watching this. Of course there is something going on there. Looking at the musical examples - i definitely feel like vaporwave and hypnapop are emerging from a different place than just nostalgia and some of this endless cultural groove is going on there in its own feedback loop. But for the last 10 years or so, i feel like there has been something cooking up in the underground, weird, lgbtq club music that just recently has begun to spill out, and though it offers no singular "vision of the future" - at least from what we can see right now - and while it's indebted to a lot of past stuff, it does definitely feel like its own new Thing. Applying the concepts from this video to all of contemporary culture is broad strokes, but as you said it's definitely a good tool to explain some tendencies
1. the influencers in Hollywood pushing their visions onto the movie and television screen are mostly from Gen X, and were saturated in this specific aesthetic. Partly they are re-creating their childhood visions. 2. In the ever-expanding confusion and chaos (or, at least, our exposure to it), people look back to the pre-net period with a sense of warmth and comfort. Most of my students have halcyon visions of what it was like back then. Explaining to them at the 80's were incredibly fraught with tensions, and that we are only sold media these days championing the fantasies produced--fantasies eagerly consumed, back then, as an escape--creating a weird simulacra reference point to an entire era. Great vid.
@@lightgrey5365 I'm happy to! The decline of play has to do with several different trends that have lead to childhood gradually becoming more and more fenced-in and managed by adults (urbanization, cars, "stranger danger", et.c.), along with the belief that self-directed play is useless and frivolous. The pedagogy I'm talking about is motivated by concerns about making schooling more "scientific" and of keeping teachers more accountable -- the idea is that this requires learning to be made visible through testing. This means that the focus falls on testable knowledge in the areas that get tested -- as opposed to more murky knowledge, or more fuzzy concepts like curiosity and the joy of learning, independent thinking, creativity, and so on. Playing make believe is a big part of what children do in self-directed play, and the knowledges and competencies you need to think big and crazy about the future are not prioritized in this way of doing school. I think there's a reason why so many more students from democratic schools like Sumerhill or Sudbury valley end up as artists or entrepeneurs. Please just ask if you want me to expand on something else or provide sources for any of this.
This video draws a lot from Mark Fischer's Capitalist Realsim and Simon Reynold's Retromania, the former was published in 2009 the latter in 2011 - we have passed peak nostalgia and retromania now, but cultural commentators are still pushing the same talking points. Ironically, in 2018 we now find ourselves stuck in a loop of contemplating that we are stuck in a loop.
idk its just a gut feeling i guess, i feel like media has become interested in sci-fi and futurism again, the wholesome 'indie aesthetic' is pretty passé, pop music seems to be embracing 'the now' more rather than just restyling past eras. I don't get why the mainstream media narrative has become 'the 80s are back!', like, bitch the 80s already came back and left again, if anything i feel like its the 90s/00s that are enjoying the rose-tint right now.
@@nospmohtracso yeah, but it's not a matter of which past aesthetic is revived, it's a matter that it is revivalism nonetheless. Now Y2K aesthetics are all the rage, especially in fashion, but that just expands and strengthens the point made in this video.
nahhh like, i only brought up the Y2K aesthetic to say that IF there is an era being revived right now its not the 80s. I genuinely do think that pop culture is in a forward rather than backward pendulum swing rn. All the things I associate with peak retromania: cutesy polaroid snaps, hip lo-fi cassette tape releases, hip old-timey mens barbers where the staff have 50s greaser tattoos, fixie bikes - these all seem like way less of a thing now.
@@nospmohtracso Yeah, I was really into the whole 80's neo-retro thing myself back in 2012. Whenever I come across people who still use that aesthetic and music in their videos nowadays, it just feels so stale to me. I feel like it's been milked as much as it can be and now it's old hat. The 90's grunge scene has seen a bit of a comeback over the past 2 or so years, but I feel like its days are numbered now and the next big revival will be the early 2000's nu-metal scene, which is fine with me because I grew up in that time and I still like Linkin Park and baggy jeans.
