Thursday, April 09, 2009

Brand Name or Generic


I feel decanted, like a pharmaceutical product.
Perhaps in my youth, or some long lost (never was) Eden of the past
We were at least deposited together en mass into one large America bottle
Like aspirins—all manufactured by the same machine, but together, rubbing shoulder to shoulder in daily contact with our fellow citizens.
But today, or at least in what passes for the present moment,
We, in our desire for disinfected security, find ourselves living in sterile blister packs
Separated from our fellows by individually-sanitized-for-our-protection bubble wrap
We can go for days, weeks, months or years without any real contact with other people.
We catch glimpses of each other through the plastic film that divides us
And we do not get each other dirty.
We do not contaminate each other.
Only the corporate broadcasts get in
Because each individual serving of consumer comes with screens:
LCD, plasma, TV, film, cell phone, game boy, iPod, computer, everywhere we look
We have been wrapped in screens, filmy plastic screens
And the broadcasts are the software within which we learn how to function
We learn to function as good corporate citizens, consumers first and last
But everything we purchase, everything we touch in this plastic bubble
Is just another screen swimming with software
We are so used to the corporate environment that we don’t even notice it
Like fish do not think about water
We swim in corporations, eat corporate products, shit corporate shit, love corporation love, speak in corporate language, argue corporate arguments, dream corporate dreams
We even die corporate deaths
The fact that I am saying this does not mean for one corporate minute that I am somehow above it all, immune or inoculated.
I am just as corporate as you as I tap on my corporate keys
Broadcasting words on my corporate blog
To be displayed on your corporate screen
It is just the way it is
It is the way we have chosen to incorporate
But the smell of plastic gets to me once in a while
Paper or plastic?
Brand Name or Generic?
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Credits: Rant and Collage by Jay Larsen, Inc. LLC

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm sure there are more and better film examples of your rant (and isn't it corporate of me to relate your rant to a corporate entertainment medium?) but I thought of Wall-e and how humans ended up wrapped in screens and never interacting and of course the corporate reality vs. real reality of the Matrix. Simple connections yes, but maybe there's an analogy to be found in those examples that could help us reconnect and realitize.

In both movies the transition required effort and wasn't easy or natural at first. Both required concerted effort to be successful and in each example it would be easier to fall back into the fake reality than to continue in the real.

Jay Larsen said...

Since we already live in corparte bubble world, it is only natural that we get our inspiration from our corporate entertainments. I find some hope in the fact that even our corporate entertainments have subversive "get back to reality" messages in them. There are ghosts in these machines. Corporations are created and manned by people. But it is that requirement for hard "concerted effort" that will keep most people from trying to crack their corporate egg.