Iwicki: Pop culture – why it is worth talking about

To compose this text I was inspired by 1 of our viewers, the fresh cycle “A small Culture” as part of the YouTube channel “Polish Thoughts”. It was a critical statement, but it was written constructively, and so I think it is worth it.

The viewer accused us – Mateusz Piskorski and me, that the second episode in a row is devoted to mass pop culture, that is, music, books, films, amusement series and dedicated alternatively to the mass audience (here I would discuss, but not this time the thing). He besides noted that "Think Poland" is simply a weekly weekly magazine for people who are well-read, demanding, and fond of forms more hard than Netflix films and series. In a word – intellectuals. Therefore, we should propose in our cycles and discuss works of advanced culture, or ambitious books, films, etc.

On the 1 hand, of course, we must admit that we are right and there will surely be proposals for ambitious works, intellectually involved, or those from the ellipse of alleged advanced culture. Privately, for example, I am a large lover of classical music, ambitious cinema, and I besides read books that are not beletry (actually only such, due to the fact that I have small time to read), so I reassure Specz that we will not deficiency topics.

However, let me disagree with Widz's opinion and put the thesis that in MP we should not only closely follow the mass culture, but besides talk about it, which we are doing with Col. Piskorski. Why?

As we said in the first episode – culture is always a carrier not only of emotional "load" (esthetic, artistic values), but besides of intellectual layers – ideas, values or anti-values. This should all lie within the interest of MP Readers. The intellectual layer of culture is frequently ideological, political, social, etc., so most crucial for the editorial board itself!

Since the dawn of history, worlds of ideas, politics (large and small) and cultures have penetrated, and it has always been alternatively a mass culture. Why? due to the fact that it has the most audiences, and if “the feathers are to overthrow the thrones” they should go to the receivers of the collective alternatively than to niche tastes. The technological breakthrough of the 20th century has given unprecedented opportunities to do so and has been rapidly exploited. Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist of the 3rd Reich even before the war, wrote in his journals about the power of the sprouting cinema. In fact, he had a circumstantial obsession with the usage of movie art for propaganda purposes, besides predicting that these films should be created for the masses. By the way, if he had found out about the net and social media, he would have encouraged Adolf Hitler to make and invest in these areas...

Tasks of mass culture

Of course, as a political and social weekly, we should be curious in the current mass culture, due to the fact that it is completely controlled by global corporations (which someway happened to be mainly the connections between the 2 nations – the Americans and their allies of the "commercial confession", the financier and influential people. This applies especially to this "collective west". Again, I could put the spite of "cultural Marxism", hunted by the psycho-right, but I will spare myself, knowing that our Readers see the direction from which we are most "robbered propaganda". Film, music and media industries are immense propaganda machines and if individual thinks that the content they carry in their products is simply the work of “the inspiration of artists”, I congratulate you on your well-being, but I presume that MP readers hold alternatively a higher level of intellectual vigilance.

Through pop culture, we are given the "governments" (corporations, politicians) content that fulfill 2 main tasks: – they make the essential ideological/thought trends; – they tame us with what is to happen in the future

They usage little and little sophisticated methods, akin to those of the 3rd Reich. It is common to repeat lies many times until “it becomes truth.” How do you think about this, what is actually the alleged cancel culture, namely virtually cutting out certain concepts, phenomena or values from mass culture, if not the reverse of the Goebbels method of "repeating lies"?

Interestingly, they do this not only in fresh productions, due to the fact that it has become apparent to a smart customer. So, for example, we scope for older books, as I wrote in part in the fiction column, but besides here began interventions. any time ago, I read to my son. Children of BullerbynAstrid Lindgren, and it was a beautiful, fresh edition, richly illustrated – a gift. Not everything I remember, due to the fact that I read this book myself inactive in simple school, but I could not defy the impression that not everything is there as I remember and I was not incorrect – any words and contexts were changed, for example, in matters concerning home service.

A small later I listened attentively on the channel “Chrobry Trail” (I urge hot) lecture Jana has arrivedIn which he pointed out to read classical literary works in older editions due to the fact that these fresh ones are truncated and changed. any words are cut out or even all the threads! A rather useful semantic mess is being created.

Of course, it besides happens in a higher culture, more intellectually binding, but otherwise, not so directly. Paradoxically, it is from pop culture that 1 can read more in the ideological and social layer than from niche works. This is especially seen in films, tv shows and games.