On a personal note: I really loved your original RU-vid handle but I am thankful you changed it so I don't have to write a citation that takes my professor to a channel called "Cuck Philosophy". You did me a big solid my guy. Thank you so much!
Everyone is getting neck problems looking down at "smart" phones and wishing to live in the past instead. I doubt there will be much nostalgia for this decade, even by people who lived their childhood in it. What will they remember? Fortnite dances? Dub step and mumble rap? The soulless Marvel movie machine? Pop culture has never been more forgettable than right now. 90s kids are nostalgic for the 80s because we saw the highlights of the 80s on 90s TV. TV is gone now. Centralized programming is gone. The nostalgia of the 2010 kids will be too diffuse to produce a common theme. Perhaps they will have no choice but to dream about the future, since their past is a blur.
The 3 guys that replied to your comment are either ingenuous or blind. People will ALWAYS be Nostalgic for their childhood/teenage years, it's doesn't matter what culture was like then. I remember in the early 2010s a lot of people loved to mock the 2000s, and now the 2000s are coming back in full swing. Anyways, here's a forum page from a guy in the early 2000s talking about how people were starting to romanticize the 90s: www.inthe00s.com/archive/inthe90s/bbs1/webBBS_1526.shtml
If you can't open the link, here's what he says: " I told you so. I don't want to sound crass and cold hearted during this horrible tragedy that has befallen America. Nevertheless I will sound like a jerk with what I am about to say. Remember me? I'm the guy that complained about people rose coloring the past, especially the '80s and "sugar coating" things. I said the '90s would be sugar coated and people here laughed. They said it was absurd. The '90s would never be sugar coated. The '90s were the worst time of all time they told me. Well, IT HAS BEGUN. This tragedy has already made people say, "America just lost its innocence". I thought we lost our innocence when Vietnam happened? Or when JFK was killed? Or when the a-bomb was detonated? Or when Pearl Harbor was bombed? How many times can a country lose its innocence? Now people have already begun longing for the "sweet and innocent '90s". The so called "good ol' days". Like I said before, this is the way the world has always been. Its always been a violent and sex filled world were others use and abuse each other. Accept it. Now the '00s are the worst time imaginable. The '90s look good now don't it? Hey this kind of violent stuff happened in the '90s too, not really in America, but it happened. But people's memories are short lived, they have already began longing for the "sweet and innocent '90s". Whatever. Did you ever think the '90s would be looked at as "sweet and innocent"? Where there was a time of "no evil"? No you say? Well I knew it would happen. It happened to the '80s and every other decade, so it was bound to happen to the '90s. I told you so....."
“Oh when there's no future How can there be sin We're the flowers In the dustbin We're the poison In your human machine We're the future Your future… No future No future No future for you No future No future No future for me No future No future No future for you” -The Sex Pustols
Great video, i've subscribed! Yet, there's a crucial aspect that's not addressed, in my opinion we haven't even started to explore these "retro" spaces and their possibilities! This is the "explore vs exploitation" problem encountered in so many areas: how do we know when to stop relentlessly exploring and fully exploit what we have? Mindless explorers are likely enjoying a cocaine frenzy preventing them to fully inhabit an esthetic experience - i'm not saying we're in this situation, but this can happen at the level of a culture. Irrespective of the new genres (that will inevitably come) i hope that these "lost futures" will be explored further for a long time to come. I have a feeling that in 20 years time AI will allow us to see a gripping psychologically-twisted story starring Humphrey Bogart or an intricate adventure drama staring Tom & Jerry. We're nowhere near at extracting what retro characters like "Sam Spade" or retro esthetics can offer.
I have already watched most of your videos and look forward to them. When I see these topics by others, I feel frustrated and feel it is very pretentious. But when you do it, I feel understanding and appreciative of the ideas, even if I don't always agree with them. I am a huge fan.
In germany, now, there is even a joke proverb about that. "Frueher war alles Besser. Sogar die Zukunft". Meaning "In the past, everything was better. Even the future"
IWe need a T-Shirt that says "I read Mark Fisher and Survived" Sidenote: the recent "Twin Peaks: The Return" was haunted by nostalgia. It pulled no punches on just what an awful place this is to be stuck in, and it certainly "cured" me of my old 1990, 17-yr-old self's longing for those halcyon days.
