Haha meme printer go brrrrr feat. Mike Watson of The Acid Left
For this week's interview I spoke with Mike Watson (@_leftaesthetics), co-host of The Acid Left and author of “Towards a Conceptual Militancy” and “Can the Left Learn to Meme: Lessons for the cultural left, from cat memes to gaming, to Stranger Things, and more.” with an upcoming book “The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What to do About It” coming out this September. During the episode we discuss Mike's research on the history of memes i...
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Hi, everyone. You're listening to The Blockchain Socialists. And for today's interview, I have Mike Watson. He's the co host of The Acid Left and author of Towards a Conceptual Militancy and Can the Left Learn to Meme? With an upcoming book, The Meaning of Mark Fisher, coming out this September.
So, hey, Mike. How are you doing? Hey. Hi. Thanks for having me here.
It's this is, I think, going to be a really interesting interview just considering all of the the recent events the past months with GameStop and with the rise of crypto tokens, especially the meme ones like Dogecoin, because we're going to be talking a lot about memes. And as much as its, focus is usually towards sort of a right wing politics, there's also a left wing politics to it. And, I think you've written about some of the intricacies and the importance of memes, in your books. But maybe before we get into that, I would be really interested to know how you first got interested in memes as a topic of research.
Okay. Well well, as I as I say in the in the second book, Can the Left Learn to Meme? I basically there's kind of two two, trajectories. I was, very into the Internet. I mean, it sounds a funny thing to say today. I'm into the Internet, as we're all using it all the time. But I was kind of into it in the nineties, and it just into the potential in this kind of geeky left wing way that some people were in nineties in a very naive way as well that we kinda thought that, you know, because the Internet could be used by all, you know, potentially in many different countries that it would then lead to some kind of mass global, democracy and maybe leftist movement. And, yeah, that didn't really come to fruition at all. But I kinda stayed with the Internet and and got into the era of, theory blogging, when Mark Fisher had his bloggers, k punk, Graham Harmon, Levi Bryant, Nick Stanacek, all these people. And, you know, there were always kind of other people around them with their, perhaps, less read blogs. But, it was a great moment because it was kind of kind of nonhierarchical, a moment when professors were still very distant from their students less so than today. This is going back to the first decade of the of of this century. And yeah. So I was I was kind of really Internet, but at the same time, I I was studying art theory, kind of philosophical aesthetics, and from that ended up writing for several art magazines, writing reviews, and and the kind of then curating. So I ended up in in the art world and very into, like, potential of of an art for everybody, which is very much embedded in in the history of avant garde art, but which has never really come about because avant garde art has always been kind of quite elitist. And then or absent avant garde was an art and temporary art. And then, in any case, I mean, the art world remains a kind of cold and distant place, place that many people don't feel comfortable. So it it kind of occurred to me that whilst studying or rather sorry. Whilst teaching as a professor in two American universities in Italy where I lived for ten years, up until two years ago, I was teaching in the communications department despite being kind of more oriented towards our theory. And I got more and more into communications, teaching kind of generalized visual culture to to BA students, and then kind of realized that, actually, this kind of promise of a culture for everybody does exist, but online, not in the art world. So the kind of haven't got a dream of an art for all did manifest, but not as we wanted it to. So then you get to what what you do with that. We have a kind of something approaching a democracy of of cultural expression, but people end up may making kind of cat memes, selfies, belfies, and and then, you know, right wing far right wing memes, you're right most, you know, in the last few years, leading Trump to Trump's election kind of. It doesn't I don't think it really got him elected anyway. It kind of was part of that. And then we end up with, QAnon now and the January 6, storming of the Capitol Building. So it's all gone kind of terribly wrong. But, I still think it has huge potential. So that second book was really about that potential. And I kinda looked at Adorno, Theodore Adorno of the Frankfurt School, and his idea that abstraction is maybe more valuable than a very direct, politically themed art because art that is very kind of directly political kind of runs up against conflicts all the time. So I don't wanna favor an abstract art. So I kinda say, well, you know, I have many abstract memes, but the the the Internet as a sum of all these memes is kind of abstract and chaotic. And maybe from that, something new can emerge. But I wasn't, like, particularly hopeful that it would, but it's just, a kind of an example of hope existing even in our in our dire times.
