Raves, Cyberspace, Sex Tapes and "The Good Old Days": A Retrospective on Y2K & McBling.
At 7:32 pm on the 25th of December 1991, the revolutionary red flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from atop the Council of Ministers building in the Kremlin. At 7:45 it was replaced by the Russian tricolor flag above the illuminated dome, as chimes from the Spassky Tower clock rang to mark the momentous occasion.
Mikhail Gorbachev had just resigned as president of the Soviet Union, handing over power to Boris Yeltsin, signaling the end of the Soviet Union and the cold war. US president George H.W. Bush presented the American public with this late-night Christmas gift in a televised speech congratulating the West in their victory in a 40-year-long conflict against communism, inspiring new hope for a prosperous future for America and the interconnected world; although many working-class Americans were finding themselves retrenched and unemployed in a recession. In 1993, with the release of the web browser Mosaic, an interconnected cyber world was born as the Information Age arrived with easy access to the Internet.
the birth of digital
“This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.”, this is a quote from “The Hacker Manifesto”, written on January 8, 1986, prophesying a subculture based on futurism that was to come. Soundtracked by the electronic sounds of hardcore and jungle, powered by an ‘ecstatic’ curiosity, the illegal rave scene of the early 90s and their flyers, serve as part of the origins of the aesthetic we know as Y2K. These raves were built out of the frustration of a failing economy and right-wing governance that encouraged a return to the traditions of the past, while the youth were calling for a future of freedom.
The anti-establishment aesthetic found its way into the mainstream with British graphic design studio The Designers Republic, as they created a visual language in their use of Japanese pop culture-inspired graphics and brash consumerism with a postmodernist twist. In 1994, Liverpool-based game developer Psygnosis brought on the studio to help with creating art for the packaging, in-game branding, and other promotional materials for their futuristic anti-gravity racing video game, “Wipeout”. The game was set in the year 2052 when traditional Formula 1 has been replaced by a high-tech successor. Lightning speed and weapons-based combat were the sport's standout features, and the action was set against a heavy electronic soundtrack. When speaking of the partnership, studio art director of Psygnosis, Neil Thompson says, “It was very much of its time. It wasn't a cynical marketing ploy. We were young and we were going to clubs like Cream. Dance music was huge and we liked The Designers Republic because they were doing the logos and graphics for the acts we liked and the CDs we bought. That's why it looks like that.” The graphic design studio notably designed record covers for electronica label Warp Records, which was also based in Sheffield, as well as creating covers for many other artists. The game was distinctly marketed towards a fashionable club-going demographic, with the high-speed game sticking out and resonating with the drug-fuelled subculture.
A controversial poster campaign cemented this, featuring future BBC Radio 1 presenter Sara Cox and another gamer before their screen, the action out of the frame, with their noses bleeding; “A Dangerous Game” the tagline cautioned. Many attributed the image to a drug overdose but co-creator of the game Nick Burcombe claims, “It was an attempt to convey the coolness and underground, club vibe of the game. It doesn't do much else, does it? Not even a screenshot! Much of game advertising these days is about in-game visuals rather than conveying the sensation of playing.” When the game was released in September 1995, it was also helped by appearing in the cult classic film “Hackers” that same month. The teen crime thriller, starring a young Angelina Jolie, follows a group of high school hackers and their involvement in a corporate extortion conspiracy. Along with screenwriter Rafael Moreu being highly inspired by hacker and cyberpunk subcultures, the film also featured the sounds of electronica and hardcore, but the standout out on-screen is the Avant Garde outfits seen throughout, as the costume designer Roger K Burton says, “It’s so rare one gets an opportunity to do a movie that wasn’t meant to be about the clothes, but it really is about the clothes.” Mixing utilitarian clothing with vintage pieces, tacky tourist tees, and leopard prints with wild hairstyles, Burton serves a timeless adventurous approach to styling that speaks to the boundless futurism of the time. Even though the school the film was shot at had a real hacker subculture, the Internet was only just becoming popular among the general public, and the “dot-com bubble” was only beginning.
