Rogelio Naranjo Ureno
I deserve this.
I need this.
The language of consumerism is both dire and entitled.
It is urgent and pointed.
The instincts we develop under capitalism need so badly to be examined. I have written about my distrust of what I call “treat culture,” this gnarled self-awareness, this attack on objectivity; I don’t need it, but I want it, and that’s a new need. Almost like we’re talking ourselves into it, what feels safe & familiar.
We’re looking for the release that comes after a frivolous purchase, and the smaller it is, the easier it is to brush off.
It’s a sort of maintenance.
As I type this, I am sipping on a 7$ cup of take-out coffee that I can barely afford. I am not immune to treat culture, I am not above it, but I am critical of it, and I worry this is a rarity. I worry that the reflection of ourselves right now is too pitiful to look at, that some part of us knows, is aware of how automated we’ve become, little creatures of reflexivity and instinct. But there’s so much we know and never acknowledge: we know housing should be a fundamental human right, we know capitalism doesn’t work, and we know, though we try to power through it, that this is hell.
Our reaction to being in hell, however, has been to cope with small moments of personal indulgence. Why have a revolution when you can have a stupid 10$ juice? Our treats keep us passive, like a baby sucking on its pacifier. We ostensibly have no interest in getting out of hell. We let ourselves be flattened by cheap desire and lowered the bar to the point of no return: goo goo ga ga, at least I have the new Lana!
The audience is always spending.
It won’t surprise anyone to find out I think treat culture is a byproduct of liberalism. The permissive landscape of self-care and self-indulgence is one of consumerism and one that has led us to this point. In #17, I wrote about wealth accumulation and the question of enough. We are so consumed with our individualized concepts of safety (which crescendoed into “safe space” discourse) that we don’t give a fuck about the whole, about the greater good, about everyone else.
Mix fandom and parasocial attachment into this, and you have the perfect storm; a shit show of adult babies who need to be soothed. Not just the usual suspects: Disney adults and Marvel men, but any sort of fandom, no matter how distinct, ironic, or elevated the taste you think you’re signaling is. We’re buying and watching, watching and buying, stuck in a loop of entitlement; capitalism turns us into avoidants and escapists.
So maybe it is too hard to face it. Or perhaps we’ve simply never been encouraged to, instead redirected to ourselves and our worst instincts, the illusion of control wrapped up in spending. Nice agency, dog.
Maybe we know that once we see it, see ourselves for what we are, de-fanged and useless, that we will never unsee it, that we will need to do something about it. And really, who has the time for that, right?
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