I'm quite sure this is what Lynch was going for, he said it kinda vaguely in some interviews. He didn't want to have TP return just by celebrating or idealizing the past, but wanted more to show a terrible distortion and even darker interpretation of the world he and Frost created 30 years earlier. He said that he was really tired of seeing ideas in media being revived just by catering to nostalgia and not doing anything new with it, so it seems he went in the complete opposite direction. The new TP is drastically different and almost mocking to anyone who goes into it expecting it to cater to nostalgia. It's a big "fuck you" to those people who enjoy these nostalgia revivals or have too much of an idealized view of the original TP (or any old idea, really.) He paces it so it plays with and tears apart your idealistic and nostalgic notions and makes you wait literally hours just to have a tiny glimpse of something that calls back to the old TP, and those only usually last a few seconds on screen, at most.
We are all Cooper and Laura at the end of the return: trapped somewhere familiar but somehow distant, unable to find resolution. On some level we all understand Laura Palmer when she screams into darkness in that last scene.
that's what I loved about the dougie jones character, he was the nostalgic bastardization of cooper, a hollow shell that repeats and gravitates to the iconography of the past (coffee, cherry pie)
I'd love to see a new wave of futurism in our media, one that represents a more modern perspective of the world we're heading into. Whereas in the 1980s when home electronics were become normalized and people predicted a future of neon colours and artificial environments (both digital and physical), in the late 2010s it seems many people are aspiring to go back the other way, with sustainability and natural/organic environments being placed in high demand (while cities are becoming denser and more populated than ever). Add this aesthetic to the future economic state of the world- perhaps one with an automated workforce and UBI implemented for citizens- and we could create some very fresh, new-futuristic narratives. However I haven't seen this done yet, as unfortunately we tend to revert to dated tropes when wanting to design a "futuristic" world. It will be interesting to see where media goes over the next few decades, hopefully we aren't just stuck in a loop.
Z4X Problem is I don't think postmordern's cynicism must be rejected. It must be accepted and overcome. You can't just ignore the problems that lead to its creation aren't still here. I hope our new sincerty will recognize the human limitations postmodern literature showed.
@Yankee UBI is the logical conclusion of a capitalist society when tech progress reaches the point where human labour is thoroughly out-compete by automation. As jobs disappear without being replaced by an equal or greater number of opportunities, unemployment levels will increase. With high levels of unemployment, aggregate demand for goods and services will decrease and companies with workforces that are almost entirely automated will suffer as nobody can afford to purchase their output. Thus, at this point there are two options: 1. Give money to the masses, who are unemployed, to maintain demand (i.e. have most people on welfare) 2. Give money to everyone (i.e. UBI). The third option is to do nothing and let the whole system collapse, plunging billions of people back into poverty, anarchy and violence until they adopt a new liquid asset and the whole thing starts again. Personally I don't *like* the idea of living under UBI, as I believe our modern lives are inefficient at providing utility to our brains, which are optimized for much more primitive times. For example, feeling productive and meaningful in your society are necessary to well-being. However, as explained before we don't have many options, and thus UBI will almost definitely be a part of our future lives
Love the video, brings up some great points that are food for thought, and I really appreciate getting a great window into influential academic discourses in this way. However, overall I think I disagree with the main conclusion - I don't think our culture is stuck, I think we are undergoing real change and it is at a panicking rate. And I think we are grasping for the nostalgic references for some feigned sense of stability - 'we have imagined this before, so we are ready for it'. For each piece of media you mention that comes clothed in a comforting nostalgic futurism, I'm betting there an acute cultural anxiety it is trying (though perhaps not succeeding) to process. And it be a concept we previously have explored for decades (AI, nature of personhood, technological inequality, political upheaval, etc), but never before with such urgency because now it is right at our door. Your example of ContraPoints really hit it home for me - yes, she is sampling from the full catalog of familiar cultural references, but she is using them to make palatable some of our most uncomfortable current-day topics (confronting the alt-right, personally dealing with online conflict, and gender/lgbt issues). And let's not pretend there isn't any cultural innovation in what she is presenting - making room for transpeople and reinvigorating how we process gender identities is a big fucking change for most people. Blade Runner 2049 brushes up against current day anxieties about emotional entanglement with tech, the surveillance state, and the unbridled influence of individual tech leaders (Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos) that are far more proximal than what could meaningfully be addressed in the original. I haven't seen Ready Player One, but it surely deals with the rapidly changing way we socially assemble - based on relationships with people physically distant to us rather than being able to function limited just to proximate family or classmates; these issues are far more urgent, palpable, and *real* than when the book was first written. So I think we aren't generating new images of the future right now because we are overwhelmed; after all, the very values we would use to to project such an image are in deep contention right now. That doesn't mean that there is no cultural innovation happening, only that it is occuring on such a deep level that we are desperately trying to clothe it in familiar images to keep from panicking.
