Alpha Males Get With The Program
THE FALL OF (ONE) MAN. Once, there was an alpha male warrior in Romania who had crazy swag and impeccable style. His modes of transportation were numerous, his lifestyle opulent. Boys idolized his dark majesty and women lusted after his bestial dominance. His downfall came from a series of missives exchanged with a young woman. A hero to some, a villain to others. His name was Dracula.
two things that Vlad The Impaler would never do.
IN HER TERRIFYING DYSTOPIAN NOVEL Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood predicted the death of culture by means of computer technology that could easily mimic the work of old and new masters through minimal effort. This unpleasant vision of the near-future has been largely overshadowed by her terrifying dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, in which women are stripped of their rights and reduced to breeding stock in a fascist American Christian theocracy. But don’t worry, folks. There’s still time for us to have both worlds at once!
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO 1/6/21! Reactions to the Trumpianite storming of the Capitol building have been varied over the last two years. People on the Left and Right and tended to downplay its significance (the former because it was led by violent buffoons, and the latter because it was led by THEIR violent buffoons), while many of those in the Center regard it as worse than 9/11, because it besmirched Our Sacred Norms.
The truth is somewhere in-between. We now know that Trump was keenly aware of what was happening down on Capitol Hill and hoped that it would overturn the 2020 election results, while (hilariously) urging the insurrectionists kill Mike Pence. A contingent of nihilistic Republican extremists in Congress gave tours of the building to the attackers in advance of the assault, and may have provided them with some of the curious insights that they seemed to have about the building’s security flaws. Other Trump staffers, like Hope Hicks, saw the death count of protestors and police and the potential harm to members of Congress, and worried about how it might affect their future job prospects.
But the real danger of 1/6 was never that a bunch of idiots were going to seize the Capitol buildingand gain control over the government through a series of hidden levers and mechanisms located within. No, the real danger is that the people behind it would get off with a slap on the wrist or with no punishment at all, emboldening them for an even bigger effort by a larger number of extremists next time. Not that this sort of thing ever happens!
As of this writing, we already see that letting a rogues’ gallery of grotesque Dick Tracey villains like Donald Trump (alleged rapist), Matt Gaetz (alleged statutory rapist and alleged human trafficker), Marjorie Taylor Greene (anti-vaxxer, philanderer, and secondary antagonist of the underrated 2022 film Barbarian) and Lauren Boebert (undercooked pork sliders at her gun-themed ‘Hooters’ knock-off restaurant and, giving dozens of customers bloody diarrhea) get away with their complicity has made them feel invincible. They are, sadly, too vicious/stupid/racist/power-hungry to realize that if they just accepted to their Congressional sinecures they would be on easy street for the rest of their lives. Instead, better to burn it all. I guess?
PANTONE’S COLOR OF THE YEAR FOR 2023 IS ‘VIVA MAGENTA.’ The color was inspired by the cochineal beetle, and is meant to evoke excitement for the new year that awaits. Shed those 2022 blues!
NOW, I HOPE YOU DIDN’T ENJOY THAT PREVIOUS IMAGE TOO MUCH BECAUSE AI IS COMING FOR ARTS & CULTURE! Yes, all those writers, graphic designers, musicians, comedians, teachers, and media-types that watched smugly/indifferently for years as the machines came for factory jobs now see the wolf at the door.
Silicon Valley vampires like Marc Andreessen promise that AI will bring in a new era of art, culture, and expression, but this is all nonsense. If you haven’t figured out by now that the tech visionaries are not to be trusted, then I don’t know what else to say. Except that these are the same people who said that cryptocurrency would ‘free us from the elites’, social media would fight misinformation, man would be on Mars by 2022, and automated vehicles wouldn’t kill civilians. They’re the people developing AI technology for the “betterment of humanity” while simultaneously warning us that AI is one of the greatest threats that humanity faces. They have no ethics and don’t care about humanity in the traditional sense. They mine dystopian sci-fi novels for nightmares ideas to pitch to venture capitalists.
AI Art is not about devising revolutionary methods of expression, deepening human empathy, or giving us new ways to engage the world or each other. Anything weird, interesting or provocative spat out by current AI technology is accidental and secondary to the investment’s true purpose, which is to remove the cost of human labor from content creation. That’s it. Make it cheaper, faster, and shittier; churn out the slop. It doesn’t even matter if the audience has time to digest it. The stinger in the film credits is already priming you for the next movie/product, so no need to reflect on what you’ve just seen. And they will achieve this because they have the money to make it happen. Mainstream art will get progressively shittier, and they simply expect that you will get used to it.
Sounds depressing… But is there another way?
TO HELP FIND THIS OUT, I HAVE DECIDED TO LAUNCH A NEW (FREE) ENDEAVOR SOON. It will be separate from this humble newsletter, continuing a journalism website/project that I did years ago where I interviewed and profiled creators, artists, activists and the like. As much as I complain about corporate monopolies and AI encroachment, there are still many people out there many doing interesting things in many different disciplines that are worth attention and exploration. It could be inspiring! And who couldn’t use some of that these days? I’ve started reaching out to some people, but feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions.
Welcome to 2023!
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