The year before, in 1994, Internet companies and services attracted $100 million but with the increased use of cyberspace (emailing friends, exploration for information, etc.), Internet investments reportedly attracted $1.1 billion in investments of various kinds in 1995. “There's so much investment interest because of the hype surrounding the Internet…By any measure, the amount of money going into these companies is hard to justify”, said Chris Elwell, publisher at Simba Information Services, a market research firm. This caution was ignored by most as many invested in companies based on names that suggested technology or Internet affiliations. This led to companies even changing their names to include “.com,” “.net,” or “Internet” - this simple change contributed to those companies outperforming their competitors by 63%. This encapsulates the techno-optimism that existed within the pop culture at the time and the desire by corporations to be right along at the forefront, and this would come at any cost. The iconic black & white music video for Janet and Michael Jackson’s “Scream” was set in a spaceship with the visual influence of Japanese sci-fi anime we’ve come to associate with the Y2K aesthetic, it’s alleged to be the most expensive music video of all time - it would go on to inspire many other videos to lean into a futuristic landscape, while architects worked on building modern homes to define this era. In the 1995 heist film “Heat”, Lt. Vincent Hanna (played by Al Pacino) has been up all night chasing down professional thief Neil McCauley (played by Robert De Niro) through the streets of Los Angeles, coming home to his wife Justine (Diane Venora) making breakfast for the man she slept with the night before, as he sits and watches TV on the sofa. Justine cooly introduces Ralph to Hanna, the latter responding vacantly to the situation. As their marriage crumbles in front of them, Justine asks, “Don’t you even get angry?”, to which Hanna responds, “I'm angry. I'm very angry, Ralph. You know, you can ball my wife if she wants you to. You can lounge around here on her sofa, in her ex-husband's dead-tech, a postmodernist bullshit house if you want to. But you do not get to watch my fucking television set!”
Hip-Hop’s place in the American Dream
So maybe not everyone was a fan of the architecture, but the gloss and glitter of the era would continue as we’d see the birth of the shiny suit era in music, closely associated with Bad Boy Records and director Hype Williams. The former graffiti artist was inspired by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat to become an artist, tagging their moniker ‘HYPE’ throughout New York City. After studying film at Adelphi University, Williams had his first major video in 1994, Wu-Tang Clan's “Can It Be All So Simple”. This attracted a buzz around the director as they cultivated a signature style of surrealist camera work and strong colours. By 1996, they’d become Hip-Hop and RnB’s go-to music video director, and fully embraced the futuristic aesthetic of the time with their visuals featuring fish-eye lens work, bright colours, and shiny clothing. The association with Bad Boy and the ‘shiny suit era’ comes as Williams is hired to direct the music video for “Mo Money, Mo Problems”, featuring Mase, Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, and Kelly Price. Bad Boy videos were well-known for their grandiose nature and flamboyant style but the inspiration for the shiny clothes came from stylist June Ambrose. In an interview with Fader, they explain, “I’m from the Caribbean, so metallics and carnival were my inspiration. Also, the treatment [of the video] inspired it. I saw how Hype was shooting—it was flames and fire. I didn’t want to just use flat, red leather. I wanted to go with something a little more futuristic and out of this world. I stayed in the same silhouette because I was doing something so jarring. Putting a rapper in a red shiny suit was probably the biggest faux pas at the time. But I was really big on roleplaying and the history of me as a stylist is to always challenge the stereotypes of the genre. That was one way of me incorporating happiness, spirit, fire, and jubilation that was so out of this world. I found this metallic leather fabric and I’m like, “This something Shabba Ranks would wear.” So, I brought it to Hype and he’s like, “This is amazing,” and gave me the okay, but I had to convince Puffy to do it. Mase was game for whatever Puffy said.” The ‘shiny suit era’ was born, meanwhile, in the South, a visual identity of militancy and luxury was being created by New Orleans rap labels Cash Money and No Limit; with the help of Houston-based graphic design studio Pen & Pixel. The studio, founded by brothers Aaron and Shawn Brauch, designed the iconic gaudy album covers that would feature the artist’s name in 3D, the lettering covered in glistening diamonds, mansions in the background, gold luxury cars & tanks, bullet holes and flames - serving the juxtaposition of the American success story, coming from the streets and into the mainstream.