No. I I think that's really interesting because, my impression of how I understand at least meme and memes and its connection to the art world is that art history is also a history of memes. I guess the Internet sort of democratized that thing that was sort of contained within, I guess, like the elite art world of of the past has now sort of become opened up, and now it's yeah. It's sort of what it's become today.
Yeah. I mean, that's that's our brand. Yeah. That that there is a kind of memetic element to art, and and there has there have been strong elements, you know, of of openness and of of trying to kind of, spread culture to everybody either, you know, because any object can now be an artwork, or maybe you could say anyone can be an artist. You know, it's increasing the case increasing the case that anybody can anyone can have access to perhaps art school. I mean, within certain parameters. Certainly, many more people than before. But, yeah, then then you have images which which kind of spread, and you get that going right back to to Renaissance, but even cave painting because you end up, you know, with with with the same kind of, motifs turning up in caves, in which we could be on different continents and things. But but, you know, that that's something which is, very interesting but gets onto a very different issue because you you had you have abstract patterns in cave painting that are similar across different continents where people can't have been in contact, and it suggests that there are kind of archetypal images that emerge possibly in the dark because caves are kinda dark. So maybe people were kind of, like, drawing the patterns that were submerged, you know, in a in a kind of semi dream state. But, But, you know, that's to say that kind of kind of memes already existed back then. But, in Renaissance sight, you get the same thing of, like, if if, you portray a saint, they have the objects of their martyrdom. So if you have Catherine, she was strapped to a wheel and stoned or been burnt or something. They're all kinda gruesome, obviously. So you often have, like, a a broken wheel with her, and then there's Peter as the keys to heaven, all this stuff. So that's kind of a meme because, you know, they they portrayed the same way all the time. So yeah. I mean, it's it's always kind of been there.
It's particularly interesting, thinking about how, like, art itself, like, doesn't, like, it allows you to dream on stuff, but it doesn't actually act on anything. So but at the same time, these memes have sort of, like, caused changes in history, I guess you could say, like, with Christianity and, yeah, I mean, countless other sort of strong symbolism, I guess, if you count that as memes.
There are examples for sure of of imagery really having a profound effect on society and all and also the means of of, reproduction of imagery. So you think about the, the Gutenberg press, which led to the the, Protestant Reformation, or the Internet recently. But, also, yeah, the actual images themselves or messages which are contained on, you know, in books, pamphlets, or on the Internet, etcetera. I mean, I think it's it's quite clear that symbolism is is a huge part of getting a political idea across. It's often kinda said that, you know, one is either it's often kind of one is either more political or more cultural. So you have your Karl Marx, which who I did talks about art itself, then you have, Benjamin and Donna, etcetera, who who talk a lot about culture, but don't go into depth into economics. But these things are actually pretty much connected. I don't think one has to be like a cultural person or an economic person. I think they're codependent.
Yeah. Maybe talking about the the political angle, what is sort of the, I guess, to you, the emancipatory potential of memes, but how do also memes get co opted under capitalism today?
