Great work from my fav columnist.
The franchise writers strike me much like the artist whose contribution to art is drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. That is to say, principally motivated by envy of those more talented than themselves. They destroy the works of others because they cannot hope to create anything worthwhile themselves.
The case Mary mentions of the mother accidentally uploading the video instructing her child to express emotion for the cameras, is one I have watched. It reminded me of two things:
People high on the narcissistic spectrum, who require a perpetual audience, are essentially like crack addicts living next door to a crack dealer. They succumb to the endless addiction of approval from fans, often living double lives where the outward story to the world is completely different to the inward reality.
Even good “non-narcissistic” humans can become more narcissistic and shallow in the never ending exposure to to endless social voting.
Last edited 2 years ago by hayden eastwood
J Bryant
2 years ago
“Dorland created a Facebook group to collect the applause she expected to receive.”
LOL. Just when I thought I couldn’t become any more cynical.
The real tragedy in all this is that large numbers of people buy the books, and consume the internet content, of nonentities such as Bergdorf. Then again, twenty years ago there was a craze for Beanie Babies and before that entire nations waited breathlessly to learn…Who killed JR?! Plus ça change…
But it seems the level of saturation by social media is creating something new. Where do people find the time? Do they not tend their garden, wash their car, mow their lawn, practice their piano, wash & iron, chop wood, cook and clean …. let alone fit in social activities like a game of tennis, a picnic, lunch with friends …. why are people spending so much time following this garbage?
“Things respectable people do” has changed a lot since the 1950s!
Some tend their gardens, wash their cars and mow their lawns, although mostly they pay others to do the last two. Nobody plays the piano anymore – they are a dime a dozen on Craigslist, you can hardly give them away. It’s virtually illegal to burn wood. Tennis has shrunk to pickleball (they don’t have to run as far and the ball is a lot slower). Picnics? Who does picnics? There’s needles and bum tents and detritus everywhere. Lunch with friends? How? All of them are social media friends that live who knows where?
(I’m exaggerating, of course).
..and long before that, crowds waiting on the docks in NYC for the latest chapter of Dickens to arrive from England!
Paul Sorrenti
2 years ago
When I was a kid I was told that god was aware of my struggles and was listening. My faith left during my teenage years but I could never completely shake off the sense that someone was listening. Without the faith part some may see this as a mental illness of sorts but it’s one I’ve become quite fond of. Most children today are raised instead to think nobody is listening to the the struggles inside their head. It must be quite lonely. Their only option is to throw their thoughts out into a world of others doing exactly the same. Only a supernatural figure could make sense of all that white-noise, whilst simultaneously having the integrity to not respond to it with ‘now let me tell you about MY day’
Indeed. Here’s an antedote: arrange to meet a friend, a colleague, or even a stranger and tell them a little story about something. Anything. Really listen to what they say in response and do the same for them in return. Agree that neither of you will report it on social media.
Here’s another: switch off all electronic devices, leave your phone at home and go out for a walk and focus on what you see, hear, smell etc in the moment, and feel grateful to be alive.
I find both techniques can help. Maybe they are just coping strategies in a world going increasingly mad but perhaps if enough people do things like this we can turn the cultural tide.
David Morley
2 years ago
Meanwhile, column inches continue to be generated by whether or not the next 007 should be a woman
What on Earth do we need a female James Bond for? We’ve had Modesty Blaise since the 60s. Don’t recall any protests or resistance from the patriarchy.
Last edited 2 years ago by David Morley
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
Has this column just proved that the most of the modern world has run out of exciting and new ideas, on several levels?
In most of the Western world people have become ‘immediacy’ junkies. Ideas must be ‘new’ and ‘exciting’, coffees must come in new strange flavours with several types of ‘milk’. TV programs that grind on without a break for 30 minutes or more are boring (thank goodness for adverts(sarcasm)). Fewer people read long books, but more read novellas. Supermarket shelves contain weird food that only needs a few minutes in the microwave.
But still people chase the new and exciting… perhaps it makes humdrum lives more liveable?
Malcolm Knott
2 years ago
Celebrity = £££££.
Celebrity victimhood = ££££££££££££££
Business is business.
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
5% of published authors earn at least £30,000?
Then I re-read, and check The Guardian story you linked to. You didn’t say “published”, mea culpa, and the linked story just says “5% of writers”.
But let’s assume that they mean published authors and aren’t just inflating the numbers with every one of us amateurs out there.
It’s still quite a lot.
Assuming each of the 188,000 books published in the UK had a different author, that’s close to 10,000 earning £30k or more solely from writing.
