Brief realisations of the euphoric haze of Capital.
I left this as a comment on this youtube video: https://youtube.com/shorts/QpPaqRk-uQY?si=KyKsEub-MuD8Igm8
I remember looking over hills in my childhood. When you're in a place like that, you have to make decisions on how you interact with the world. The hills never move, you have to choose how to act on them. You form your subjectivity, your agency in the world.
On social media, even though you may imagine that you're the one choosing what to watch, this is in reality not the case. On something like YouTube shorts, which is where we are now, the algorithm serves up what videos you watch. I often imagine myself as having choice and influence over the algorithm. This could be what I give a like to, what I comment on, and how much I watch of a certain video. In reality, all I am doing is providing the algorithm more information for it to act on to create the most addicting feed possible. Over time, it does become more addictive. It does cater to my every whim.
A couple of days ago in the real world, I met professor Benjamin Noys (he was holding a talk in the city I live in). He started talking about Mark Fisher and said that he knew Mark while he was alive. Ben had a very profound description of Mark's view on Capitalist Realism, even if that description was made to critique Mark. What I remember Ben saying was eoughly this: Capitalism (and thus modern social media) can be describe as a systematisk where everyone is in a state of hazy euphoria, only with small pockets of horrified realisations as visions of the real world break through the cynism. I guess it's something similar to this when I see your videos in my timeline here on YouTube shorts.
I've tried so many times to stop going on social media, to stop watching YouTube shorts, to escape from this euphoric haze. In periods, I do manage that, but in other periods… well , here I am.
On this specific video, as of writing thiss, there's only one other comment. On all of the other videos I've seen from this channel, there's been little engagement from the audience or from the creator. It could well be that this is yet another ai slop channel as many do exist on youtube. Still, I stop every time I see one of these videos.
For a brief moment I escape the 'Capitalist Realism', I escape it and see the actual Real, and everything is possible again. Every dream I have had, every project I would like to try, perhaps even the piano which I have wanted to learn for many years. It's all possible. This state won't last, of course. This is not the first time I've had this realisation, or even written something similar to this (although it is the first time I leave something like this in a comment section). It may not last, but I like the possibility.
Sometime, this realisation will go away. Realisations like this are never intentionally abandoned. Rather, it is important to point out that these realisations are even possible to happen due to the euphoric haze of Capitalist Realism being a process. A process where you copule yourselves to machines coupleling with other machines. It is unloading the process of subjectification upon an external organ, an external organ which then makes decisions for you. Instead of myself, acting upon whatever impulses I had on the hill in my childhood, I have an algorithm that decides what I see, what I hear, and what I learn. Eventually, it will be it acting as my own subject will have long ceased to be producive. And for once, this system has decided that maybe it should dangle in front of me the possibility of realisation, the possibility for a different world. I guess it's ironic what Joyce said in Disco Elysium: "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead."
Yet no matter what, realisation feels nice. Maybe that is the feeling the profit-maximising algorithm decided I needed to feel. Thank you, unknown channel operator.