By Matthew James Person
Late Capitalism is defined by Wikipedia as referring to Capitalism from 1945 onwards, with the implication that it is a historically limited stage rather than an eternal future for all human society. If I were going to explain the whole of American Consumer Culture through the lens of our present, as if explained to a fucking space alien, I’d say “Unboxing Videos”.
Now the economic night we live in is generally thought to have started 07-08 and continues to this very date. The conditions that led to this are far too numerous to list, and far more intelligent minds have comprehensively spoken on that. I’m a working man, and can speak only to my experience out in the Needle-Laden Trenches of America. To know the struggle of the working stiff is to fucking despair, and to idolize. Jealousy, as Herman Cain crudely mentions, is not the foundation of the class struggle in this nation, it is contempt and anger, as well as something resembling abject hatred. A man’s politics aside, whatever views a person may have it is not unheard of the worker speaking to his compatriots in the workplace referring to the boss as “The Fucking Boss” or talking about “The Fucking Bills” or feeding “The Fucking Kids”. The slow realization that a station in life settles the brain far too late can be terrifying. You’ll be downing whiskey in your water bottle waiting for your Taco Bell, and it hits you that You Are Buddy Baker and God Will Run Out Of Ink.
You go further down the drain of the tub, and you realize The World Hates Poor People, and Those Poor People hate each other. Class politics in America go as follows: You are Rowdy Roddy Piper in They Live or Keith David, and you must stop the aliens. The Aliens are The Rich Man, the forces of Empire. A secret elite. And there are Humans in Collaboration. Most notably, that drunk asshole who was a hobo. When he collaborated, he was made to live in riches, in Opulence. My favorite line in the film is strangely also the tagline for the 53% movement, who would have thought?
What’s wrong with having it good for a change? Now they’re gonna let us have it good if we just help ‘em. They’re gonna leave us alone, let us make some money. You can have a little taste of that good life too. Now, I know you want it. Hell, everybody does.
You see, for the uninitiated, Unboxing Videos amount to a perversion of the experience a child has on Christmas morning. Someone buys a piece of commercial electronics or a toy, and opens the package, to display the contents of the package to the viewers. That’s it. I realize this sounds like a gross exaggerated misrepresentation of the videos, and that we should all be tolerant of tech culture and use both hands to help shovel shit into each other’s mouths, but if I may be so bold I’d like to talk about the implications of this act.
IMPLICATION #1: THE PURCHASER DEVALUES THE SELF THROUGH DEMONSTRATING COMPLETION OF A SIMPLE TASK AS MONUMENTAL, AND OF WORTH.
Unboxing videos are not the completion of a task of significance. You will not sit around the campfire and tell tales of the time Skygene22 opened up a fucking box that had a Playstation Vita in it. Unless we live in alternate fucking dimensions and your cowboys found it difficult to find knives to open CD cases with, this is not a task of importance, and it is important to trivialize it. In all honesty, if you’ve had a Dad (as we all have at some point or another) at some point he has taken a huge shit. He’s shown you and you’ve either said “gross” or “wow, that’s huge”. The latter response was because while everyone shits, not everyone can make that big of a doo doo. To my knowledge, unless proven otherwise, there is no remarkable way to open a box, and taking a big shit is more significant, as a task. You do not open a box before you shit, and if you do you are shameful.
IMPLICATION #2: THE PURCHASER DEVALUES THE VIEWER AND THE VIEWER SLITS THE VIEWER’S SELF ESTEEM’S THROAT IN THE PRIVATE CORNERS OF THEIR EYES AND HEARTS.
It takes a special kind of longing in today’s society to want to window shop in someone else’s home. The viewer obviously cannot afford the goods, or needs to be coerced into the act of the purchase through very patriarchal, heavy tones of fascist eroticism (put this in your mouth, look but do not touch, smell but do not taste, etc) and good ol’ American exploitation. We do not seem content enough in getting something and experiencing it for ourselves. We must prod, converse, become combative and feel entitled to the work of the artisan. We are so convinced of our savvy as customers, that we lose any inkling of the fact we may act as unwilling agents of advertising, even in what we believe to be our “dissent”. If I was an EA executive, right now I’d be eagerly swiping my palms against each other looking like the devil for the fact that a bunch of jackasses unintentionally ended up accidentally evangelizing DLC that is likely to come anyway as a result of whining about a Triple-A gaming trilogy’s end. You scum were the reason I bought Mass Effect 2 and every piece of DLC. I bought the third game on the strength and fear of the ending being spoiled because the whining about the ending made me so incredibly aware of the game’s existence. Man, I hope these morons at some point realize long ago BioWare had spoken with some enthusiasm about a Mass Effect MMO, and now they’ve got a successful MMO with the Star Wars branding under their belt. Man, boy howdy I wonder what they’re going to do next? Probably let sleeping dogs lie with an ending some people didn’t like, that seems likely.
The act of demonstrating exclusivity through consumer elitism is by no means a new trend. The way in which it’s manifesting is certainly interesting but I suppose it’s a marked reflection of class and society. It used to be that paying for map packs on console was a necessary part of the console gaming’s path. Now, we compartmentalize our experience and “expand” it by tacking on an ancillary fee for living in Call of Duty Land on a yearly basis on the condition we get bigger lawns than our neighbors. Our neighbors will covet our lawns and we will feed the advertising machine at minimal cost. It’s Fucking Called Elite, and it’s so hardcore that AC/DC will jam Shoot To Thrill accompanied by Fucking Explosions.
IMPLICATION #3: ENGENDERING PRACTICES THAT ALLOW THE PROVIDER OF GOODS TO PERPETUATE THE PROCESS, COERCE YOU INTO THE ACT OF PURCHASE.
You know, maybe it isn’t all so bad.
