The Fabric of Our New Collective Experience
“What binds us is what we stand witness to”
Posted Jul 13, 10:43 pm in branding, consumerism, human nature, postmodernism, social networking
This morning, I was about to go to the gym in the same shirt I had slept in, a white shirt with red hems with the word “KAHLUA” printed in big letters on the front. As I stepped before the bathroom mirror before exiting the house, I realized that I had to change. For some reason, I didn’t want to be seen as the type of person who would wear a shirt with a liquor brand emblazoned on it, even though I apparently am. I’m not a very fashion-focused person in general, which is why as I was later examining my behavior, I found it somewhat curious. Yet, it seemed to be indicative of something very basic in our society that is accepted without much thought: images are one of the primary building blocks of our collective inner world, and the way in which we parse the world around us.
In David Foster Wallace’s essay “E Unibus Pluram,” found in the book A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, he comments about how the common currency of interpersonal relationships used to be shared experience, but is now built on a foundation of the images that bombard us, and seep into our consciousness and now form the primary means of relating to others.
“Americans [seem] no longer united so much by common beliefs as by common images: what binds us [becomes] what we stand witness to. In fact, pop-cultural references have become such potent metaphors not only because of how united Americans are in our exposure to mass images but also because of our guilty indulgent psychology with respect to that exposure. Put simply, the pop reference works because 1) we all recognize such a reference, and 2) we’re all a little uneasy about how we all recognize such a reference. [I disagree with this second point — RK]
Today, the belief that pop images are basically just mimetic devices is one of the attitudes that separates most [people] under 40 from the generation that precedes us. We’re not different from our fathers in that [pop images] present and define our contemporary world. Where we are different is that we have no memory of a world without such electric definition.”
He goes on to remark about how he’s read books in which the author can instantly flesh out a character by describing the brand name on his shirt, a strategy that only works because the post-modern generation equates one’s brand loyalty with one’s character. An astute point, and one that I think is not so far divorced from what I had commented on earlier about the power of symbols to override our critical thinking about them, and how the associative meanings of symbols can form a feedback loop to constantly redefine and augment their meanings. Perhaps it is not so surprising then that the Western world is so defined by— and perhaps stifled by- its obsession with the images associated with consumer goods and brand labels, and the benefits these supposedly give us.
I would expand Wallace’s idea of our postmodern society being built on images to it being built on a foundation of media vignettes in general. But its not just that we like these images and shared media, we find communion in them. It’s not uncommon to meet people who speak in bursts of movie quotes, or who are so insular that the only way one can break through their thick shells is through a cavalcade of pop culture references. And it’s just as common to find people who are able to use this as a tool to gain in-roads with others, to build trust and friendship. In fact, this has become an expected means of relationship building.
There’s no faster way to be ostracized from a conversation than by admitting that you haven’t seen the movie everyone else is talking about. The problem is not that you literally haven’t seen the movie; it’s that you haven’t been indoctrinated into the set of images that the movie represents. At that moment, you are not in the same class as the people who have seen it; you are lacking a shared experience that the others have witnessed— even if they didn’t witness it together. And there simply isn’t a way anyone can bring you in. If someone was talking about anything in their personal life, you could be brought in because the conversation is no longer about the images, but about the human condition that we all share.
It’s for this reason that companies like Netflix can cash in on people who rent out movies they don’t really want to watch so that they can say they’ve seen them. Watching movies— particularly ones with social cachet— is a passport into conversations and acceptance with social groups. There’s a fear that if we don’t witness these images, we may be left behind somehow.
Nothing speaks more about our love for images and media than the popularity of the television show Family Guy. Based on the life of a bumbling, overweight suburbanite and his family, each half-hour episode is loosely bound by a rather flimsy plotline thickened up with an endless series of shared images from the collective pop consciousness. For example, the program might make sly references to a short-lived television program from the mid-80s, or a washed-up child actor, or a celebrity’s ongoing troubles with the law. Or even all of these in a single scene! The whole show is a composite of such images. These are not subjects that are thematically linked to viewers’ personal lives; nor are they rooted in humor that expounds on the human condition.
This is beyond a game of ‘spot the reference;’ these references are the new definition of shared experience. We all know about that washed up actor. We all know about that celebrity’s trouble with the law. It is part of the unwritten history of our lives. Except we didn’t live it. We, as Wallace says, were witnesses to the images, we integrated them into our own narratives, and they now make up the fabric of our experience.
I once witnessed a couple friends of mine reminiscing about a time they were driving along a beach together. They were throwing out all these minute details about their adventure, laughing and egging each other on about their behavior on this trip. This went on for 3-4 minutes, before I asked what beach they had gone to. They said they were talking about a time they were playing Gran Turismo on their Playstation console. My jaw hit the floor.
Something struck as deeply sad about this story, but I can’t really explain why. If these images are capable surrogates for “real life”, if a video game simulating driving on a beach can serve as an alternative for actually being on one, and if we can watch “Friends” instead of maintaining real ones, does it matter? Should it matter? There’s a feeling in my gut that there’s something terribly backwards about this trend, but I can’t really argue with it on any logical, non-conditioned level. We are humans, and we have choices to make; the choices of some would not be ones that I would make, but it does not make them wrong or backwards. Indeed, why shouldn’t we savor whatever we embrace? Perhaps it’s all we have.