A Brand Alone

The Pepsi Generation is dead. The revolution was televised, and no one cared. We are at the end of the old age.

And now we walk into the new one.

It's been a long time coming, but we have begun to move on from our dead end culture. As we've begun to depart a warped, fuzzed out rerun of a decade where the wheels have fallen off the adjustment has been hard.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the change is a bad thing. Several events have transpired recently to make me reconsider where we are.

Ten years ago if someone told you to turn off your TV you might have called them reactionary and paranoid idiots. That had been the case for decades--until it wasn't anymore. Today you'd be lucky if you can find anyone younger than a Boomer who uses their television for anything other than a streaming, DVD, or video game hub.

And can you blame them? It isn't better in other corners. Cinemas are empty as blockbusters are all but dead, comedies are nothing but the mainstream equivalent of mumbling indie rock from 2004, and dramas rehashes of the same 70s nihilism with glossier photography. The music industry bottomed out long ago, and the last big chain bookstore, and last purveyor of Oldpub lumber, is on its death bed. Even video games glommed onto an unsustainable AAA model a decade ago that is now bearing its fruits. It's not sunny out there.
Not too long ago I declared this the end of pop culture, but now I think it is merely the start of something new.

Before we go any further, I want to stress the importance of Brand Zero. This is an idea thought up by author Rawle Nyanzi as a way to finally cut the cord on the dead past that shackles us to the current malaise we are in. The beast needs to be starved before we can move on. It is time for a rude wake up call.

The brands you grew up with are dead. Not only are they dead, but they are being exploited cynically for the dollars of Gen X parents who might remember a pleasant summer afternoon watching Brand X with some college buddies or single Gen Y hermits who cling to their childhood brands as the one remaining bedrock in the crumbling world around them.

At the same time those in charge are hoping to airbrush and color correct the past for Millennials to get outrage dollars. It's no longer about making or creating culture, or sharing in a bigger piece among a greater whole. It's about lining executive pockets using the lowest level of effort or creativity. They're banking on you being hooked into it due to your religious reverence for products that everyone post-Boomer was taught to have.

They're hurting you.

You aren't six years old

But why do you have this obsession with products? Your parents don't and neither did your grandparents. This phenomenon is exclusive to Gen Y and select members of X and Millennials. Is it a longing for a pre-9/11 world, a nostalgia for forgotten childhood/adolescence, or just a way to avoid the emptiness in the modern world? It might be a combination of all three, but it is mainly a problem of spiritual decay. 

No other generation worships product the way we do, and that is because we have a slightly disordered way of looking at things. Perhaps this is the result of having our formative years just before 9/11 when everything became flipped on its head in one fell swoop.

This is why they're trying to sell you lifestyle brands and calling what were once subcultures "communities" instead. This is a recent phenomenon, and quite disturbing when one thinks about it long enough. It didn't exist before the '10s. These people know you're weak and atomized and they're selling you comfort at the expense of real life.

They know this because they are just as lost as everyone else.

The world went sideways and you were left adrift. Without a faith to cling to, without a community or united family to fall back to, without friends that have long since moved to the big cities, and without any real roots to speak of, what else would one lost at sea have to fall back on? Thanks to the propaganda of the individual above all else, similarities are looked at as weaknesses. We were taught to be atomized. Hence the clinging to all that remains of the way things once were for better times.

And those who destroyed those better times are going to take that from you. Slowly they are taking your past and warping it to fit their ideology while trashing where you came from. This is their last ditch effort to sell you comfort.

But this time we can beat them to the punch.

Brand Zero is not just a way to give the finger to corporations who hate you. It is also a way for you to get your spiritual and religious longing back in order and allow you to gain perspective and move on with yourself. The past is past, and should stay there. If we don't build a future the upcoming generations will have nothing to be nostalgic for. They'll have nothing aside from pale imitations of what we grew up with. That's not a pleasant thought, but it is where we're headed.

This leaves the question of what comes next. Should we finally put the pillow over the specter of this long dead ghoul? If we do then what follows? Is this post just an anarchist screed about burning everything to ash and leaving nothing behind? Hardly.

Author David V. Stewart recently had a very good podcast on his youtube channel discussing different eras of art. His claim is that where we are it is at the end of something he calls the corporate era. What we are currently seeing around us is the dying gasp of the old guard.