In 1999, Cash Money released B.G’s platinum-selling album “Chopper City in the Ghetto”, the Pen & Pixel designed absurdist cover features the artist on the phone with champagne and a Rolls Royce in the foreground, their success accentuated by their jewelry. On the second single from the album we’d come into the world of Cash Money and how their jewelry served as a symbol of their success. “Bling bling, every time I come around your city, Bling bling, pinky ring worth about fifty, Bling bling, every time I buy a new ride, Bling bling, Lorinsers on Yokohama tires”, in a nasally Southern voice, Lil Wayne delivers the hook for the Cash Money Millionaires featured song and introduces one of the most recognizable phrases in modern culture. This era of Hip-Hop reflected the hyper-capitalist nature of society, with the stock market behaving bullish and serving as a sign that things were supposedly good. At the time, the number of people that had quit their jobs to trade full-time at day-trading firms was estimated to be 5000, but when accounting for those who trade online at home or between meetings at the office, you may have as many as 5 million. Day traders favored the Internet and other high-tech company stocks as they were prized for their big price swings. As the new millennium approached, the techno-optimism hadn’t died down whatsoever but there was a concern as a computer bug had some fearing a computer-induced apocalypse. The Y2K bug, the namesake of the aesthetic, referred to the potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after the year 2000. Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimated that Y2K repair costs for the S&P 500 would total $35 billion, while the cost for the United States as a whole would be in the $80-$90 billion range (In South Africa, it was expected that R25 billion would be spent in preparation). In preparation for the potential class action lawsuits that could occur in damages, which when lumped together could add up to $1 trillion, trade groups came together to work on a bill that limited Y2K litigation. The bill was heavily opposed by consumer advocacy groups but they were no match, as the high-tech industry pushed for the legislation, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Given the assurances that their systems would be prepared and litigation would be minimised, the stock market was healthy as 1999 ended with a strong fourth quarter. 6 weeks before January 1st, Marshall Acuff Jr., equity strategist for Salomon Smith Barney explained, “What we're seeing in the stock market today is part of the melt-up that was supposed to happen after January 1, some of the cash that was expected to be put to work after Y2K is now in play and the mutual fund managers who need to deal with their fourth-quarter performance have jumped on the market's momentum.” This was happening while the dot-com bubble had revealed that it was just that, a bubble; investors poured money into this unsustainable market, knowing the companies were unprofitable but hoped to be able to earn massive returns if a company could get to the point of an IPO. Big spending was an ingrained part of the tech industry, the extravagant dot-com parties were estimated to have cost the companies $1 million a month. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Stock Market continued to rise, eventually peaking at 5,048.62 on the 10th of March 2000, the day the bubble burst. The market would freefall from there until bottoming out at 1,114.11 on the 9th of October 2002, the Nasdaq would lose 80% of its value and the country would go into a recession as the unemployment rate rose from 4.2% in February 2001 to 5.5% in November 2001 (didn't peak until June 2003 at 6.3%). We were now leaving the false glimmer of Y2K behind and entering another “fake it till you make it” era: McBling.
Celebs 4 Hire
On the 5th of February 2003, Colin Powell, the Secretary of State in the Bush Administration, proved this to be true as they lied to the United Nations Security Council by insisting that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, was overseeing a secret program to make weapons of mass destruction. Powell produced satellite photos of what he confidently said were decontamination trucks, aluminum tubes, and other WMD paraphernalia. He even held up a vial that he said could contain anthrax. This was in campaigning for the invasion of Iraq as part of the US’s “War on Terror”, which came as a response to the 9/11 attack but ultimately, the entire situation could be understood as a result of the US’s relationship with the Middle East. On the 23rd of January 1980, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed, “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force”. And Iraq’s oil and gas reserves were of vital interest. In October 2002, trade minister, Baroness Symons, told BP executives that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change and as the Foreign Office's senior economic adviser, Sir Michael Arthur, hosted a presentation there for BP on Iraqi oil prospects on 6 November 2002. On the 20th of March 2003, a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq and on the 1st of May, an end of major combat operations was declared, ending the invasion period and beginning the military occupation period. The invasion and military occupation of Iraq would cost between 184,382 and 207,156 civilian lives, while many corporations benefited from the post-9/11 military spending surge.