Here we go to the second task of mass culture in the intellectual layer. While the above described treatments service to make new, needed "management" of ideological currents, what they want to tell us about our future is even more interesting.

Predictive programming

This is where the author led me. Tomasz Gryguć. He pointed out how many things we can find in pop culture about what awaits us. The breakthrough was the "pandemic" of Covid19, which virtually paralyzed the full world. How come people in their mass didn't rise collective rebellion? How has it been possible to lock ourselves in homes and force all these “health warnings” against terror? How did we yet get over this madness so quickly?

I bet that, to a large extent, thanks to the programming of us by mass culture, which for decades drew images of apocalyptic visions and "founded" specified scenarios. For the sake of clarity – I do not hit the speech of "shut" theories here, realizing that this was mainly achieved thanks to the systemic operation of state apparatus, which was leveraged by the tremendous propaganda support of all media. But someway we didn't have much resistance...

There is in trade and marketing specified a method as predictive analyses. They aid companies look to the future and analyse it, foretell it with appropriate accuracy.

"Predictive analyses are a branch of advanced analyses that prepare forecasts for future events, behaviours and results. It uses statistical techniques, including device learning algorithms and advanced predictive modelling to analyse current and historical data and measure the probability of something occurring, even if something like this is not on business radar." (from Sap.com portal).

Predictional analyses apply and are valuable to almost all manufacture — from financial services to the aerospace industry. Predictive models are utilized to forecast stocks, manage resources, set ticket prices, manage service facilities, make credit hazard models and more. They aid companies reduce risks, optimise operations and increase revenue.

Interestingly, this method has been utilized in trade recently, on a large scale just since the start of the planet lockdown, which completely changed the face of many sectors of the economy. However, we will all agree that the biggest corporations, corporations and global companies have found themselves in this fresh reality very quickly. It's kind of like they've taken up positions in advance. It is not known from now on that "the best psychic is the 1 who knows from above what will happen." After all, it has been clear for a long time that all fresh inventions, working methods, discoveries are first tested by governments and the military, and present we can boldly argue that corporations rule! Why, then, would they not usage predictive methods for decades?

They know common to traders and marketing companies – “the wizards from advertising” – that consumer request is almost always produced present by producers and service providers themselves through marketing activities. The methods are different – from classical advertising through product placement, public or hidden. Where are the best places to place products? In pop culture – books, films, music, clips, series, comic books or games. That's what we know.

It is so natural for me to regulate moods, awaken needs and prepare consumers for certain trends through mass culture. If so, it's besides events. Let us follow the example of Covid19.

Clever hyperbole

Here's a hot request for readers. Look at the cult science-fiction positions specified as the series. Terminator (also with the fresh ones) or the android hunter. How many profectical paintings you'll find there! It is essential to refresh yourselves, dear readers, absolutely sensational images Terry Gilliam (yes, the 1 from Monty Python's comic group) erstwhile I looked again after “accident” Brazil and 12 monkeys, It truly crushed my chair...

Then books and films already telling us about pandemics, actually on a tray giving us the subject of Covid19. EpidemicWolfgang Petersen from 1996 and a real coming out, i.e. Contagion – an epidemic of fear (The first 1 was a very good film, the second 1 was a terrible part of crap that was expected to program us – zero artistic values).

Then the full flood of post-apocalyptic books, comic books, films, series and games (just in the field of pop culture) which always, roughly, have the same modus operandi – to present us any kind of horrible dystopia which is characterized primarily by dehumanization and very circumstantial guidelines that let us to last in this "new order". Does that remind the reader of something?

Streaming platforms are full of series where there has been any kind of demolition of humanity and in order to survive, for example, 1 should not make sounds, look at something, not go out into the rain, avoid contact with infected people, not inhale dust (wear masks) and above all destruct the infected, who are frequently portrayed as zombies. Remember, they're no longer human! Kill – absolutely and without thinking. This is, of course, partially useful information on endurance art, but always given in specified a context – misanthropic and anti-human, post-apocalyptic.

Antihumanity

It is interesting that these visions no longer have a spiritual sphere. It doesn't exist, it's vaporized. Even in the pop culture of the 1980s-90s there was, for example, religiousness. In situations of disaster, destruction, etc., we were shown people praying different religions. Not for a while. About a year before Covid19 I was in the cinema on a good (from the point of view of movie art) film, which unfortunately I will not forget the title (unimportant). He dealt with the imagination of the coming end of the world, to come through a comet, inevitably approaching our planet. Although I did not show sensitivity to these matters at the time, I pointed out that there were no people praying there. Any confession! I am a lover of country and confederate American culture, part of the action operates below the Bible Belt, meaning in a very spiritual south. Throughout the film, there was only one, virtually two-minute scene showing the praying Negroes in front of the Baptist church. Where did all the confederate religion go?