I think just like the way that anybody can make can make an image or or text, and put it out there is is emancipatory, and it's something which we take for granted now. And it was very different in the in the nineties, when I was in, I guess well, for the British, I was in college and uni, but, in America, it's like high school and college. But, you know, back then, we had maybe we could make, like, fanzines much the same as people make in the seventies. We get, like, photocopiers and make Xerox publications. They were kind of fun, but nothing like we have now. We have just so much potential to make stuff, and that's one of the things I say that the the the the millennial generation is a Dornian in this one respect because Adorno kinda said, one can't make art after the horrors of Auschwitz or at least he literally said one can't make poetry. But he meant more widely art after Auschwitz because it's just so horrific, but also because it suggests that we've come so far, in materializing and objectifying all of human existence that we can't make something that we could could consider to be art, like pointing to some kind of transcendental better reality because we've just kind of gone past it into some kind of, you know, dismal reality. But Donna says that, but in in one of the famous essays he says it in called On Commitment, he then says that we have to we have to continue making art anyway so that we don't surrender to cynicism. And I think that's interesting today because it's kind of what we're doing. You see people who are deeply kind of pissed off. Many of us didn't even get a moment of, like, thinking they might have revolution, whereas most generations before or previous three or so did. Generation z are the same, or Zoomers, whatever you call them. So, you know, there is this deep negativity, but they're always making. And it's kind of their way of, like, establishing meaning or some kind of sense of frail hope. So I think that has a lot of value. But I think at the same time, it's like, I I can't imagine the individual memes doing much. I don't think many left wing memes are likely to change something in themselves. I think it's more the sum of memes, which kind of destabilize, but this is somehow benefiting the right more than the left. So the sum of memes are kind of destabilizing the historical narratives, which keep, keep society together. But somehow, that's kind of, like, leading to a right wing moment, not a left wing one with Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro, etcetera. So, yeah, I mean, how to deal with that, I don't know because I think we've got a long way to push through. I mean, this Internet is quite recent. And I think that the right wing movements are coming about because people look at the Internet. It empowers them to some degree, and then they think, right. I'm, you know, I can have what I want. I don't need to wait. I'm a professor, a so called expert to get information. So, you know, fuck all these, you know, mostly middle class, gatekeepers. And, you know, is it by extension, they they they also want political power. And then people like Trump or Johnson say, you know, we'll give it to you. But they're really lying, but that's how they're getting in to power. So, you know, this tendency has begun, but I think it has to play through, and people will kind of sense that they've been duped more and more. Maybe we'll be able to, like, talk to people about what what real kind of power or democracy would be.
Do you think the left has improved in its meaning abilities? I feel like I I feel like potentially, maybe it's just me being more on Twitter at least. I feel like I've I've noticed more left wing memes becoming popular or at least going viral for a bit. I mean, there has been, like,
a lot of activity. I'm seeing more Insta because I happen I happen to be there quite a lot because the asset left have a this platform I'm I'm working with with my cohost, Adam Ray Atkins. We have an Instagram, which we're quite active on. And I've been watching a lot of stuff, And there's a massive kind of Mark Fisher moment happening. People are memeing Mark Fisher a lot. And of course, this is positive to some degree. Although, I think you kind of did ask a question about this only, but I didn't I didn't get to it. This kind of signals a coopulation of of, an anti capitalist or left wing message. This is kind of good and bad. You're seeing a lot of left wing messages, left wing philosophers in memes. You get sometimes short text or, you know, words alluding to their theory. But often it's not enough to really convey their theory. Sometimes the messages are more just kind of jokey, particularly around, Max Stirner and and and Mark Fisher. And it's kind of funny because Mark Fisher was like, you know, he was saying in his book, which is something that comes down from the Frankfurt School. He was really saying that capitalism has this capacity to co opt, its opposition. And then you see him being used as a meme. And, of course, memes are always feeding back into the capitalist system because they make data for the big kind of, social media giants and for Google, etcetera. But also kinda kinda co ops his message and generally left wing messages because the Internet runs at such a speed that you can't spend any time really with