It is not very easy to envision a scenario for my pop revolt. I feel compelled to try to envision a future for it because I am afraid of cynicism. The pop I refer to is the popular as it is popularly believed to be known. The consensus of pop. I am aware that this pop is a bespoke creation of my own, and the consensus a fantasy, mainly due to the inclusion of such luminaries as Neil Degrasse Tyson and Brian Cox, who are probably restricted to a less popular pop to that of Ed Sheeran and the Kardashians. Nevertheless, they all inhabit my pop and are recipients of my revolt.
The revolt I speak of is not the choke and puke kind, but the retaliatory breed. I see a meme with something profound and insightful that I totally agree with, from a Professor whom I admire, but I don’t spend any time to revel in its regard. The share is enough to repulse me. I hear a musician and lyricist, whose ability I rate highly, yet the 4/4 timing and the cheesy hook and chant consign any prolonged consideration beyond 3 seconds a rarity. The same goes for the fantasy royalty feuds and sex fests, dragons, living dead brain bashing, ad nauseum newscasting, and Christmas. It’s the pop.
Perhaps it’s part of this transitory metaphysic I’m currently experiencing. A combination of a concerted effort to counter capitalist and fascistic narratives with an affront caused by the reduction of the absurdity to cohesive exploitations. Before anyone gets on my case, I know the scientific is not absurd, though my revolt relates to its communication, which is absurd. I wonder which way the metaphysic will go. Today I am feeling down and self pitying, which fools me into a belief that I will become cynical and unpleasured; however, I am an inherently progressive thinking fella, and so I can only have a faith in my absurdity, and consequently, that I will be okay.
In the meantime, my life is seeming to become ever more barren of the expected external stimulations whose importance has been indoctrinated into me from the day I was born. No adverts, no soaps, no serials, no billboard charts, no Facebook, no Twitter, no news, no papers, no Starbucks, no “this is so important”, no old white men, no social contract, no relationship, no age, no intimacy, no children, no capital. It appears my worth is negated to almost nil when judged by the standards of pop’s society. Every pop renders me a poor option. I know I’m a good man. I know I can respect. I know I can appreciate. I know I can love. Yet, I am worthless. A scrub who doesn’t brush up.
Like the leper who rang their bell to disclose their infection, I am doing so too. I ring my bell in the hope of an empathetic revolt at what I am consigned to. I am even spurning the Anon. I want to be identified. I don’t want to be a pop creation. I want to be my absurdity. I want to be the leper. Who wants to be a leper? Sucking up the bacteria of capitalist expectation and trying to avoid the gangrene of pop’s condemnation? Poor analogy, I know. But like those poor folk, I am being debilitated physically and mentally by the pop.
I don’t know how different I am from you. All I know is that my dissimilarity makes me noticeable by my irrelevance to the conversations. And rather than capitulate, conform, and become complicit, I am revolting and reaping the whirlwind. I know I have my place in this world and hope that my increasing anti-pop will find me companion/s. The irony being that I dream of a popular anti-pop. Get your melon round that one! I suppose it could be an equivalent to the permanent revolution, though I’m not prepared to whack that one out yet. I’m also not prepared to declare myself a contrarian yet…
I think I’ll end this one here. That vision for the future is a real conundrum, which I’m no nearer to. I just hope it’s not the cynic.
