The American media ruins everything

Here's a little antidote to our modern poison

So many news stories this week feel designed to yank my chain. Not to say they aren’t interesting, or even important. But the media, it’s very clear to me now, is a giant enterprise in manipulation — and little else.

It’s probably useful to note that the media is now essentially divided into two very different ecosystems: the one on the “right,” full of podcasters and social media upstarts, and the legacy corporate media. Personally, I find the ecosystem on the “right” far more interesting and intellectually honest, whereas the legacy media, of which I was once a part, is entirely lost. This week, however, I noticed people coming out of the woodwork trying to take down a few of the main figures on the “right.” (Apologies for my repeated use of scare quotes, I just can’t let go of how meaningless the word has become.)

I spent this week watching this process, these messy personalities injecting themselves into news stories, but I don’t want to engage in it with my commentary. Part of me thinks it looks coordinated and suspicious, the other part of me knows it might all be true. Who can really say for sure, when in the middle of an all-out information war? We are at DEFCON 1 in the assault on our minds. Some circumspection is a valuable thing. And some level of detachment is absolutely necessary. In the media, there are no gods.

Most days, I get a kick out of the push and pull and the drama, and allow myself to be drawn in. Other days, I need to reconnect to what’s real. 

And that’s where I am this week. Even though I write about political figures and I enjoy watching the blood sport that is politics, I really don’t consider myself political. I’m interested far more in people than I am in systems. In fact, I’m endlessly fascinated by people, even the mundane details of their lives. This is the sense in which I consider myself a populist — not because I think a system created by ‘the people’ would be failsafe, but because I feel connected on a basic human level to my fellow man. And yes, history shows that people can act in monstrous ways with alarming frequency — but it also shows that happens most often in a context of a monstrous system. Down with systems, up with people.

I came across two little pieces of beauty that reminded me of how people used to have fun, before my time, before the grotesque media system hijacked talent and lust for fame and created the Frankenstein’s monster that is today’s youth culture. I don’t think I can adequately express just how aghast I am at many of the young people making music today (also I fear it makes me sound like a crotchety old lady complaining about ‘young people today!’). Their face tattoos, enormous asses, talon nails, hard, bulging tits, weird rubber outfits, and unnatural hair genuinely horrify me. I feel, when I watch them perform, like I’ve already entered the sci-fi dystopian future hellscape that some have been warning us about.

So since it’s the beginning of Advent, a time better spent in joyous togetherness than doom scrolling, I share with you two antidotes to our modern poison.

I discovered this charming performance in Celia Farber’s Substack. If you want a sharp and disturbing contrast between the old ways and the new ways, just click on Machine Gun Kelly or Doja Cat after watching this. I love Danser Encore song not just for its anti-authoritarian message, or its gypsy tune, but because everyone in this video looks so…human. Not a single one of those women spreads their legs, twerks, or crawls around on all fours in skin tight clothes. Not one of the guys sticks their tongue out, or sings about self-harming. It reminds me of the lovely, uplifting things normal people can do. What a relief.

The next snippet of loveliness was included in Niccolo Soldo’s Substack, Fisted by Foucault. It’s from Federico Fellini’s Roma

I’m a sucker for anything Italian, as it brings on in me a sweet nostalgia for my childhood — and anything featuring a Roman accent I will enjoy. But this seven-minute long clip is deeper than that. I’ll not comment further — just enjoy it. (It’s also a vivid reminder of the food the proles used to eat: snails, tripe, and calf entrails stuffed with milk. I wouldn’t be too keen to go back to that, tbh. 🤣)

I may be overstating the case somewhat, but the fact that these two videos are not part of our contemporary cultural norm is unequivocally bad for our sensitive human brains. And the reason they are not part of our norm, any more, is because our corporate media, its tastemakers and its gatekeepers, have rotted into a stinking morass encompassing each of the seven deadly sins. To cleanse my mind after a little too much exposure to the contemporary, I find refuge in the old.