a meme. So it demands that memes be very kinda catchy, but not say very much. So it kind of it detracts from from from from left wing philosophy, from things one needs to spend time with more than perhaps right wing messages that that that can be conveyed in more kind of simple aggressive ways. So this is kind of unfortunate and actually is is a big theme in in the book I'm I'm, having published by zero books in September, which is called, as you said earlier, the meaning of Mark Fisher, but the subtitle is how the Frankfurt School foresaw capitalist realism and what to do about it, I. E. What to do about capitalist realism, the phenomenon. So, yeah, Fisher comes into that. Well, no. It's actually more than Frankfurt school because, literally, he's become a meme. And Yep. I don't know how much he would even like that. But, you know, we can't remember that. He's discussed a little bit. But without wanting to divulge too much about that book right now, yeah, there's I mean, memes are doing well, but the thing is I think it's certainly more left with memes. So in essence, doing well, we're doing well. But I think we need to start doing this on our own terms because we have the means to spread messages, but we're doing it at the pace of capitalism, right, the pace of data capitalism. And that is really impeding any kind of depth of thought or discussion. So we tend to get in in, competitions or or matches between different sorry. Between different factions of the left. So, yes, we need to do better. So we need to slow down. I think we need to slow down the Internet base. We need to slow down our use of it. I think that's really decidedly unappealing to probably most, Zoomers and millennials. So I have got this idea called slow memes. But I think it needs a new name. Anyway, we need to slow down memes. We need to develop them more kind of, consciously, but also receive them in a in a slower, more reflective way. And I think that would enable for more reading as well. And there is a joke about the left just putting way much way way too much, texting memes. But I think that sometimes it's great, you know, when you see memes getting people reading or initiatives like reading groups on YouTube, etcetera. So slowing down our use of memes might enable for some more reading. So, yeah, I would just say that we need to take control of the Internet more somehow.
I I I definitely agree. Taking control of the Internet is something that we're going to have to do just, I think, considering the digital nature and, like, how the digital is sort of taking over our lives more and more, and how it was just sort of put on a hyperdrive during, this pandemic.
Yeah. For sure. The the Phantom Bigger sped it up. It sped everything up. And we sped that up, and it sped up a kind of it's kind of a wealth gap. It certainly will lead to a wealth gap. I don't know how else I could describe it, but, a kind of Internet gap. Because, basically, if you don't have good good Internet connection now or you're not very literate, you're really in trouble. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a number of things happening. It does seem to expedite capitalism or it's gonna rise of data capitalism and and punish the poor even more in various different ways.
So on your show, The Acid Left, you guys talk a lot about writers like the late Mark Fisher as you've as you've done already. He's the author of the book Capitalist Realism, which I definitely recommend people check out. It's a it's a good book. But what is the connection between Mark's work and memes to you? I mean, he did actually
meme. I don't know if he made memes, but he had he had a Facebook account, but now I somehow it escapes me the name, and I have written about it recently. But it was basically about dysfunctional capitalist culture, and he actually he actually ends up taking it down. And he took it down back then to take down a Facebook, group, I guess it was, you had to delete every single member one by one. So people were watching the members go down, watching themselves be removed. There were several thousand members, and I think there was a conversation going on about what's happening. Then it it turned out that Mark Fisher had been deleting them because he got fed up because it was kind of, not serving its purpose because people were were posting so much trash. So, you know, given that, I think he would he he would find very difficult the current moment, in terms of memes because there are now so many philosophical, meme pages. You know, Freud, Foucault, Zizek, you know, a couple of Fisher pages at least. I mean, and basically you're taking a a a a large kind of recent philosopher and there'll there'll be a Facebook page, but they they they often get bombarded with with nonsense. It depends partly on on how well they're they're, how would you say, moderated. But I I I get the kind of non moderation approach because that goes with, you know, these kind of left wing theories, but it often ends up in in a lot of kind of edge lords and often kind of people kind of pushing right wing messages. You know, I I find this even a bit difficult myself, but I am quite a bit younger, I'm happy to say, than Fisher, but not but not that much younger. But but, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not there's only people