In Chris Hedges’ 2003 book, “What Every Person Should Know About War,” they claim between 65 and 85 percent of the American public will support military action when it begins and in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted between 22-23 March, 72% of the Americans interviewed were found to be in favour of the war in Iraq. In terms of those directly taking part in the war effort, an important predictor of military service in the general American population is family income. Those with lower family income are more likely to join the military and the recession would’ve only served as more persuasion for them to do so, a popular claim is that those of low socioeconomic status would also find themselves more likely to be assigned combat roles - a clear reflection of how the United States viewed its working-class citizens as disposable. But this might be argued 🤔 because on 1 April 2005 when Beyonce sang, “I know some soldiers in here,” they were in fact there - 44 000 American military and their families in attendance at "Rockin' the Corps" on the beach of Marine Base Camp Pendleton, California to receive an “An American Thank You”. Hosted by Cedric The Entertainer, this was the largest military show on American soil and it was meant to show Marines they were appreciated, after the sacrifices they’d made for their country. Featuring performances by Destiny's Child, KISS, Godsmack, Ted Nugent, Bon Jovi, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Ja Rule, the event also included appearances from the likes of Sharon Stone, Chris Tucker, Cindy Crawford, Mary J. Blige, and pedophile Karl Malone among others, leveraging what had become a powerful currency: celebrity worship. With the rise of Web 2.0 (or Participatory Web), defined by Grant Blank & Bianca C. Reisdorf as: “Using the Internet to provide platforms through which network effects can emerge,” giving birth to social networks such as MySpace, this would extend the reach of the existing entertainment industry while also expanding the business of gossip.
These social networks were beginning to democratise the discourse as users posted about their personal lives and discussed everything from music to pop culture. As Joshua Gamson, professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco, explains, “We ordinary people are growing accustomed to not just watching but also being constantly watched,” and the success of the likes of white supremacist Tila Tequila on MySpace would justify this. The Vietnamese singer sat as the most popular artist on MySpace, based on views, after releasing pop-punk/rap-influenced “Playgirl Central” which contained the lyrics, “We girls have a right to get nasty, too, ‘Cause I don’t want no love, I just wanna get screwed!”. A common trope of the early 2000s as singers refigured promiscuity as empowerment, which earned her a fan in Playboy’s founder, who were built upon this faux-feminism, & “Number One Predator” Hugh Hefner but they also faced the ire of misogynists with notorious blogs claiming: “Girls bond with Tila because she makes them feel less guilty about being sluts. Guys like her because, well, she's a slut.” This was a central part of the “expansion of the business of gossip”, in this “post-feminist” era, women were being afforded an elevated status within society and the media, only for the toxic tabloid culture of the time to swarm them like vultures in the hopes of breaking a salacious story. The physical embodiment of these vultures was the paparazzi, invading the privacy of celebrities based on the 6 figure bidding wars of the competing tabloid magazines. And with the arrival of TMZ, photographers started the once taboo practice of confronting stars in person, which led to the infamous upskirt shots - the paparazzi would be crouching to aim their cameras up the celebrities skirt, McBling staple Paris Hilton was a frequent victim of this. Hilton constantly found themselves sexualized for their character as the spoilt, ditzy blonde; when their sex tape was released un-consensually (see: revenge porn), the misogyny directed at her was thought to be justified.
