subtle. power.
“Aligned by the most powerful of appropriations, that of identity.” – James Hillman
Have you, like me, been inundated with the Earle’s? And, like me, are you wondering who the fuck they are? Or were you familiar with their particular brand of beauty, fashion and lifestyle TikTok’s before the Netflix series?
The Earle’s: our nation’s most current flaunt of materialism. They are rallied around as if we all know them, want to be them, want to fuck them. They are promo after promo, material in and of themselves, and no shame in any of it. So shameless, that the market doesn’t give a fuck about its brutalism; by presenting us in clear awareness our servitude to a system. This is progress and unsustainable growth capitalized.
Our studs use the market not only for promotion (who doesn’t have the need to promote and be promoted) but for a specific kind of glamorization; one that wields its beauty as the fine-tuned curve of blade. The type of power associated with this glamor is something relatively new, something evolved from the notion of stardom in the 1950s and 60s; where product promotion was the real opportunity. To be used is to be useful and while it would seem by those using the market for promotion that the market is their bitch. From the outside looking in, it really is hard to distinguish who is the object and who is the abuser. Here is the fetishization of an Order of lifestyle.
Initially I thought this Order is meant to create a reliability of what one might expect to need in order to be happy. However, this lends to another problem, that there is some cabal on the other side. The market, in the capitalist’s eyes, is perfect and everything we have is owed to the market, because of the market, so everything is to be done for the market. So, perhaps it would be better to say, the Order of lifestyle is a function of capitalism and serves purposes for capitalist aims by creating a reliability of what one might expect to need in order to be happy. Since this is a rather useful function for the market and capitalists, of course it is exploited. As writers we belong to a more specific Order of lifestyle. One that requires a lot of sacrifice because the capitalists that have structured it have made it so.
Certainty, however, is the biggest problem capitalists have. Of course, with all our tools and algorithms you still need to create a feeling in order for the algo and data tools to do their thing. Roll in the studs!
Of course, this way of seeing through the material West is pervasive in our mind’s eye and through our social media feeds. This flicker of thought is not unique. May, in fact, be the cause of a ruse. But as a rule, it is such pervasive knowledge that we have become ignorant. We can put it aside because it won’t change and it only does more harm than good to think about it; more depression; anger; more fear for the future we’re creating; more resentment for the now which has been handed down to us. We are fixated. Forget about the deterioration of customer service, the enshittification of every market, the stronghold around our wellbeing and livelihood is this glamorization.
There is no doubt a wedding happening before our eyes and it centers on the consumption of its own riches. What a spectacle! The marriage spectacle’s sole purpose is to sell products that are superfluous; only necessary in that you want it. By people who are the sludge of excess: only good for consumption. The only thing that is produced: consumption. The spectacle[1].
Our only choice then becomes to participate, either as a content creator, seduced by the subtle power that is not power at all, is actually another form of being used, or become so far alienated further into our torpor.
[1] While writing this little essay I happened upon a post in my Instagram feed from Philosophy Break about Guy Debord titled, Guy Debord: We Have Been Reduced to Spectators in a Society of Endless Spectacle. Of course I found this interesting and pursued the full article online. I’m always curious about and looking to find evidence of how creative thought and action intersect esp. through time and space. Believing in a universal consciousness is one thing, experiencing and participating with it is another. Anyway, I found it interesting, and a little strange, that I should write this paragraph a week before stumbling upon this article and having never heard of Guy Debord and his theory, finding so much in common. Believe it or not, the principles and ideas are really what matters.
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