way younger than me now, online. I mean, a lot of people on these forums are in their late teens, and that's great. It's brilliant. But you get all kinds of craziness. One cannot control the the conversation. I mean, the thing is, one doesn't really want to control the conversation, but it's going back to blogging, theory blogging. You had this brilliant moment where you couldn't very easily talk to your own professor because they were normally very detached still and and wooden. But you could find other professors online like Graham Harmon on his blog. And he often answered personal emails. So it's this kind of, real, shaking up of academia because it, you know, it wasn't long before professors kind of felt they couldn't really maintain their distance anymore, you know, in that way of, you know, simply answering to to genuine theoretical questions students had about their topic, which they they would have otherwise ignored and run away after class or whatever. They tend to be getting more of a combination of of of student questions and stuff. So, you know, it's great that it happened. What you find now, though, is that, people don't give a damn whether you've you've been a professor, you are a professor, you have a PhD, you've got some books out, etcetera. They will just, like, literally shout you down and call you names on, you know, on platforms and call you boomer and stuff, which is kind of funny. And and you get thinking get to thinking, you know, what what what should one do about this? There are no really there are no easy answers. You know? I I'm I'm totally up for the the chaotic approach. You don't let letting things kind of realign socially, and and maybe discourse to realign so much. I mean, you get people who are worried about people people. But I've already kind of gone into this about not reading. I kind of I think that we should read. But in other hand, you know, there's always the idea that, well, maybe people just won't read. Maybe maybe this image cultural throughout the new forms of dialogue. You know? Why does things have to be done in the old way? So I mean, I might I'm open in that way. But on the other hand, you get this kind of fear. You're open in that way, then you see stuff happening. You're like, oh, shit. This goes too far in this direction. You know? We we we we we have less reading, and Webex replacing it doesn't seem to be producing anything very good. Mhmm. See what I mean? So, I'm I'm really in two minds about this.
For me as well, I mean, it's sort of like on one on one hand, reading has sort of helped me in like having my own understanding about the world and like its relation to politics and economics, and I want to encourage other people to read as much as I did, but on the other side like, I know a lot of people don't want to read as much as maybe I do, but I also would like to convey the same ideas from from what I've read and try to like pass on that knowledge in some form and in some way. And I feel I guess, it's you're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place where, like, okay, should I just sort of crudely summarize, you know, something that sounds catchy and funny to someone so that they understand some bit of it, or am I sort of butchering the whole thing and maybe they can misinterpret this interpretation, into something worse?
Yeah. It's very tricky to know how far to go in terms of telling people what to do. Like, you know, you should read this, and then, you know, what to what degree to explain it and, you know, then explain it, in in in layman's terms, because, you know, then you're you're missing some of the detail. But then, you know, many philosophers just just, you know, waffle far too much this far, you know, their texts are far too dense, and they they don't need to be that dense. It takes a certain type of person to be a philosopher, so you end up with these, you know, very needlessly complex texts in in in some cases. But, you know, you get these kind of things, like, on the Mark Fisher forums, there's this question often asked, like, is this accelerationism? Somebody will post a picture and then no or acceleration would be one year, but also then that hauntology or even capitalism. But, you know, should we say someone post an image, maybe take it from a horror film, and they say, is this hauntology? And sometimes they kinda spot on and sometimes not. Ontology is a term derived by Derrida, which basically means that the, ontology, the the the act of being is haunted by the past and the potential future. So we're never really being in the now. We're we're led by, kind of past and future dreams or or past regrets and future dreams. So, it's just this is this this kind of thing is is is funny, as if that's a way of doing philosophy. Do you just post on the forum? Is this is this ontology? Is this communism? And you're gonna get an answer. It's like, you know, just just complete go and read the book, you know, or Wikipedia entry at least. But then you're getting kind of ironic tapes because you get this happen so much that somebody else starts winding people up. You know, is this anthology an impressive, you can bring the inappropriate picture. So it just becomes a kind of, a mantra, which probably gets people thinking about what montage is. But still, I don't know. I don't know.
