#12: Tropical Goth Late Capitalism
Am I the only person who wished he'd gone to Fyre Festival after finding out how badly it collapsed? In the minefield of truly awful news that 2017 has comprised so far, here's an isolated instance of feel-good slapstick, possibly the only recent misfortune that could be said to have befallen the "right" people. And yet, as far as Fyre Festival seems to be from reality, it somehow embodies the present zeitgeist like nothing in politics ever quite could.
To quote Stefon, the Fyre Festival meltdown has everything: hipsters, bros, the Bahamas, FEMA trailers, Ja Rule, feral animals, and financial irresponsibility. The perfect assessment came from Ayesha Siddiqi: "This is the culmination of several aesthetic trends I've been eagerly monitoring. If I paid for a music fest and got tropical goth late capitalism instead, I'd say thank you." And she's right, as she nailed the phenomenon similarly in her review of the movie We Are Your Friends.
We live in a reality that is weirder than we realize, and spectacular moments like Fyre Fest help us understand that. Music festivals are the quintessential contemporary activity, the products of social media saturation, hypermobility, and a generational shift in consumption that emphasizes experiences over stuff. Baudrillard would be amazed. The ground for weirdness is more fertile than ever.
Reads:
Exploring the City of Tomorrow (from 2008): My friend Brendan used to have an amazing blog called Where. I rediscovered this cool post about what cities would be like in the future...which was 2015 at the time.
Toby Shorin on the Trump aesthetic (and vaporwave)
Chicago will lose its distinctive orange glow when it replaces its sodium streetlights with LEDs
Until next time,
Drew