Every morning I wake up to refresh my feed of bad news, an ongoing championship for the least accommodating take on gender, the fastest exploitative fashion, or the most brutal policing. Numerous moments of distress autoplay, badly worded rhetoric is ogled, mass-protests are dutifully liked. Online activists reveal the ruthless actions of corporations and individuals in a depressing Internet striptease, outer shells obliterated rather than titillating removed. I hope in some way these exposés of merciless behaviour serve to move us forward, that accountability swiftly follows the call-out, and we reach some new understanding of human mechanics. Right now, we’re checkmated. We’re down a clickhole of judgement and can’t stop digging. Deeper into the past we go, right into the core of the earth. I wonder if we’ll ever resurface.
When the future’s uncertain, we can find ourselves looking back, preoccupied with our personal lives before the political storm hit. Nostalgic for simpler times when the subway was affordable, when Bode shirts didn’t sell out in minutes, when prominent writers weren’t co-signing anxious letters about getting cancelled. The halcyon days of naturally-distanced socializing, before WHO-withdrawal and Trump. I think often of Obama, his presidential day in the sun a distant memory, the light fading fast. A man who kept the world simmering while the rest of us had a long sit down.
I remember Ye Olde Kanye too, a sort of benevolent music industry figure who’d never worn a MAGA hat, the idea of stage-bombing Taylor Swift just a twinkle in his eye. This week saw the rapper’s tweeted bid for president, a late registration for the 2020 election. In a Forbes interview Kanye explained that the Birthday Party wants us “to stop doing things that make God mad” and opposes capital punishment. That doesn’t sound too bad, but I’m not completely ready to say Yes We Kanye. I don’t want to get drawn into a critique of Kanye—you are either a true disciple or non-believer—but his nascent presidential campaign reflects a larger issue. We’re all relieved to side-step social unrest for some light entertainment.
We’re all members of the Cult of Entertainer, worshipping at the feet of anyone who can pry our attention momentarily away from the other people vying for our attention. Traditionally entertainment is always light, like a canape or a quick lunch that’s low on transfat. Performances are served to us in bite-sized, snackable formats that needn’t be chewed to be digested. The dialogue is easy. The drama without real jeopardy. The narratives are single-stranded. There are easy-going Saturday Night quizzes on TV, and memes that cleverly combine simple representations. These things break the spell of the serious news for a minute, it’s pushed to the back of the hob to simmer. Entertainment can be a bit of a dirty word—it is showy, it is brash—but we’re all drawn toward respite from the big stuff.