That's it reminds me of, like, the whole situation, with Medicare for all and sort of I mean I mean, first of all, I mean, Republicans or conservatives in The US US will say, you know, anything that is remotely resembles human rights is like being communism. But especially with the whole Medicare for all one where I mean you get a lot of very strong reactions sometimes from people that this is, you know, this is socialism. But then sometimes as well you'll have people who are maybe more left leaning also saying that Medicare for all is socialism. And on one side you want to be like, well no it's not, it's actually this whole other thing of, you know workers owning the means of production. But at the same time, Medicare for all would be a drastic improvement to, the health care system in America. So why get bogged down in all the details whenever you can just say, yeah. Okay. Sure. Whatever. Can you support it now?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so it's so difficult now with the term socialism because you have you have Trump saying that Biden is socialist. Yeah. The number of people on the left saying that that Bernie Sanders isn't nearly socialist enough. So, and the and Bernie Sanders isn't, you know, I guess, really a socialist. But, I mean, I guess he that's what he's striving towards, but he's not gonna outright call himself that or aim for that, like, in his manifesto. But, you know, it's a it's a very confused territory at the moment.
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I I haven't been looking very much at specific memes about crypto. I'm more kind of aware of how crypto is developing memetically. And then, of course, that you have this Dogecoin, which grew out of the obviously, the Doge, the dog meme. And that's been interesting how that's kind of grown up in the last few weeks through memes at the same time as this. So was it a GameStop? So, yeah, I mean, I I don't know. I think you you know, like, a lot more in those terms. I mean, it's really I'm it's something I'm actually thinking about a lot recently, in the sense of it is kind of like memetic finance, and it has all the characteristics of, memes, you know, in regard of how memes have modified culture and make culture democratic. So it's essential for for memes now making crypto democratic. And in fact, crypto is kind of like a meme anyway. So, yeah, those those are kind of my initial, fairly scattered thoughts.
Yeah. Speaking about, maybe the GameStop fiasco as well, Guys, what what are your thoughts on this? I mean, now it's been a while since since it happened. It feels like forever even though it wasn't that long ago, but there was a lot of use of memes and to me, it was really uncanny how that moment sort of relied on very similar like memetic strategies around around memes and like how closely it resembled, cryptocurrencies and like how memes were used there. So it was like a co optation of that culture. So to me it wasn't really surprising how there was a lot of excitement in the crypto space and plenty of posts around Wall Street Bets, that were shilling also for crypto and whether, you know, sort of taking that moment, to like create anti, traditional finance type of sentiment, I guess. Sort of promoting bitcoin and also promoting dogecoin in some like nihilistic way, you know. So in similar how, I don't know if you're in the GameStop one, there was the meme where people would just say, they would just post like, I like the stock because they would say that because, you know, they it was like sort of a way to signal, you know, as if the, the SEC was paying attention to their, to their subreddits. So they say they like the stock. It was not for, like, you know, market manipulation. It's sort of similar how they're they did they sort of did the same thing for Dogecoin and then, you know, just they just like they just like the Dogecoin. They just like the meme.
Yeah. I mean, sorry. I I got lost there.
I I used to just curious. Yeah. I started rambling, but, like, your thoughts on the GameStop fiasco and its use of memes, how it's how it developed.