It's a long video, but well worth watching. At the very least the first sixty minutes are essential. If you want to know what the twentieth century will probably be looked back on as then I suggest watching. It is a revelation to realize where we are in the larger scope of things. The truth is that we were living in an aberration. This isn't normal.

Watch it here:

Director Joe Dante once said that film was a 20th century art, and this might fall in line with the above. Times are changing. In fact, they've changed and we haven't noticed.

To sum up the video's point: Art is constantly changing, not just how it is made, but how it is performed and how the audience reacts to it. The twentieth century is nothing like what came before so it might seem odd to us why things are the way they are now. The last twenty or so years of art hasn't been anything out of the ordinary, it is merely the death rattle of the current age. What comes next is a mystery.

I would highly recommend watching the piece as it is a good sum up on past styles of art and how we ended up where we are now. There's more there than can be brought up in the context of this post. Nonetheless, art is always changing, and it is merely morphing yet again. A new era is just about to spring from ashes of this old one.

And here we are.

This is why Brand Zero is an important attitude to have going forward. These corporations are done, running on fumes and momentum like so many past institutions, and need to be starved so they can get out of the way. It is time to move on.

That is difficult for those of us who have been taught to mindlessly consume product as a replacement for anything meaningful. For those who woke up to a world unlike anything they were told about it is even tougher, but it's going to happen whether we want to our not. It is better for us to make the change ourselves, because otherwise it's going to be even difficult later. Going cold turkey is easier when it is by choice.

At the same time, the old corporations are lashing out at anything they can. They've lost focus, and they won't regain it. Times are changing.

We need to be ready for it. But are we? I'd say some are more prepared than others, so we need to understand the situation we're in.

I can't tell you what's going to happen next, but I can say that we're not ready for it yet, especially those of my generation who have clung to their products as the last remnant of an old world. Quality aside, these brands are loved because of warm memories of a better world and a longing for those that shared in their love. It is the last remnant of community most of us still have, and without it we're going to have a hard time moving on. This means going against what we were taught and where we retreated to after our view of the world collapsed. Using products as our religion replacement needs to end before we can really grow.

Of course I'm not going to tell you to go out and join a religion. However, religious reverence for anything outside of religion is a disordered way of thinking and will lead to unhealthy thinking, habits, and ways of life. See the above image for what that is like. Putting your thoughts, feelings, and ideas, in order will allow for clearer thinking, and the ability to grow up and rejoin the world that was abandoned for better memories of a better time.

That better era is not coming back, but what about those coming up under you? Don't they deserve better than this? Do you really think things can go on the way they are? If you don't care then maybe question why you are the first generation to not care.

I might be repeating myself, but it must be said. We are responsible for passing on our knowledge to future generations. We can't do that if we reject the world for our corporate-mandated corners and hole up there until we die. You can't change the way things are if you hide from it, and your ancestors didn't die in ditches and in hospital beds so you could live like this.

At this point I'm going to address my Generation, Gen Y, directly. If this doesn't apply to you skip the following paragraph and ignore. This is the group that needs addressing more than any other, and it is the one I am a part of. We need the most help.

Guys, you're not kids anymore. As of this year every one of you are all in your thirties. We are the adults now. Stop letting corporations pat you on the head and feed you table scraps that you even admit are inferior to those from your youth. Demand better. If they refuse to offer then move on. There are many independent of the corporate world producing product of the caliber you crave without having to pander or lecture to you. They are out there, and they will only continue to grow.

Not even just the Pulp Revolution, but in many other areas from indie video games to Retrowave music are all offering superior alternatives. You can get what you want without having to hide from the world and without selling your dignity. All you have to do is say no to that decaying specter pulling you into its grave.

Eventually 1998 is going to end, and we're not going to be able to hide anymore. And then what happens? Something else will be in its place whether you're ready or not.

We're at the conclusion of one era and about to start a brand new journey. Nobody knows what tomorrow holds, but it's coming. We don't have to face it alone.

We just need to be ready for it.

No relation to the above; I just thought I'd lighten the mood.

In other news, Cannon Cruisers just put up our Halloween Special! This year we decided to take a look at the sequels to the original Psycho. Check out the episode here. It was a lot of fun to record, even if we do get loopy by the end! That's what happens when you record for an hour straight after watching three movies.

And if you want some fun fiction to read, I've got you covered. Gemini Warrior is the type of weird adventure you won't find from Oldpub. This is pure pulp goodness with plenty of strange! And there is more to come.

Find it Here!