well, that's it for me.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Yes! That's what it looks like. The White House is now its very own Shitty Internet Meme machine. I'm used to seeing this for TV shows going down the shitter, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that politics in America (and throughout the rest of the world for that matter) is not only full of bad acting and bad writing, but has apparently entered syndication as reruns.

While throngs of basement-dwelling science fiction nerds everywhere are hiding their faces in their stormtrooper helmets and shitting frustration all over the Internet at Obama's mix up of two sci-fi religions, the White House public relations department has decided that HAHA LET'S MAKE IT A JOKE LOL is good policy. Now, politically, I don't really know if it's good policy or not. Maybe it is. Maybe they'll score a couple of points among the "Maybe I'll vote for Hillary instead of Darth Vader as usual in 2016" demographic. Maybe not.

Either way what we have here is flagrant boasting that the capacity of the Internet to mock and deride our insufferable leaders in humorous format is no longer a threat, if it ever was one. These assholes now speak the native language of the average Internet cynic. They've cracked the code. I'd say that, based on the fact that it is not in fact funny or clever at all, there is still a chance. But no, all of the comments accompanying this image are, of course, completely along the lines of "Shut up you liberal stooge" and "Republicans just want poor people to pay for the lifestyle of the rich." So, mission accomplished, I guess.

COUNTRY OVER, INTERNET OVER.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So, uh

let me get this straight

You're all upset because the White House publicity team has figured out how to internet meme?

That's like being upset in the 1950's because the White House figured out how to use teevee. YOUR MOM knows how to use memegenerator.com to maker LOLcats, you can't seriously expect people (probably mostly people who graduated from college less than five years ago) who do media PR for a living to not be able to understand the internet.

NEWSFLASH: The internet isn't underground anymore.

[AFK]

Was the internet really ever underground?  For probably about 95% of it's existence it's just been another boob-tube.  It was tailor-made for mass media-consumption so it was always just a matter of time before the politicians took to it.  And the internet is everywhere now.  You can't fucking get away with it.  It used to be just in the big plastic-coated box in your living room or basement.  Now it's in your pocket, always connected wherever you go.  Everyone is plugged into it, sucked into it.  Of course the politicians are going to meme, to get to Teh People!

[tyrannosaurus vex]

So, uh

let me get this straight

You're all upset because the White House publicity team has figured out how to internet meme?

That's like being upset in the 1950's because the White House figured out how to use teevee. YOUR MOM knows how to use memegenerator.com to maker LOLcats, you can't seriously expect people (probably mostly people who graduated from college less than five years ago) who do media PR for a living to not be able to understand the internet.

NEWSFLASH: The internet isn't underground anymore.

Yeah, I get that. You're right, of course. It was both inevitable and already going on.

What gets to me isn't that these people are Internet-savvy (to the somewhat sub-par degree that is true), though. It isn't that their tentacles are reaching into new(er) markets, tactics, and vocabularies. It's that the Internet was, at one time, revolutionary in that -- unlike the content delivery and public discussion systems that came before it -- it was both mass-media and bi-directional.

It was already unsettling to me that the newest waves of consumer devices and platforms are designed to transform the Internet from being collaborative and open to being closed, tracked, and one-directional. It's a hell of a lot easer to read on a tablet than it is to compose, for example. But now -- and the picture I posted above symbolizes this -- an Internet "subculture" which was completely user-driven and full of user-generated content is now just another medium for public dissemination of the official party line, considered pervasive enough and safe enough to carry the Official Story. What was once inherently cynical, sarcastic and subversive is now about as likely to get anyone to think as the two or three poor bastards still complaining about banking corruption down at Zuccotti Park.

But I understand that the Internet is, always has been, and always will be jam-packed with 90% frivolous nonsense, 9% Official Party Line, and 1% subversion. It just distresses me to see the ease with which all avenues of subversion can be blocked and detoured into complete diversion and distraction.

[Golden Applesauce]

Relevant essay, although it's more about power than culture.

Maybe it used to be the case that you couldn't purchase culture (the Romans certainly thought they could), but if that was ever true it was only because we understood less about how culture worked. If money and power couldnt buy you the smartest minds of a generation, they wouldn't be worth much.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Maybe it's not as involved as I thought it was. Maybe it's just that this, for me, underscores that the highest ranks of government are fully secure knowing they can pass off shit like this as a statement to the people, and people are completely satisfied with it.  Absolutely content to feed on this, because they have no desire for anything more substantial. They're happily distracted by references to fucking Star Wars, while the system goes on smashing and ruining and fucking everything to pieces, an inch outside of their horse blinders.