A look at the report linked shows that it includes educational books in the overall number, which make up 41%. STM (Scientific, technical, medical) books are excluded
So, about 109,000 of those books are for general audience.
How many of these authors really expect to make a full-time living from it?
Of the 5% who earn £30,000 p.a. I’m guessing about a third write school textbooks, another third write self-help manuals and the rest write for Mills & Boon.
Rob Britton
2 years ago
This article says a lot about the poison of current cancel culture. Those who shout the loudest, and say the most outrageous things, get the most fame and attention.
Phil Mac
2 years ago
The World, or at least the West for sure, is bored stiff with comfort and security and like spoilt children a portion of the population crave trivia and shallow emotional reassurance.
I blame religion really, it lied to people for thousands of years that it’s wonderful teachings about living well came from a supernatural being and promised bliss if you obeyed or damnation if you didn’t. I always thought how brilliant it was that the seven deadly sins are all sins against ourselves; Envy, Sloth, Lust, Greed, etc. – they destroy us, not anyone else. Had the effort gone into teaching why these things are truly right then we might be ok, but they took the lazy route and now the belief in the Being is fading the baby is thrown out with the bathwater.
A big war would end it as more pressing needs would predominate, or maybe a pandemic (a proper one, not a pumped-up cold). Or maybe someone can make good on the failures of organised religion so that we can see the teachings of Christ etc. are actually really beneficial but without the cheap trappings. Either that or it’s the garbage the author references, for those without better things to do.
Vanity and stupidly have always been two of the most enduring aspects of people, now that it has been democratised it is here to stay, there will be no going back to the days of vanity and stupidly for the gilded few. Progress means change it does not mean better.
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
I was wondering what your life expectancy would be if your DNA was on a database and you turned out to be a match for someone powerful, wealthy or famous in need of an organ.
The thought of something like that stopped me from doing 23andMe.
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
I was wondering what your life expectancy would be if your DNA was on a database and you turned out to be a match for someone powerful, wealthy or famous in need of an organ.
robert stowells
2 years ago
Brave stuff and well observed.
My view is that if you know that donating a kidney would not give a clear shot at immortality and realised that everything relating to the story would be up for grabs then you would not do it.
However on media, it is my view that the availability of audio, video alongside the traditional reading in book form is a richness rather than a negative.
My advice would be leave that “meat doll” thesis aside and just give us that beautiful prose that you do so well particularly when it can be combined with astute observation as in this article.
Everything is going in the toilet, isn’t it? I’m just left wondering what will actually pull the flush.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a Twitter….
After TS Eliot
Another excellent article from Mary
She’s quickly becoming my favourite essayist.
Great work from my fav columnist.
The franchise writers strike me much like the artist whose contribution to art is drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. That is to say, principally motivated by envy of those more talented than themselves. They destroy the works of others because they cannot hope to create anything worthwhile themselves.
The case Mary mentions of the mother accidentally uploading the video instructing her child to express emotion for the cameras, is one I have watched. It reminded me of two things:
“Dorland created a Facebook group to collect the applause she expected to receive.”
LOL. Just when I thought I couldn’t become any more cynical.
The real tragedy in all this is that large numbers of people buy the books, and consume the internet content, of nonentities such as Bergdorf. Then again, twenty years ago there was a craze for Beanie Babies and before that entire nations waited breathlessly to learn…Who killed JR?!
Plus ça change…
But it seems the level of saturation by social media is creating something new. Where do people find the time? Do they not tend their garden, wash their car, mow their lawn, practice their piano, wash & iron, chop wood, cook and clean …. let alone fit in social activities like a game of tennis, a picnic, lunch with friends …. why are people spending so much time following this garbage?
“Things respectable people do” has changed a lot since the 1950s!
Some tend their gardens, wash their cars and mow their lawns, although mostly they pay others to do the last two. Nobody plays the piano anymore – they are a dime a dozen on Craigslist, you can hardly give them away. It’s virtually illegal to burn wood. Tennis has shrunk to pickleball (they don’t have to run as far and the ball is a lot slower). Picnics? Who does picnics? There’s needles and bum tents and detritus everywhere. Lunch with friends? How? All of them are social media friends that live who knows where?
(I’m exaggerating, of course).
..and long before that, crowds waiting on the docks in NYC for the latest chapter of Dickens to arrive from England!
