An unusually hysterical, but i thought zeitgeist-catching, article from the guardian – Bums and Deceit. You can kind of tell it was written by someone under the influence of lots of painkillers (and daytime tv)
…when you look like Barbra Streisand after three weeks under water and your pain relief is preventing you from tying, or even recognising, your own shoes, then you’re in the perfect condition to stay at someone else’s house and watch cable TV. So now I finally have a proper grasp of what’s important in modern life. And mainly it’s tits…
…I am now completely up to speed on the vital issues of the day. Is your sofa new enough? Are your teeth white enough? Is there enough fat in your arse to inflate your head in case of emergency? And are you spending enough? Because if you’re only spending what you’ve got, that’s not enough – you need to be IN DEBT. Not just a little bit overdrawn, I mean proper, wake up screaming, selling your underwear, Russian roulette in Soho basements to win back your kidneys debt.
This article, Celebrity nobodies, by Piers Morgan has an anecdote which just drips with the existential devestation of our celebrity culture. It is the audition for one of those Pop Idols-type programmes.
a young, totally anonymous woman called Tara looks at the camera and squeals: “Oh my God, everyone’s looking at me – they don’t even know who the camera is here for but they think I am someone. I might be someone … am I someone yet?” Told “not yet”, she replies: “But I will be soon won’t I? I love it!”
3 replies on “Am I Somebody Yet?”
The paradox, Mr. Stafford, is -of course- Are you someone yet by preserving your existence for eternity in this weblog? Your thoughts are of course insightful, and your intellect sublime -but does the world really need to know that you are someone? Mmmmm. Please respond without using the words “discourse” and “narrative”. Did I see a cat among the pigeons or have i just had too many beers this evening? Blog Idol – now there is an idea.
Could we claim that, with blogging, everyone is someone now? Or would that be too forced? As for what the world needs now, I’m sure as hell it doesn’t start with me, but hey – i’ve got to keep myself entertained 🙂
Self-publicisation is, of course, so much easier and painless. Editorial standards are dropping, quality control is minimal. Coherence doubtable. Pedantic and destructive forces like myself can disrupt and undermine prevailing discourses. What would Tom Paine and the pamphleteers have done with weblogs I wonder.
Sometimes I don’t know where this dirty road is taking me. Sometimes I can’t even see the reason why.