I don't necessarily agree with neoliberalism causing hauntology. Neoliberalism was already strong in the late 80s, yet it's only from 2010s that we've seen this strong pull to reliving 80s/90s nostalgia. Even then, in media theory there's such a thing as the 30 year cycle, and it has been evident since the fifties. Even in the history of art you can see this 'hauntology' aspect, with Neo classisim being a prime example of pre-Industrial revolution hauntology. I don't agree at all with sci-fi movies being complete rehash of old ideas, either. Sci-fi has never been truly futuristic because it's written and created by artists, not technologists, so their idea of the future is always grounded in current technology. The best example is Blade Runner itself: all the technology shown is clearly analog, created in a time where digital technology was still not as prevalent as it is today. And even today's remakes always reimagine their motifs to look and feel like they're five minutes into the future (example: all the marvel movies). The fact that the future has been cancelled doesn't respond to a lack of originality: it responds to a prevalent post-9/11 cinicism as most media is produced for/by americans, and the americans are experiencing the fall of the american empire. If you look at the religious/artistic production pre-fall of Rome, you'll find similar rehashing of ideas as individual cultures mixed and matched (best example is the incredible amount of religious texts produced around early christian sects, incorporating a milieu of philosophical ideas taken from both east and west, europe, india and africa); a quickening of the culture before a period of fragmentation.
Good stuff man. Fisher wrote that it was the disappearance of the USSR that Neo Liberalism enter a new phase, it lost its only real rival. I think Fisher was far more worried about the state of politics but could not express his views through it directly so he fell back into culture. I think there is a lot of truth in if you take a look at not exclusively through a cultural lens. All these unresolved tensions with in capitalism still have to been relieved. Capitalism has not given birth to a new world but has instead chosen to recycle the past.
Although Neoliberalism may not have caused hauntology they are definatly connected ideas. Neoliberalism as a concept could be seen, in the way that it itself is a "new" liberalism, to be a reflection of the ideas of the past dusted off and given a new coat of paint: an ultimately conservative ideology that presents itself as forward-looking and, perhaps more importantly, as not being an ideology at all.
I'm glad I found this channel and this video specifically. I often pondered this "cancelled future", without actually being aware of the term. This lack of positive vision for a future beyond our lifetime seems to me so obvious, not only from the 80s nostalgia but also from the fact, that visions of the future in mass media tend to be set quite close to our present and tend to be of a dystopian nature. I think this is especially true today. In contrast, I have seen old movies and cartoons from both the eastern and the western block, which seem almost ridiculously optimistic. And finally, I haven't met one person in my life, that believes that mankind will exist for another 100, let alone 1000 years. And some of those people I talked to have kids or plan on having kids, which might actually still be alive in 100 years. It's quite sad.
wow...really interesting. Nothing I didn't already know or sense, but nice to hear it all put together. videos are looking nicer and more engaging too. well done.
