The Cosmetic Class
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The Cosmetic Class
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Re: The Cosmetic Class
#2One could just live in the real world where you don't know or care what a finsta is.
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#3Re: The Cosmetic Class
#4Sometimes I think the deepest, most absurdist corners of the internet are its last bastion of humanity. Where the memes are fueled by people's desire to be so incredibly nonsensical and inscrutable as to defy marketability. Of course, if you look at recent trends in corporate Twitter accounts you can see companies doing their very best to appropriate even that.
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_sentence !?
Are you asking why the author chose not to include one?
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#6If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the movie Ingrid Goes West. It's this article in the form of a brilliant dark-comedy.
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_sentence !?
Are you asking why the author chose not to include one?
The context would have helped immensely. Instead I had to read the first half of the article again after I finished.
The author captures the essence of the vapid absurdism permeating social media, and our culture more broadly.
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#8Sometimes I think the deepest, most absurdist corners of the internet are its last bastion of humanity. Where the memes are fueled by people's desire to be so incredibly nonsensical and inscrutable as to defy marketability. Of course, if you look at recent trends in corporate Twitter accounts you can see companies doing their very best to appropriate even that.
How many levels of irony are you on, my dude?
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#9Reading this kind of reminded me of old Christian Slater movies like Pump up the Volume and Heathers, and other movies of the GenX era. (But, I’m sure films of
the 60s fit, as well)
Hopefully this is a sign that this generation is forming its identity and ready to express it with some real cultural movements! I’ve been waiting eagerly for their cultural identity to emerge and express itself with authentic art, music, film, etc.
However, I also find the essay ironic. When the Internet first went mainstream, one phenomenon was “the lurker” - the fact that most, the mass majority, of internet users only “consumed content” (although, back then it wasn’t called content). That’s because few of us felt confident enough to claim enough expertise to share much. Therefore, most of us just “lurked”. We let the experts speak, and we indulged in surfing on their knowledge.
In this “Instagram era”, though, everyone is expected to be a “content creator”. (e.g. everyone has a github!) But, to be one, one unfortunately misses out on a long history of prior work. One gets so bogged down by creating new content and reading all of the new content created within the previous few hours, that much of the past 108 years of knowledge and wisdom isn’t fully accessible. And, although the author seems to try to escape that vortex, they also seem to have ignored that they’re mostly reinventing ideas that were created between McLuhan and 2010.
But, that is ok! I actually read the whole thing and enjoyed it (because it also kinda reminded me of reading Zines). Yeah, as others have said, it could use some editing, but at least it has paragraphs!
Re: The Cosmetic Class
#10Sometimes I think the deepest, most absurdist corners of the internet are its last bastion of humanity. Where the memes are fueled by people's desire to be so incredibly nonsensical and inscrutable as to defy marketability. Of course, if you look at recent trends in corporate Twitter accounts you can see companies doing their very best to appropriate even that.
Even commercials are tapping into absurdist themes. I can remember a few asian ones I've seen but a recent one that comes to mind is the newest Sprite commercial where the kid is running around the house yelling about how they are out of sprite.