Cue titles posted by Richard Seymour

The concerted intervention by global states into the financial markets has, for the time being, restored 'confidence' to the banking system, lowering inter-bank rates and stimulating an increase in share values. As a televisual drama, we can now consider it concluded for the time being. The climax has been reached, and the iconic freeze-frame image (left) should now usher in the titles: Executive Producers, George W Bush, Henry 'Hank' Paulson, Ben Bernanke... Everything else that matters - foreclosures and growing resistance, pay cuts and strikes, job losses, potential political realignment - were really sub-plots of the master-narrative. These other problems will work themselves out, while the euphoria of the good guys defeating the disrupting alien presence will keep us going through the adverts, so we can start buying stuff again. But what with?

Labels: banks, government bail-outs, neoliberalism, stock market, television

Shouting at the television posted by Richard Seymour

It's a hobby, isn't it? Via the excellent This Space, I found Charlie Brooker yelling them amusing swear-words at the television. As televisual autocritique goes, it's actually one of the more refined efforts. What do you usually get? Harry Hill's unfunny impersonations of Eastenders characters, at best. Clearly, this sort of rant only works if you've got some sort of emotional investment in the telly, and equally clearly it works to solidify that investment, to shore it up, to make sure you keep supplying eye-to-ad co-ordination. Even if you're yelling, "you fucking massive cock", you're still watching. In fact, it's worse, you're treating it as if it's real, you're expecting it to live up to your conception of how human beings should behave, you are participating. Like much of humanity, I do waste a lot of time on the idiot box, and it isn't always completely pointless. For example, if I really want to get motivated, I sit and watch one of those bear-baiting talk shows, each with a carefully arranged diorama of the emotionally incontinent, feckless and violent (all of them, needless to say, obviously broke), and I watch the manicured presenter patronise these people for about ten minutes. And then if I really need to get moving, or if I have an unusually combative day ahead, I sit through the advertisements for debt consolidation, car loans unsecured to mortgages, and so on. Then, supposing I have someone to kill that day, I'll kick it up a notch and watch Jeremy Kyle. I have, I am happy to brag, reduced this activity over the years, but imagine if all that time was replaced by was ranting at the various provocateurs on Comment is Free or in the blogosphere.

Labels: advertising, bloggers, television