27.04.2020

I spoke to a friend yesterday who’s still working. She said the agency she works at cut everyone over £30k’s wages by 20% but the work load is actually going up because they are pitching on work from new clients, because so many of their current ones are ending retainers, putting all work on hold etc, so they’re looking for the ‘out of lock down’ ads that will, actually, might, invade our lives sooner or later. I really hope this crisis is just bad enough to prevent that from happening, because all the chummy, we’re your mate, filmed on web cam ads that elbow their way in to your emotions by suggesting their brand should be the one you pick when you speak to your dying loved ones over zoom, that some fucking melt from Uncommon London (some bullshit ad agency) described in this morning’s Guardian as the “brand putting their arm around you” are already making me want to scream. URGH FUCK OFF. It makes my skin crawl. People are actually dying, stop trying to make this about you, or somehow claim credit for the struggle people are going though.

One brief look into this before we hack our way through the undergrowth to the point I’m trying to make. The way these ads work, these kind of ‘we’re there for you’ spots, is by summoning an emotion and whacking their brand at the end of it, so that next time you experience that emotion, subtle ties at the back of your mind will bring the brand with it. You may not notice, you might even think you’re above that trickery, but you’re not. That’s why when an ad like uses a song that’s special to you, that you cherish, that not many people know, the song loses all credibility and is ruined forever. Now whenever you whistle along to Just Like Geoffrey Ingram by Television Personalities, you can’t help thinking of Preparation H Haemorrhoid suppositories.

McDonald’s did this in an unbelievably crass, manipulative way a few years ago in a spot about a lad whose mum’s got a new man and they’re struggling to connect. I think there was even a hint that the boy’s real father died. The boy ignores the new man over and over, doesn’t want to watch t’footy, go pub, or whatever McDonald’s imagines working class people do, until he suggests getting a McBoiled Shit or something and suddenly the boy remembers he used to do that with his dad, so maybe this new dad is ok or something. The ad got a lot of complaints for being insensitive, because McDonald’s high jacked their emotions, and now when they remember a happy time with their late fathers they can’t help thinking of the fried dog shit McDonald’s sell. This is what I mean when I say capitalism commoditises the human soul. It’s nasty. They want to pretend they ‘get you,’ they’re ‘there for you,’ and can maybe fill the horrible void in your life, and when you realise they can’t, your anger festers and you drift into fascism, because at least gives you a sort of compelling reason why your life is so lousy.

Anyway…

Pitching on new clients is really hard work. I’ve done it a few times. The creative directors, who, although psychopathy isn’t officially a clinically accepted diagnosis, are more often than not certifiable psychopaths, verging on psychosis caused by a noxious mix of sleep deprivation, vanity, greed, paranoia which manifests by aggressively degrading everyone around them to avoid coming to terms with their own real or imagined incompetence, and cocaine. Lots of cocaine. I mean, these people are arseholes at the best of times. But these are high pressured environments, so you end up working till 2 in the morning, and weekends, questioning your own sanity while creating stuff that you are realising is degrading and cynical, that part of you is actually ashamed of, because you know it makes everyone’s, apart from the shareholders of the agency and client, and your boss, lives worse. Even the clients hate this shit! And most of it gets chucked in the bin anyway.

Imagine your job became like that, and you got a 20% pay cut to say thanks. Winning this pitch could be “really good for the agency.” Not for anyone else though, and as we’ve discussed before things like ad agencies don’t exist any more than Harry Potter.

She’s on what she would get for being furloughed. I would tell them to get fucked, but that’s probably why I always get fired.

But that is what’s required, more and more for less and less. That is how capitalism works. It requires constant growth, because the increasing value of assets is based on the speculation that they will be worth more in future, that’s why people invest, buy shares etc. Trouble is, if there’s a hint they might not be worth more in future, then their current value also plummets, so suddenly nothing is worth very much at all, so we’re on this insane hamster wheel that we have to keep spinning or the whole thing will come crashing down. And EVERYTHING will be sacrificed in its name. As we're seeing now, even human lives. That’s why Europe colonised the world, to find more raw materials to consume, then it consumed the future by feeding growth with debt, now we’re reaching the end of that and we’re consuming ourselves. That’s why this working from home thing might not be as great as it seems. It's insideous, because it means you’re always at work, and you’ll be expected to do more and more. We’ve already seen it with iPhones, it means your boss can get you any hour of the day or night. I’ve seen it first hand.

In fact, I think that's the very definition of a ponzi scheme. 

And this brings me in a round about way back to what we were talking about yesterday, the increasing need for authoritarian leaders to keep this whole thing going. At first, in the 70s and 80s anyway, the CIA could enforce right wing coups in places like Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Iran (a bit earlier), and impose free marketeers, who would ‘liberate’ these countries by opening up markets for them to asset strip, by force. The only way they could do this was through violence and coercion, but it was far enough away from us here in Europe to take too much notice.

Later on similar things are happened in Iraq among other countries. But now, we’re seeing it on our door step, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the system we have in place here is not working. People woke up to it a bit with Grenfell, it was an emblem of neoliberalism, inequality and austerity that you could actually smell. Surely this pandemic must be an even bigger, harder to ignore sign, especially in America where they can’t hide the dead, and it will take more and more authoritarian governments to keep in place the system that caused these problems. In other words, fascism is inherent in neoliberalism, in fact necessary for its survival. The harder the growth gets, the slimmer the margins, higher the costs, larger the coming climate disaster looms, the more blatant the contradictions of capitalism the more pressure you need to exert in order to keep it functioning. 

