Cultural Hyperventilation

The media is in a febrile state. The internet has made it so. Where once we had a relatively few collections of individuals, to whom we even ascribed friendly names like the BBC, NBC, HBO, Macillan, Random House, Hodder & Stoughton, all producing TV shows, films, books, newspapers, or journals, we now have millions of individuals breaking all the rules and teaching us how to be creative. Low cost HD cameras and a general will to anarchy has made it possible for consumers to become producers and for the mainstream to embrace everyday culture in a new and, apparently, invigorating way.

Increasingly the web is the place where the media source material for broadcast. We are encouraged to send our videos and photographs into news channels for which they pay us nothing but the honour of having our names read out on air. YouTube has become the free repository of gaffs, gags, and the grisly, and it is these momentary oddities of life that are delivered into our living rooms on a daily basis. They may be cheap filler but they are increasingly defining our culture, and who and what we are.

Against these new standards, older forms of expression seem precisely that: old, outdated, lapsing into insignificance for all but a few who wish to cherish their archaic mannerisms. Structure went out of the window with the talent. This is a world made by and for William S. Burroughs where everything it cut up and rearranged. The most damning criticism of any form of culture these days is to describe it as ‘safe’. Although new media isn’t really new media at all (though the medium has certainly changed), it is a new way of ascribing value to the brash, the bold, the ballsy. MTV can lay claim to have been in the vanguard of this new aesthetic of grotesque banality. ‘Jackass’ (and it’s UK derivative ‘Dirty Sanchez’) represented the most extreme examples of the low-brow writ large. When a man is willing to put a staple through his own foreskin in order to get on TV, there’s very little chance that the slow burn privations of long term artistic integrity stand any chance of succeeding. What chance the young but talented landscape painter against Damien Hurst’s diamond-encrusted skulls or the media-savvy doodling of ‘Banksy’?

As rank amateurism flourishes, professional amateurism gains ground. It is now an established practice that all those tangential to fame also find fame. The world is filled with hundreds like Karl Pilkington (mate to Ricky Gervais) or Jimmy Doherty (he of ‘Jimmy’s Farm’ and childhood friend of Jamie Oliver). Give the audience more of what they think they want. Why be satisfied with Ozzie when there’s also Sharon, Kelly, and Jack? We want more, more, more, more of the same...

The ironies are as apparent as they are vulgar. Democratising the means of production has led us to the point where the daughters of rock stars can present the news, footballers wives produce newspaper columns, porn stars write books for children. The product may be inferior to that of the professionals whose jobs they have taken but only by reducing our standards have we allowed ourselves to become in thrall to those standards and to these people. Our banality breeds their banality and it can only get worse.

As the visual has risen, it is customary to say that the written has lessened in significance. Yet the written word still has a role to play: it’s that of the placeholder or the tag. It isn’t so important that words are put together with any artistry. They must simply exist in the right form to help people find the visuals to satisfy their hunger for quick Big Mac entertainment. It isn’t hard to envisage a time when good tagging is cherished over good writing. In fact, it might already be here. Welcome to the world of the blogosphere.

Is it possible that too much creative oxygen makes us hyperventilate? Do we breathe hard and fast because there’s simply too much culture to enjoy? Or is it that we’ve not enough quality carbon dioxide in the blood, too few producers of merit and note? And how do creators keep pace in a world where the average consumer with a video recorder stands more chance of success than an artist in a studio? Is it culture? Is it art? Is it even good for us?

The most popular websites in the UK are generally those like the BBC that already have a large readership because of their (old-media) mainstream activities, or those that embrace the counter-side of culture. Yet to describe it as counterculture is trite when it is really in the ascension. To be counter in our culture is to still believe in the role of the library or the museum, it is to read books other than those plugged 24/7 via Amazon’s newsletters. To be different is to refuse to embrace this cult of difference. A few people still succeed by working the old way. From the creative individual’s point of view, it has more guarantee of success. However, when the creative pool is measured in the many millions, the media can carry on plucking out the lucky strikes. From their point of view, there is always another funny clip of a dog wearing glasses, a guy trying to mix cola and mints, another monkey who has struck a few keys together and accidentally written a masterpiece. No wonder so many of us are confused and gasping for breath.