cherrybomb3 wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 5:38 am
i love how the title for this thread is so vast in scope. its like the title of an adam curtis documentary as imagined by contrapoints or smth. addresses the fact that society seems to be stuck in some post-2016 rut of meaninglessness and disintegration
and that sense of ennui is kinda present here too bloody hell its ripe for a big fat psychoanalytic dissection where it turns out we're all sexually attracted to and in a quasi-abusive relationship (lol) with the entropysphere thats engulfed internet subcultures one and all. 2009 this is not
(I'm too tired to really understand if you're coming from a place of genuine frustration/anger or just idle playful musing, so don't read too much into this if I've misread your intent. Though reading your post sparked a few thoughts that I hope come across as more consolatory than didactic.)
I think saying we're collectively stuck in a conundrum of spiraling disorder contradicts and oversimplifies the grand scope of things, though we're conditioned to a bias where it's easy to focus exclusively on extremes of perceived negatives. (and positives) Everything is more varied and complex than that, at once entropic and negentropic, people even more so. Especially when talking about the dissolution of past selves, old ideas and bygone eras where moving on becomes more complicated when trying to reestablish the terms for what comes after is relative to an exhaustive array of internal and external factors.
Perceived breakdowns of societal structures and collective consciousness are cyclical in nature and subject to ongoing fluctuations in everything from technology and politics to perspective and identity. Nothing ever remains in a critical state of chaos and nothing stays in stasis for long either. In this instance here, it feels like being stuck between both states at the same time. It's a new year and a new conversation where the terms are not so much ill-defined as waiting to be defined at all. We're always reassessing our individual and group associations with the subcultures and media we relate to- in turn subject to their own fluctuations as the individuals responsible for creating it adjust the terms of their creative inspiration and personal identities as well. In the interim between dissecting those associations and redefining them, ennui is inevitable, but so is the steady upwards trend towards establishing renewed clarity where ennui gives way eventually to new information and new perspectives ready to be acted on.
Freudian attraction to entropy or self destruction is also relative. We're always in bed with our past selves, old memories and old habits in one way or another until we're ready to move on and we're always wanting to disintegrate the parts of ourselves we've outgrown but which continue to linger in some form regardless. It's the natural state of wanting to move on but unwilling to let go so soon, unable to abandon the familiar for the ambiguous, whether because we can't let go or the people around us refuse to let us let go. In the case of the microcosm that is this forum or phandom at large, Dan and Phil have set the precedent for change and a new foundation of personal and creative growth, the terms of which is ultimately as important for them as it is to us (
*distant echoes of the II theme are heard*)and as ominous to think about too. In other words, "now what?" Phil's video title brings it home even further, 'time for a change.' What does that mean beyond backgrounds and banners? In letting go of old ideas and their past selves, in coaxing us in turn to let go as well to allow them to move on, what can we expect? What do they expect from us? Will the terms of the relationship to the audience change and if so, how? and how much? and when? and how much will we change along with them?
Communication, intent, content, interphandom discussions, boundaries and perspectives are all in a state of flux and it feels at once alienating, ambiguous and interesting.
Furthermore, figuring out what it all means in the post II era seems like it'll take more time to understand fully as Dan and Phil take time to re-establish themselves for themselves.
"Now what" is the same rhetorical question that's always been posed every year in different ways, it just seems more pointed in this instance with the last curtain call for the II tour now officially over, heralded by Dan's tweet about "moving on with our lives" and his consistent insinuations of focusing on personal growth and expanding beyond the constraints of his past branding. But moving on is more complicated when there's a subset of millions moving in your wake all redefining their ideas and terms of engagement in tandem with yours. It's daunting on both sides and finding ways of coping with the change or what it might ultimately yield equally so.
As the power structure or paradigm shifts so does everything else around it but though the gradual evolution of it yields periods where nothing of any real importance appears to be happening at all in the meantime and people groping for clarity comes across as nihilistic overtures of meaningless, it's not really the case. Just part of the process building up to the catalyst of whatever happens next.
Right now is a time ripe for new beginnings and readjusting the status quo, but again, in this microcosm where those two factors depend on the two people with an audience rallied around them, waiting to move as they move, the question remains, "now what?" and the answer remains the same recursive blank slate waiting to be filled in, broken down, and filled in again. and again. and again.
tl;dr: we're not stuck in a rut, just going through the motions of a cyclical state where we're all grasping for meaning and trying to connect with ourselves and each other, even if the conversation seems lost in translation at times.
" - and Phil's iconic reply: "maybe a metallic green shirt and metallic jeans would actually look good with a quiff?"