I guess it basically just, you know, did exactly what we thought memes and and and crypto would eventually do if they ever came together. And I guess they've been kind of you know, there's been a strong, mimetic kind of element in in crypto for a long time, but this kind of exploded. I get I guess it just took, GameStop to ignite people's imaginations. I think because there there's this kind of nostalgia for for the high street at the moment, and then, you know, for gaming and the idea of going and buying tangible games. And that, you know, that met with with with memes the possibility of of of rescuing, a company, building some kind of power, and, of course, the possibility of being an investor. And, you know, I think I think it was both simultaneously very encouraging and and quite frightening. I think very encouraging because it kinda suggests we can restructure finance. It can be a thing for the people. We're frightening because, of course, it isn't a a tool thing for the people. It's still, you know, very much an individualist pursuit that threatens being even more kind of unregulated or at least more aggressive and wayward than it already is. You know? So so there is this kind of there there are these two kind of these two kind of aspects that, you know, the the this potential risk and then, you know, the possibility that, hey, we could have socialism or something or something if we if we if we can all, take part in the economy. So, I mean, I think I think it's it it kind of signals that there is a the the the thing that started with Napster basically has to work its way through every part of society. And it really started with the Internet. I mean, I so the Internet starts. Anyone can, like, upload stuff, so then that leads to questions asked about how one consumes music, and it goes through film, literature. I thought literature still has I mean, the big companies, this traditional kind of way of buying books still has some kinda hold, although, you know, through Kindle, etcetera, but still, you know, one publishes books and sells them. But this is being broken down, you know, a lot where you can really get a lot of PDFs quite easily, or publications if you if you wanna find them online for free. And this is now kind of it's kinda shifting into politics. As I said earlier that I think you get this kind of rise of the right wing because, people believe they should be able to make political choices because they've been making so many other kinds of choices online. And then I think now you have this going into the economic realm, and I think it's inevitable. I think it's gonna go right through everything and upturn everything. We just don't know what's gonna come out of it yet. I I think, you know, if we imagine that the culture kind of becoming something that anyone can have a hand in, people can make their own images and publish them. So then somebody gets a poor idea of, hey. What if we start publishing swastika images, or whatever? You know, we we we that has kind of gone very sour. So, you know, if you imagine that happening with the economy, I don't I don't know where it's gonna go. And I think crypto generally has a long way to go. So not just, like, investing in crypto or investing in shares, you know, in ways in which we were used to invest only in crypto or online buying small amounts, and and doing that kind of very quickly, you know, on a whim. I I I I think that that's one thing, but I think just crypto in terms of blockchain technology, so not strictly crypto cryptocurrency, but blockchain technology and potential that has, for freeing people, or making them feel that that they are more free and then there's less of a hierarchical structure. That that is still got a long way to to to play through. And I think the Internet, it kind of, has mostly symbolically led to these structural changes in that that it's given people information, obviously, is a is a big part of the kind of restructuring of society that's going on now. But it's also symbolized, a new power structure, I, one that isn't top down, one that's kind of dispersed. So I think if we kind of think about, the blockchain and what that means, and it's actually I'm not very good at explaining blockchain, but let's just say it means, you don't just have value currency kinda held in very few banks and guaranteed by, should we say nation states. You have currency that can be held and and and and and guaranteed by many, many people on their home computers, for example, in, kind of, you know, mining facilities for for for crypto. But it disperses money. But if you disperse not just money, but, like, basically everything. So, you know, the the the cultural value of artworks, you can probably think of many more examples. But, you know, these are not things which are held by, you know, a a few people that can now be held by everyone. So I think I think what this does, once we will start to understand what it's doing, what this does to, to power symbolically is gonna be is gonna be huge. And I think that we're gonna see this kind of, upending of of the power structure to extend the where where the the lines have now come completely blurred. We can't really say, you know, we're gonna vote left, right, or whatever, and then things are just emerging. We never will expect it politically. It will become very fuzzy is what I mean. We do expect this thing to to to to to continue, and I don't know what it's gonna do to society. I think I think we have to hold on, for our lives, for a ride.
That was definitely one of the messages that I've gotten. I think that a lot of people can agree with wherever you are on the political spectrum is that after the whole GameStop fiasco, things are going to be different. Things have changed, or that they will change. I think it's still a bit unclear what exactly it is, but at the very least it sparked some bit of an idea of, like, how, you know, a frenzy could be, like, targeted onto, like, doing a very specific thing. That thing being, like, buying GameStop or AMC or, like, Dogecoin or whatever or something like that. So I think it was that is very interesting in terms of opening up the imagination just a little bit still within the confines of, like, the markets and and capitalism.