The socialite presented a “childlike fantasy” to the public, utilising their femininity for business opportunities, being paid to appear at New York parties at 19, alongside her 16-year-old sister Nicky. The teens found themselves frequently having their night club escapades written about in the conservative daily tabloid, New York Post, and on September 1st, 2000, they posed for David LaChappelle in Vanity Fair for a piece that dubbed Paris a “Hip-Hop debutante.” The piece pokes at rumours of a romance with Leonard DiCaprio, 7 years Paris’ senior, but overall gives a look into how the Hilton’s were cultivating social currency into a career; while attending a Roc-A-Wear party in the Hamptons, Paris is greeted by the head of Roc-A-Fella records Damon Dash claiming “From L.A. to New York, I see you at every party,” before giving the teen a kiss on the cheek. Noah Tepperberg, a young Manhattan party promoter, says “You always want to have them at your party—they’re little divas, they know how to work a room,” as the sisters dance and singalong to Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” dressed in blue and pink satin miniskirts, with gold belts, slung low around their hips. This element of conflict with respectability politics shown by the sisters in a society where women face commercial and structural pressures to market themselves with highly sexualized images and then being insulted for doing so is a struggle that has long been waged on the frontlines by black and brown women; the Hilton sisters were able to somewhat benefit from this, while also obviously being helped by their families fortunes. In 1993 when Janet Jackson released “Janet.,” they created the template for pop stars to be viewed as fully sexualized and fully human at the same time, inspiring the likes of Hispanic singer Selena as she began wearing decorative outfits that showed off their curves and stood firm that their choice of clothes had nothing to do with their personality. These artists faced criticism, along with the misogynoir experienced by rapper Lil’ Kim who received all the insults of “ghetto”, and “ratchet”, and was accused of sexualizing children, all the while providing much of the inspiration of McBling-era fashion.
Black women & Mcbling
Despite how the image of the rapper as a sex goddess was shaped around the male gaze, it offered a new perspective on womanhood, one that was brash and unapologetic of their sexuality: Allowing women to be a part of the fantasy. Black women had found themselves spoken for since 17th century European descriptions of semi-nude African women whose tribal dances were proof of the their uncontrolled sexual lust and were “continually contriving stratagems how to gain a lover,” this was the genesis of the anti-black sexual archetype of black women as the “Jezebel whore.” In the slavery-era, this depiction of having an insatiable appetite for sex protected white men and their raping of black women, Abolitionist James Redpath writes: “I know that mulatto women almost always refuse to cohabit with the blacks;...but are gratified by the criminal advances of Saxons, whose intimacy, they hope, may make them the mothers of children almost white.” John D'Emilio & Estelle B. Freedman contradict this point, in their book Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, claiming “the rape of a female slave was probably the most common form of interracial sex” with a slave woman explaining, “When he make me follow him into de bush, what use me to tell him no? He have strength to make me.” It should also be considered how slaves were a product so black women’s bodies served as the production line of the industry. In “Too Heavy a Load: Black women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994,” modern historian Deborah Gray White writes: “Major periodicals carried articles detailing optimal conditions under which bonded women were known to reproduce, and the merits of a particular "breeder" were often the topic of parlour or dinner table conversations. The fact that something so personal and private became a matter of public discussion prompted one ex-slave to declare that "women wasn't nothing but cattle." Once reproduction became a topic of public conversation, so did the slave woman's sexual activities.” And with this context, we understand people make decisions based on the options they have or perceive to have; so within the confines of a patriarchal society, Lil’ Kim served as a champion of black women reclaiming and taking ownership of their sexuality.
The New York native built a reputation for fearless looks that accompanied their raunchy lyrics, being introduced to the public squatted in heels, legs open in a leopard Patricia Fields bikini and matching sheer, marabou-feather duster coat, while serving a sultry look into cameras; this was the promo poster for her 1996 debut album “Hard Core.” The looks that followed were a team effort of stylist Misa Hylton and hair stylist Eugene Davis, who Kim was always willing to push the boundary with. Her lyrics embodied a vision of extravagance and luxury, while never shying away from their own sexuality - she would be dressed in sexy bright-coloured logo-laden designer brands, matching her bright-coloured wigs. This unapologetic style endeared her to the fashion industry, and in 1999 she became the first woman rapper to attend the Met Gala. The theme was “Rock Style” and, as Donatella Versace’s muse, Kim turned heads in a power pink combination of a fur coat, bra top, and hot pants which both featured a pattern of gold studs. However, when she entered the Met Gala, happily running into Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, the latter was the only one who was able to point out a flaw with the outfit. As Kim tells it, “Bobby goes to Whitney and says, ‘Your girl looks fly but what’s up with her feet? I know she ain’t that little with big ass feet.” Despite the pink snakeskin boots being too big, the look would go on to be known as one of the event’s best, and Kim would continue to deliver iconic outfits and moments. The statement piece would inspire a pink revolution in the 2000s, the colour being a fixture within the McBling aesthetic but being closely associated with an archetype of hyper-feminine, rich, skinny, white girls (see Paris Hilton) - characters such as Elle Woods & Regina George in the films “Legally Blonde” & “Mean Girls” respectively.
