Then came the mad men who injected commercials into the matrix of mass consumption. Brash celebrities took their extra money for the important job of convincing the rest of us we wanted to be just like them. Nice mansions. Nice cigarettes. Nice cars.
Glitter and glitz took our eyes off the prize which, if you’ll pardon the melodrama, comprised our very souls. By which I mean our own individual personalities that give character and dimension to our lives.
The Coops, the Kates, the Cary Grants were bigger than life, grander than anyone the movie fan could really be. Hollywood worked hard behind the scenes to serve up impossible dreams.
Now we hear there’s another revolution afoot. The masses stand to gain new clout. Madison Avenue can’t have our hearts and minds anymore. The net has set us free! Free to consume vacuous glitz, from Hollywood smooth to Youtube lewd, we are facebook twittizens curating our hipness in snippets of savoir faire. Consumer fools consumed by tools of coolness. Just try and pry my iPhone from my cold, connected hands and... well... watch me blog!
At the end of the high pitched day, what is the distinction here? Then, we watched a few famous people tell us how to behave. Now, we watch each other amateur our ways across the ethosphere as emptiness nips at our insides and the admen scheme to monetize our gape.
What are we to do about the state of our souls? It’s trafficky out there. If an artist has something to say to this loud, littered planet, good luck with finding an ear without an earbud set to stun.
Have you heard about the hermit artists? Of course not. They are hermits. They don’t publish, record or put on airs. They don’t compete with the happening acts or weigh in with the media.
What might they do? you ask. Why would they tell you that? They’re hermits, reclaiming their individuality. Choosing deep over wide. Supposing that the well is not dry, it is merely clogged with quivering mothlings, badly singed.
Photo of film stars Gary Cooper, Phyllis Brooks and Una Merkel