We are living in an ontologically accelerated world. We have changed ourselves, and added so much new content with which to catalyze our change, that we feel anxious now. For me, this is era of inflation of new ideas. We don't even have leave ourselves the time to enjoy and reflect upon these changes. 80's nostalgia, and rehashing of 80's culture, is a struggle of ours: the struggle for identity. I see it in that light, and not in the way the author of the video suggested (that we can't envision something radically new now). We don't have to do that, and we shouldn't! Give us some time to enjoy one of the most beautiful achievements of our past generations' minds: 80's pop culture!
I failed my first test in my CCNA class today... I studied, but I still deserved it. This video in particular provided me with some comic relief, and the motivation to stay positive throughout the rest of the semester. Thanks for your work. Hope your book ends up well. Will plan on getting it once it hits auditable. Cheers ✌️
We are at the point of time of the future we imagined, but we aren't in the futures we imagined. We are working more than ever, mental sickness is a disease, and all of these cool new technologies that all seemed like the door to freedom either don't exist or not accessible to the everyday person. There also has been no real cultural development, due to both the lacking of our culture as well as the digitalization of our personal lives. That's what "the Future has been canceled" means.
I can see current trend with Zoomers and 2000s. Many aesthetics, such as kidcore, dreamcore and other aesthetics imitate everyday routine of 2000s and Y2K futurism becoming popular.
Maybe this desire to relive the past is caused by the scientific progress we have made. The world is becoming increasingly complex. Because of our better understanding of the world, the fascinating things about it lose their magic and we are left with explanations of the world that need a lifetime of dedication to fully understand. To have a alternative future in which everything has been solved in familiar and easy to understand ways might be very appealing for the people.
I grew up in the 80s, had most of my firsts in the 80s, (proper girlfriend, motorcycle, job, money, drink, house etc...) And look back with much love. I still listen to the same music, watch the same shows, ride the same motorcycle, married to the same girl, even wear the same clothes (Dunlop green flash, Levi's, and jacket). I thought there was a name for this mindset and I was right. The sex pistols said there was no future, and they might have been on to something
The thing with vaporwave is that it actually is new. It samples the past but doesn't imitate it. No one was actually making anything that sounds much like vaporwave in the 80s. A major point that I would have liked this video to acknowledge is that all new human creations must use the past because we do not imagine the future in a vacuum, but use our memories to rearrange what we already know. To take an extreme example, Einstein did not arrive at special relativity through magic; he took a concept, 'galilean relativity' and reapplied to the world with the added postulate that the speed of light is constant independent of any inertial frame. By this video's logic, we could just say that special relativity is just a rehash of galilean relativity, but that would be to miss the point entirely.
If you look at the aesthetic and themes of Georgian, Victorian architecture/decoration, you'll notice that vast amounts of it is neo-classical stuff, attempts to revive gothic and even ancient Egyptian styles. Rather than being somewhere at 'the end of innovation' I think humans just get lazy now and then, and it takes a shock to the system to break out of it, which in their case was the industrial revolution.
I agree somewhat. We have been in a similiar situation by the turn of the 19th/20th century, hre science and technology moved in great leaps but culture was kind of stuck in the past. cracks in society appeared too, the spread between rich and poor had become enormous. It all culminated in a massive catastrophy, World War I. After that many things had lost their legitimacy, we shattered and the cards got shuffled. There had to be a new beginning. And Bauhaus appeared, new forms of music, fashion changed completely, new forms of literature popped up, cinema, etc. The 1920 were a time of a reinvention of society. The birthplace of mny things, even of science fiction as we know it today. Maybe we are simply at a point where innovation has become that hard, and culture that self-rferential that the is another shock needed to completely reinvent society. I am just worried it will not be a nice time to be alive.
@Media and Entertainment I agree with much of what you say, but there is a third way towards our future aside from either a return to our hunter-gatherer origins or self-annihilation, which is that humanity evolves consciousness so that we can still reap the benefits of technology without becoming enslaved by it; we evolve consciousness to a point where we are able to recognize harmful ideologies such as capitalism or religious fanaticism for the viruses of the mind that they are and not fall prey to them any longer; we evolve to a point where any "civilization" we might have will be in a sense a perfect anarchy, a society with no need for external laws imposed from a government because each individual will be guided by their own internal code of proper behavior, which in turn is derived from a universal understanding which we will have developed in our higher consciousnesses, able to see clearly that the proper path is always the path that serves life, love, truth, and beauty.