Picture From:https://www.gettyimages.ca/photos/cam%27ron
This notion was challenged by Harlem rapper Cam’ron, who became known for their pink ensembles including a hot-pink Range Rover, which could be considered quite a feat when accounting for the hyper-masculine nature of hip-hop. Instead of receive homophobic backlash, which was common, they sparked an influence of pink clothing being marketed towards men in ‘urban market’. Credit is due to the rapper’s stylist Monica Morrow, as they explain, “I came up with it but him putting it on made everyone fall in love with it.” Cam debuted their use of the colour in 2002, posing for the paparazzi, dressed in a fur coat and hat, all pink, while holding a flip phone of the same shade to their ear. The iconic photos were taken at a Baby Phat Fashion Show, the fashion line of model Kimora Lee Simmons. At the time Kimora was married to alleged rapist Russell Simmons, who co-founded hip-hop label Def Jam and created the fashion line Phat Farm. The birth of the Baby Phat line came after Russell sought the advice of his wife on samples for a women's collection, that he was developing to complement his successful Phat Farm men's apparel line, “He showed it to me, and I said, ‘I would never wear this,’” Kimora recalls. From that point they took over the project as designer, and defined the fashion line as being specifically for women of colour. Taking the fashion tastes and sensibilities honed from her time as Karl Lagerfeld’s muse, Simmons was able to create a line that represented the diversity of women. The line launched in 1999, having its first show at New York Fashion Week in 2000, featuring singer Aaliyah in the front row and a blonde-haired Lil’ Kim modelling a rhinestone, sheer bikini emblazoned with the iconic diamanté cat logo under a faux-fur coat. By the time of the ‘Killa-Pink’ moment in 2002, Baby Phat had secured itself within the zeitgeist of McBling, with their bum-hugging low-rise jeans that were built with curvier bodies in mind, short mini skirts, knee-high boots and love for the bedazzled, even releasing a limited Motorola accented with real diamonds. Given the line’s undeniable association with the hip-hop industry, the diamanté cat logo became inescapable, featuring in music videos adorned by video vixens: the original “it girls.”
The video vixens of the early 2000s, many of whom were women with curvier figures, played key roles in the success of the music, but were unable to truly utilise their notoriety in the way ‘nepo babies’ such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian could. Vixens set the blueprint for the Instagram baddie and now find the McBling aesthetic that they helped cultivate, along with its fraternal twin Y2K, has made a return. This could be explained by some as a result of the “20 year rule” - the time it takes for a trend to die, then become fashionable again, broadly speaking, as we see the reboots of shows and sampling of songs from the early 2000s. Scrolling through social media you’ll come across the likes of @aliyahsinterulde, the comedic fashion influencer lives in the mini-skirt cropped-top world of McBling, along with music artists like 454 who’s music embodies a wide range of influences from the late 90’s and early 2000s. Rapping and singing in a high-pitched voice that gives nods to Southern Rap, over DnB influenced drums, the Florida-native paints pictures of overcoming hardship, crafting a soundtrack to this era of nostalgia. Since the pandemic and the lockdown periods, society has been restricted in creating new memories and connections, which created a feverish pull to a time before the right now. In the 17th century, isolated individuals who felt frustrated and alienated were referred to as having the “psychopathological condition” of nostalgia; however, today we have an understanding of nostalgia as a coping mechanism. In their 1992 report “Nostalgia: a Neuropsychiatric Understanding”, Alan R. Hirsch explains, “We deduce that because we remember the feeling of happiness at a young age and our childhood must have been better than right now. Therefore, in the hard times ahead, it will be easier to sell nostalgia
“The Good Old Days”
This illuminates the fact that the ugly parts of the past are difficult for most people to view through a lens of nuance. As oppressive ideas continue to be challenged, in stronger and more diverse voices, those that hold them long for ‘the good old days’ when their privilege wasn’t challenged and a cause for introspection; while for some, ‘the good old days’ is an outright romanticization of fascism. Businesses have found ways to leverage from nostalgia but so have right-wing charlatans like psychologist Jordan Peterson, who admitted they had “found a way to monetize SJWs” by arguing for the existing social hierarchy of Western civilization to be protected at all costs, espousing works of scientific racism such as “The Bell Curve”. In a podcast episode with neuroscientist Roland Griffiths, there is much discussion about the importance of “the natural law of