The same applies to contemporary Western music. I follow her closely, and in addition to the niche teams, I do not find the ubiquitous religion. It's akin in literature. Whatever happens, it is not appropriate to scope for any form of spirituality, apart from the popular cults of “probability and holiness” present – the most crucial thing is to survive. A good example is the cycle, perfect otherwise, Metro by Dmitri Głuchowski.

This is nothing but showing us patterns of antihuman behaviour as a means of survival. The specified fact that the model of "culture in the house" is promoted – we do not go to concerts, cinemas, performances, museums, exhibitions or meetings of authors that I love so much. No! “Stay at home and save others’ lives.” You can sit inactive on the couch and watch the show, movie, take an online tour of any city or museum, perceive to a streamed performance – how mediocre it is... I compose this from the position of the viewer and the creator. "Stricted" concerts are a real curse! We pretend to play a concert, and the viewers pretend to be on it...

All of this is based on a clever hyperbole, which is actually predictive programming to tame us with specified a dystopian imagination of the world. All those comic books, movies, games, series, and music are, in my opinion, deliberately overdrawn. Intentionally they show this post-apocalyptic imagination of the world, giving us certain patterns of behavior, methods of survival, but cleverly – utilizing hyperbole. In this course, the consumer focuses on "meat" or zombies, mass destruction, volcano explosion, virus, fatal disease, comet, etc. Meanwhile, the essence, predictive programming, creating moods and waiving our mystery is “earthworms and pig iron”, that is, the full diversification, culture of cutting, lies, creating ideas and, above all, setting us against each another – the another man is the zombie, the infected, evil, hideous.

The last of us...

The last of us – is the title of the latest HBO series hit. The series was based on a console game that became a real hit, as was adaptation. Games are an area I don't actively follow, but due to the fact that I sale them at work, I can see which ones are interested.

I looked at it with the eyes of a merchant and saw again the same vision, only with somewhat different details. The interesting thing is that the creators of another hit of HBO mass culture, or series, are liable for this series (effectively made in terms of movie art). Chernobyl. Even more interesting is the fact that the amazing creation of freaks being the “meat” of these productions is liable for the same man who created (characterization) part of the terrifying monsters of yet another hit, this time Netflix, i.e. Stranger Things. The man's name is Barrie Gower. I am full of admiration for Gower's art work, truly – all of these series are large amusement productions. All you gotta do is read and understand.

This is not a conspiracy theory, but realism – after all, each MP reader realizes that pop culture is the same "gun of mass destruction" as mainstream media. individual might say that I'm making things more complicated and more ideological, but I see it as a simplification of understanding. I take it from the presumption that the bandits in charge of us are telling us things directly.

The editor-in-chief does a akin occupation Jan Engelgard and Col. Przemysław Piasta In the Press Review, they scope out to popular journals to “make the essence out of them” for which managers are undoubtedly responsible.

Therefore, Dear Readers, who do not rather fit that Mateusz Piskorski and I are dealing with pop culture – we are not talking about promoting all mush, but to realize what is happening around us. This is simply a manifestation of deep realism, not emotional admiration for mass culture.

“The last of us” is indeed the eloquent title of this profoundly anti-human and dystopian game and series, which presently beats the records of popularity (if mushrooms were a fresh hagada?).

I am happy that we are among the last to see and effort to realize these things. Of course, I'm not going to usurp the exclusivity to the truth. I encourage discussion and discussion, which in this case was the starting point for the full column.

I will return for a minute to Goebbels, who understood these mechanisms a 100 years ago (my God, so that he could hear about predictive analysis). This quote makes you think, especially from under the pen of specified a superb villain: “Men, in a 100 years, a beautiful, colorful movie about the terrible times we are experiencing will be displayed. Don't you want to play it? Now, stand by so that in a 100 years you will not be whistled erstwhile you appear on the screen.”

I bet those bordering on it surely think the same thing about today's bandits, and 1 of their tools is pop culture, which is why it's worth knowing and discussing it...

Bartosz Iwicki

Photo by Netflix (public domain)

Think Poland, No. 9-10 (26.02-5.03.2023)