The thing about 80s aesthetic in film and video is that it worked. Synthesizers and dramatic colored lighting transport you to new realities. Films and TV from the 2000s onward have often been bland and overly grounded - but at the same time, overwrought with expensive CGI and bullet-time. Our modern aesthetic is by turns boring and out of reach for RU-vid creators like Contrapoints - or you. As for music, the 80s dance party has been a staple of school dances since the late 90s. There's something so specifically exciting about the music of that time. Amidst the catalog of decades, it stands out. If I'm on a budget, and I want to up the feeling of drama in a RU-vid video or even an indie film, using neon lighting and deep synth music just works very well. And with that in mind, I think we should separate the wholesale nostalgia for the entire 80s future impression, and the co-opting of specific aesthetic tricks out of their original 80s context because they WORK very well for the price.
“We have unlearned the creation of the future... the future has been canceled...” Hello from this side of 2020. Hauntology is now my personal asceticism.
i think the shift in the past ~20 years towards dystopia as our only engagement a fictional future has been a reflection of this; my entire generation was raised without the expectation of a progressive, beautiful future, trained from a really young age to look forward to failed states, lost humanity, environmental disasters, etc
Yes but Vaporwave is making a commentary on the recycled/degraded nature of the present, it’s purpose is to remix the remix.. a cultural commentary of musical _mis en abyme._ Ready Player One on the other hand is just a rehash for cash, the two items are not on the same level.
i don't think people like the old aesthetics (specifically old photography, video and music) due to nostalgia alone, there is also a quality that lacks in current technology. it is the sense of analog unpredictability + the less abrasive nature of the result. of course, digital can achieve that through relatively convincing imitation.beyond the tech there are the cultural elements, but they too are in a sense linked to the technology and tools of production - the live instruments of old music defined it in a sense, in the same way, the quantized, exaggerated sounds of digital tech defined the vibe of electronic music. it is not a refusal to evolve. art and culture have always evolved through recycling, where innovation was more apparent only when knowledge and technology had moved forward enough.
This video resonates a lot with me, I feel as though our culture is increasingly heading towards a state where certain icons and franchises in media are constantly re-purposed and have become popular based on the virtue of them existing as opposed to any inherent value. Perhaps an example might be say, classic Disney movies. When these movies initially came out, I assume that they became popular because at the time they were these great achievements in animation and story telling. However now we see that these products and brands continue to persist and make money simply because they are "iconic", they hold an almost mythological place in our culture. Thus Disney can revive, remake and "update" these old films with rather soulless CGI, creating arguably inferior products (as at least in my opinion the animation and aesthetic of these films is an important component to what makes them "good"). That isn't to say that enjoying these films is bad, but I think it does represent an unhealthy cultural trend that stifles creativity, and as this video points out we see this everywhere, a fetishisation of past cultural products be they retro futuristic 80s aesthetics or films that are cultural landmarks. It feels like this trend is one of homogenisation, where the standard is simply the tropes of past media . Now that capitalism has created enough popular brands and franchises, it can continuously recycle them rather than create new ones because that is more profitable.
I also think about comparing it to Primitivism that gained traction at the start of the last century (the early 1900s ) , and find that maybe we are going through a 'digital primitivism' stage right now. This gives me hope that we will eventually somehow break with our current forms. I' think about how Cubism sprang out of initial inspiration from African art. Picasso had a phase where he was mimicking angular masks that eventually became faces, which then got interpreted into objects, and then all of Modern Art sprang out of that partially (well that and Asian art) . There was a desire for the 'uncivilized' , but at that time people turned to other less industrially advanced cultures,whereas now we are turning to the dawn of the computer age.
Can I try to create a cultural movement in the modern age that predicts the future or would the public likely not reciprocate the anticipation of the future and instead continue the cycle?
Interesting question. My sense is that, if your vision of the future is compelling enough it will gain traction-but achieving that is a greater struggle today than in the past due to higher levels of pessimism and cultural division.
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