hierarchy” and how in this system, through Peterson’s eyes, the most competent and efficient problem-solvers rise to the top and attain positions of authority within society; pointing to Griffith's work in psychedelics as being crucial to this ideology. Despite the popular belief with psychedelics being their ability to create openness amongst individuals for more inclusive thinking, the substances have a long history with fascism, most famously being MK-Ultra. This was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the CIA, intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. The work of professors Brian Pace and Neşe Devenot, in Right-Wing Psychedelia: Case Studies in Cultural Plasticity and Political Pluripotency, points out that Peterson sees the potential of the substance's ability to give individual’s suffering under hierarchy meaning, being sanctified in the name of this transcendent, organic whole - thus justifying the social inequalities of the status quo.
In 1986, The Hacker Manifesto envisioned the Internet as a place free of oppression but today it is the frontline for fascism; tech-companies have experienced an increase in profits thanks to the spread of misinformation and this has bred the modern “red-pilled” fascist. The phrase was co-opted from the 1999 dystopian sci-fi film, The Matrix, in which the protagonist Neo is offered the choice of a blue or red pill, the latter revealing the sinister reality while the other allows them to remain in a comfortable delusion. The sinister reality offered by these communities is ultimately just right-wing reactionary conspiracies, attached to ideas of the past when their “traditions” were valued. Both of these elements find ties with billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of the surveillance firm Palantir which aggregates personal data about private citizens and makes a high-resolution profile easily available to corporate clients, government agencies like the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), police, and militaries. In 2009, Thiel, a powerful figure in Silicon Valley, wrote that they “no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”, that the woman’s right to vote and welfare benefactors (aka poor people) “have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron,” and offered cyberspace, outer space and seasteading as options to “escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called ‘social democracy.’” In the present day, right-wing ideologies find themselves in the mainstream through funding by Thiel, and a host of billionaires, also investing in psychedelic research. The billionaire is a big part of the politics of this younger and weirder world, with podcasters and art-world figures now joking about their hope to get so-called Thielbucks.
The goal for Thiel, and Co in the billionaire class, is to protect their place in the hierarchy and continue to make money. The bottom line of the recent investments by the right wing in psychedelia is: the bottom line. As psychedelics are absorbed into mainstream medicine, they promise to become another hit for the huge American pharmaceutical industry; which is projected to grow from $560 billion in 2021 to $861.67 billion by 2028. This serves as an example of how the capitalist class monetize the inequalities within society, investing in the potential mental health uses of psychedelics while simultaneously being at the root of causing the issue. In terms of the veterans that fought in unjust wars, in hope of economic gain, and now face the horrors of PTSD; or the regular working-class individual whose ability to afford housing, food, etc. has worsened in the name of profits, their mental health is ignored and the socioeconomic issues caused by poverty, such as crime and drug use, are only answered with policing. The 2020 lockdown measures, that were necessary to protect society, exasperated poverty as many people lost their jobs; with limited options for income, people turned to sex work on OnlyFans. The subscription site saw a rise in creators and subscribers, research showing this can be attributed to the rise in internet usage and viewership in porn based on the stay-at-home orders of the pandemic; this also contributed to the rise in interest for amateur content that was “real” and “raw”, as people found themselves starved of human intimacy. Sex workers provided deeper personal contact, underlining the great care-work and the emotional and psychological support they provide to their customer; Although, this hasn’t stopped a growing community on the internet from placing women and feminism as the root cause for personal and societal crisis’. The manosphere is an anti-feminist movement, diverse in that it has fans from black, asian and islamic men, pulling from the ethnocentric pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology, claiming, “the power of a deeply felt need for intimacy demonstrates only the degree to which women have succeeded in deluding and manipulating men for their own reproductive and economic purposes.”