We’ve seen this with the Tories. Thatcher used a subtler trick to stay in power, her right to buy scheme that allowed people in council homes to buy their property, converted many former working class people, in the Marxist sense, into petit bourgeois, mini land owners, capitalists. This meant they had stake in the market, they would benefit a little from the system if they play along, vote Tory, their houses would go up in price, which made up for stagnating wages as she destroyed the trade union movement. The trouble is now days, it is impossible for most people under 40 to buy into the housing market. That means they don’t benefit from capital, so they are much less likely to support capitalism, which is one of the reasons the generational gap between Labour and Conservative voters was so stark in the last election. So where do the Tories have left to go? Racism, xenophobia, culture wars, victimising trans people, authoritarianism, lies, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing.

Their other option of course, is to buy up the opposition, like they did with Blair. This is why I’d argue so many pundits are desperate to declare Kier Starmer as forensic and competent, which to be fair he is. He’s very good at analysing the details, but completely neglects the bigger questions of politics, like what should the moral character of the country we want to live in be? I think he’s shady as fuck. I made a joke up yesterday –

Why was Kier Starmer the bookies favourite in the Labour leadership election?

Because Richard Coates, founder of Bet365, donated £25,000 to his campaign.

Labour’s back to being capital’s B team.

The options are running out, which might explain some of the propaganda we’re getting, the BBC yesterday had a headline which read ‘Country will get a boost as Boris returns to work”. Fucking hell. Rishi Sunak just hired Allegra Stratton, former head of ITN news and political editor of BBC Newsnight as his comms director. And today I heard the Times has been banned from the daily government press briefings because of the article it ran on Boris Johnson’s cock up of the response to coronavirus. None of these things are normal in a functioning democracy.

This is all quite bleak and yesterday I wanted to end on some thoughts about what we could do in response and I had one or two. Prepare yourself for some earnestness, but I think this is actually serious.

Find your own cause

I think at the root of all of this is a lack of a reason for being, which is maybe intentional, because it makes it easier to keep people shopping, when there’s nothing else. This sounds trite, but if there’s something beyond all this shit, that no one can touch, you can keep your moral compass true and not be influenced as easily or overcome with despair. We’re all like rabbits in headlights, staring at the on coming disaster, either we keep staring and get hit, or jump out the way. You need to find a direction to jump in. The whole philosophy that brought us here is about believing in nothing, so find an alternative. Fill the nothingness with something. Make the effort to look elsewhere.

Believe in something – create a ritual

I suppose this is another way of looking at the above idea, but for me there’s a slight difference.

I’m reluctant to use the word god or anything like that, but I examined the way I looked at the way I see the world and came to the conclusion I must believe in something like that, or that I would prefer it if I did. The reason is, I think there is value in people beyond their economic worth, otherwise no one would give a shit about each other, but they do. I can’t think of another word for that, goodness maybe, grace, chi, prahna, karma? I don’t know there’s loads of words for it, but I think there’s something.

There might not be, but why wouldn’t you think there could be? Life’s more fun to imagine secrets and mysteries, and believing in something good helps you stay sane.

The other benefit is all of this is out of reach of the force that wants to turn you in to nothing more than a mark on a profit and loss sheet. Bob Dylan’s 80s Jesus period is fantastic for this stuff. In his song, When You Gonna Wake Up? There’s a line –

“They tell you time is money as if your soul was worth its weight in gold”

I’m no Christian, but these songs, like Property of Jesus, can give you strength to stay righteous as best you can, even when the world seems completely indifferent, or cruel.

When the whip that's keeping you in line doesn't make him jump
Say he's hard-of-hearing, say that he's a chump
Say he's out of step with reality as you try to test his nerve
Because he doesn't pay tribute to the king that you serve.

He's property of Jesus

Say that he's a loser 'cause he got no common sense
Because he don't increase his worth at someone else's expense
Because he's not afraid of trying, say he's got no style
'Cause he doesn't tell you jokes or fairy tales, say things that make you smile.

He's the property of Jesus

That’s why I wonder around looking for magic, think about goblins, ghouls and aliens, it’s fun, but it’s another world no one can take away from me. That square of twigs exists mostly in my imagination, and that’s up to me.

I think this is the value in ritual, maybe why people pray, light candles, and believe in something bigger than themselves.

Accept yourself

This is one that I’ve been working on a bit recently, understanding that my difference, mainly my wondering mind, lack of focus, inability to fit in with the systems that deem you ‘successful’ or not, are not a problem or a deficiency. I have ADHD, but that’s ok, it comes with strengths and I don’t need to be angry with myself about my weaknesses.

I think the reason that is important is that it can prevent you from being gaslighted. Made to feel like you are mad for thinking things could be better, or it’s not good enough the way people are treated, that in fact, maybe there is an alternative. It allows you to trust your instinct, and realise maybe there’s nothing wrong with you, maybe it’s the world that’s fucked up.

Bob’s got another line for this –

“If you need someone you can trust – trust yourself”