When I was a kid I was told that god was aware of my struggles and was listening. My faith left during my teenage years but I could never completely shake off the sense that someone was listening. Without the faith part some may see this as a mental illness of sorts but it’s one I’ve become quite fond of. Most children today are raised instead to think nobody is listening to the the struggles inside their head. It must be quite lonely. Their only option is to throw their thoughts out into a world of others doing exactly the same. Only a supernatural figure could make sense of all that white-noise, whilst simultaneously having the integrity to not respond to it with ‘now let me tell you about MY day’
This reminds me of Luther’s remark that there must be a God because we need someone we can trust.
All of this is so depressing.
Indeed. Here’s an antedote: arrange to meet a friend, a colleague, or even a stranger and tell them a little story about something. Anything. Really listen to what they say in response and do the same for them in return. Agree that neither of you will report it on social media.
Here’s another: switch off all electronic devices, leave your phone at home and go out for a walk and focus on what you see, hear, smell etc in the moment, and feel grateful to be alive.
I find both techniques can help. Maybe they are just coping strategies in a world going increasingly mad but perhaps if enough people do things like this we can turn the cultural tide.
What on Earth do we need a female James Bond for? We’ve had Modesty Blaise since the 60s. Don’t recall any protests or resistance from the patriarchy.
Has this column just proved that the most of the modern world has run out of exciting and new ideas, on several levels?
In most of the Western world people have become ‘immediacy’ junkies. Ideas must be ‘new’ and ‘exciting’, coffees must come in new strange flavours with several types of ‘milk’. TV programs that grind on without a break for 30 minutes or more are boring (thank goodness for adverts(sarcasm)). Fewer people read long books, but more read novellas. Supermarket shelves contain weird food that only needs a few minutes in the microwave.
But still people chase the new and exciting… perhaps it makes humdrum lives more liveable?
Celebrity = £££££.
Celebrity victimhood = ££££££££££££££
Business is business.
5% of published authors earn at least £30,000?
Then I re-read, and check The Guardian story you linked to. You didn’t say “published”, mea culpa, and the linked story just says “5% of writers”.
But let’s assume that they mean published authors and aren’t just inflating the numbers with every one of us amateurs out there.
It’s still quite a lot.
Assuming each of the 188,000 books published in the UK had a different author, that’s close to 10,000 earning £30k or more solely from writing.
A look at the report linked shows that it includes educational books in the overall number, which make up 41%. STM (Scientific, technical, medical) books are excluded
So, about 109,000 of those books are for general audience.
How many of these authors really expect to make a full-time living from it?
Of the 5% who earn £30,000 p.a. I’m guessing about a third write school textbooks, another third write self-help manuals and the rest write for Mills & Boon.
This article says a lot about the poison of current cancel culture. Those who shout the loudest, and say the most outrageous things, get the most fame and attention.
The World, or at least the West for sure, is bored stiff with comfort and security and like spoilt children a portion of the population crave trivia and shallow emotional reassurance.
I blame religion really, it lied to people for thousands of years that it’s wonderful teachings about living well came from a supernatural being and promised bliss if you obeyed or damnation if you didn’t. I always thought how brilliant it was that the seven deadly sins are all sins against ourselves; Envy, Sloth, Lust, Greed, etc. – they destroy us, not anyone else. Had the effort gone into teaching why these things are truly right then we might be ok, but they took the lazy route and now the belief in the Being is fading the baby is thrown out with the bathwater.
A big war would end it as more pressing needs would predominate, or maybe a pandemic (a proper one, not a pumped-up cold). Or maybe someone can make good on the failures of organised religion so that we can see the teachings of Christ etc. are actually really beneficial but without the cheap trappings. Either that or it’s the garbage the author references, for those without better things to do.
Not all religions promise salvation by works.
Vanity and stupidly have always been two of the most enduring aspects of people, now that it has been democratised it is here to stay, there will be no going back to the days of vanity and stupidly for the gilded few. Progress means change it does not mean better.
I was wondering what your life expectancy would be if your DNA was on a database and you turned out to be a match for someone powerful, wealthy or famous in need of an organ.
The thought of something like that stopped me from doing 23andMe.
The thought of something like that stopped me from doing 23andMe.
I was wondering what your life expectancy would be if your DNA was on a database and you turned out to be a match for someone powerful, wealthy or famous in need of an organ.
Brave stuff and well observed.
My view is that if you know that donating a kidney would not give a clear shot at immortality and realised that everything relating to the story would be up for grabs then you would not do it.
However on media, it is my view that the availability of audio, video alongside the traditional reading in book form is a richness rather than a negative.
My advice would be leave that “meat doll” thesis aside and just give us that beautiful prose that you do so well particularly when it can be combined with astute observation as in this article.