The community serves as an example of how the neo-liberal economy has affected sexual relationships, as Shawn P. Van Valkenburgh points out, in their research article Digesting the Red Pill: Masculinity and Neoliberalism in the Manosphere, “sexual relationships come to be understood in numerical terms—the goal is frequent sex with women who have a high “SMV” (Sexual Marketplace Value)—it presents zero discussion of how to make sex enjoyable,” simply defining women as ‘sellers’ and men as ‘buyers of sex’ thus “it encourages the pursuit of sexual relationships that resemble commodity relations.” Further explaining, “women become commensurable not only with other women but with nonliving commodities with similar use-values, including any sex commodities of today and tomorrow. And just as neoclassical economists theorize how the value of a commodity evaporates after the introduction of a superior technology, [there are suggestions] that technological improvements in sexual commodities will ultimately make the value of the woman-as-commodity disappear in a ‘cataclysmic sexual devaluation’.” And it should be considered, when accounting that users spent $4.8 billion on OnlyFans in 2021 and the porn industry is worth an estimated $15 billion, this industry is based almost entirely around the Male Gaze - continuing a tradition of being subservient to the fantasies of men. Furthermore, despite these large estimates, sex workers in the UK have found themselves having to accept dangerous clients, and sexual acts they previously would have rejected, due to the cost of living crisis; with research showing the decriminalization of sex work being the best option to ending the injustices faced by sex workers.
This coincides with how the monopoly of the porn industry has impacted performers, in the same as many working sectors, “an ‘Uberisation’ of the workforce, with huge platforms who have no consideration for performers,” says French porn veteran turned director Ovidie, pushing performers into more “rough” and “extreme” scenes because of lower wages. “The Meryl Streep of Porn”, Angela White, disagrees that performers need to do more extreme acts to find longevity within the industry, explaining, “My experience in my career, it’s not that consumers need newness, it’s that they want authentic passion. They want performers who are truly doing what they love.” The Australian porn performer broke through the porn industry via the mainstream studios, 17 years ago, but today is among the the top 0.01 percent on OnlyFans. Among her repeat customers, she cites her “large community of gooners,” who “love to edge themselves — and not just like regular edging where you take yourself to the brink of orgasm and then pull back for maybe for 30 minutes, an hour. Gooners edge for days, weeks, months without completion. And they just obsess over me and I really enjoy making content for them, because they get so excited about it.” The community found rapid growth on Tumblr, before the social media platform banned pornography, leaving Reddit and other platforms to pick up the slack; bringing together “porn addicts”, as a built-in part of the gooning fetish is the idea that one can’t stop, nor should they. There’s a submissive element to the kink where gooners are “ordered” to continue, with some enlisting multi-screen setups displaying a variety of porn, called “goon caves,” in their efforts. Ultimately these individuals, like those that turn to drug use or those obsessing in nostalgia, are caught in a world of escapism; the interests of corporations have continued to divide the world as communities of the haves and have nots, while crushing the spirit of the human being. The reality of how fragmented society is has left many overwhelmed, some frozen in action and others existing as doomers - people who are extremely pessimistic or fatalist about global problems such as overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, and pollution. As Krystine Batcho, professor of psychology at LeMoyne College, explains, “Data suggests that nostalgia facilitates our understanding of meaning in life, and so in a way when we look at all the reboots and people going back to the past, it might be telling us that people aren't 100 percent satisfied with the current lifestyle. There's something that might be missing on a much more pragmatic, lower level.” There has to be efforts made in imaging a future beyond capitalism and the oppressive hierarchical structures that exist today, while reiterating the message of bell hooks that “Feminism Is For Everybody”. Instead of daydreaming about the past, we have to take the necessary steps to ensure the future of our communities and our planet; or else we’ll find ourselves sleepwalking into fascism.
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