Is it something new? No. Not to PD, to be sure. It isn't new to me. It's just grating on me, the way it's so flagrant. So thoroughly obvious. Not just the cheap tricks like this, but the endless political charades, the lack of any semblance of disguise. Is the veil so thin because I'm used to paying attention, or are they really just out there, dancing on the grave of everything I used to think I believed in, as openly and as naked as they seem to be?

And why, for the love of God, why do so many people seem so oblivious to it?

[AFK]

Oblivious?  Or perhaps simply apathetic.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Or possibly just exactly as it always has been, and we're still naive enough to be shocked.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Did you actually go to the website and read it?

What, exactly, shocked you?

I'm reading Jung's The Undiscovered Self, and it says all the same things. There is really no respectable place for righteous indignation about the callow ways those in power use popular ideas and technology to their advantage. If anything, the indignation should be based on the fact that the same shit goes on century after century.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

In fact, much of the excitement about the early era of the Internet (a government-sponsored means for the academic and military establishment to communicate with each other), which I participated in, was the fact that the populace, now, had access to many of the same tools the establishment had been using to communicate and influence public consciousness. It was revolutionary in the sense that now the common people, as well as those in power, had the ability to disseminate memes.

So the government is using a medium they created in order to disseminate ideas in the form of memes, which, previous to the existence of the medium they created, had largely been the domain of governments,


...and?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Right now, I'm just wrapping my brain around how thin the disguise is. Has it always been this thin? It seems to me like they were better at, or at least put more effort into, pretending the whole charade was more than a smokescreen before. Or, it might be that I'm just more cynical (I'll avoid claiming to be more insightful) now and it's become impossible for me to buy into the game.

In fact, much of the excitement about the early era of the Internet (a government-sponsored means for the academic and military establishment to communicate with each other), which I participated in, was the fact that the populace, now, had access to many of the same tools the establishment had been using to communicate and influence public consciousness. It was revolutionary in the sense that now the common people, as well as those in power, had the ability to disseminate memes.

So the government is using a medium they created in order to disseminate ideas in the form of memes, which, previous to the existence of the medium they created, had largely been the domain of governments,


...and?

...and nothing. I'm just voicing my personal objection to it, again, in another arrangement of words. I'm not saying I'm bringing anything new to the table here. It's a pretty fucking empty table, though, and there aren't many new things arriving. I think by now we've established that Shit Sucks™. It's also established that there's no grand resolution, no cavalry riding in.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Pretty sure that it's your sophistication that's changed, and not the game. I've been watching this shit since Anderson ran in 1980.

[Sita]

Well, I can tell you how my brain saw the image.
My first reaction was why in the world would Obama be mixing Star Trek and Star Wars? Did he really think they exist in the same universe or was it just a slip of the tongue? (turns out he most likely meant Jedi Mind Trick)
This is the point where I think most people would stop, and certainly what most of the media seems to be concerned with.

It took an effort to make more than a passing glance to see the actual message, which is the link to read about Obama's proposed policy. And even if the general public actually notice it, not many will actually go ahead and type the url in.

Society today doesn't like to read more than a few words at a time and politics is taking full advantage of that.

[AFK]

It's not new at all, because in the end, the politicians are simply doing through mass communication what the private sector has been doing since forever.  Getting your vote.  Pepsi wants you to vote for them with your dollars.  Obama wants you to vote for him, well his party, with your vote.  So they'll get you with the same shiny, superficial, button-pushing commercialism.  It's not new at all, just more abundant because of more pervasive communication outlets.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Disagree with RWHN. Not that it isn't a play for votes and attention, but I can't believe that Obama himself is too concerned with who people vote for. If the charade is this plain to see from out here when you pay attention, imagine the degrees of magnitude clearer it is from the inside. There is no reasonable way for me to think the actors in the play of politics don't know the entire thing is scripted, and that they are only putting on a show. Obama and Boener seem to have no trouble agreeing on the "heavier" issues like drone strikes and toothless regulations. When they will cry bloody murder over 0.03% of the federal budget while no one says a word about the fundamental unfairness of the economy and the judicial system, not to mention the terror and destruction exported by every arm of foreign policy, I can't believe there is any genuine rivalry going on at any level.