I mean, it's still in the markets now, so it's not even getting anywhere near what what I just described. But that's where it's like where it's at a moment which is kind of worrying because it just makes it very many more individualist investors. It wasn't really a challenge to capitalism by any means. But, yeah, I think I think there is there's reason to be positive. Yeah. Other than that, I mean, even making many more many more rich people, many more millionaires is not a bad thing in itself, you know, whilst we kind of try and try and get actual socialism happening, this maybe it maybe go some ways towards that. I don't know. One one of the things I also noticed during that whole,
the whole frenzy was how memes were sort of enforcing or, like, creating volatility in markets. I don't know if you noticed it, but, especially with Dogecoin, everybody was, like, looking at Elon Musk's Twitter profile just waiting for him to tweet. Like, as soon as he would tweet the meme, the price of Dogecoin would skyrocket. You know, it would go up by 20% every time Elon Musk, you know, he didn't even have to say Dogecoin, he didn't even say Doge. If he said anything remotely related to a dog, then it would somehow signal to everybody, to the to the swarm of people that Dogecoin that the price of Dogecoin was going up, and so you should buy now and ride the wave. Yeah. I mean, that's disturbing for sure. Yeah.
I mean, that guy is deeply disturbing. He says everything he does is just, like, the way he wants to be able to control people's brains potentially, the way he wants to set up a colony in Mars, the way he wants to change the night sky with his satellites, which I guess is already is is already effectively apparently changed the quality of light. I haven't really noticed this myself, but, this has been going on. I mean, these ambitions are just so big and so, like, not useful to most people. I don't know what can be done with him, frankly. Yeah. And I mean, we we said we can't do anything because he's I we should go to politics then we could do something about him.
Yeah. Tax a matter of existence. Yeah. It's it's we live in such a, like, surreal time where the wealthiest person on Earth, but I mean, he he bumps around from, like, one to 10 every once in a while due to the price of Tesla. But how much of a memer he is when he's also like in his 50s, I think. You know, it's it's such a strange thing. You, like, cannot if if you had written a book about a billionaire memer in the nineties, I'm sure you, like, wouldn't have been taken seriously. But it is weird. Yeah. There's
certainly a lot of weird stuff happening that that doesn't seem really doesn't seem really real. Yeah.
That's so I I wanted to now, transition a bit to talking about a couple of the specific memes. So, of course, through podcast, you won't be able to see it, but I can maybe share it on my on my website which memes we're talking about and I'll I'll describe them. But so, yeah, Elon Musk, he's this, like, super, yeah, billionaire memer, but I don't know if you saw this tweet from the at WSB Chairman, Twitter, But this tweet, from him from that account says, life is one big meme and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, is the meme page admin. Like, I this is, like, so like, how much of a frenzy that caused was so crazy. And, like, then the news, like, I think a week later of Tesla purchasing 1 and a half billion dollars in Bitcoin, which is I I don't know if you saw that. That was that was very, like Well, this is it. But then,
Max, is it his wife
or partner? I guess they're married. Yeah. Grimes is is, yeah, I don't know if they're married or not, but they have a kid. Yeah.
She just made $5,000,000, selling NFT, nonfungible token artworks. It was announced today. I think it's, like, therefore, today or yesterday. So yeah. I mean, crazy. Yeah. Because, I mean, that that is something that is I don't know if it's the biggest sing single sale, of an NFT artwork or artworks at once by one artist, but but, you know, she's gonna change the artistic landscape in doing that. So they have they have just enormous power, between them. Yeah.
And it's not like she's not the first musician to, like, involve blockchain in in music. There's, like, plenty of music based applications, using blockchain. But I think what's interesting is, like, her association with Elon Musk, Elon Musk being the meme page admin, and, like, how that probably, I would assume, like, put probably a huge premium on the stuff that she's selling, via via the blockchain.
Yeah. For sure. I mean, and and, like, just just her her proximity to him, generally would do. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's weird because it's also just kinda taken for granted. They're they're not I don't really have to think of him as being as being that powerful as a guy that that that creates a lot of power and and kind of exhibits this in a in a in a clownish way. But I guess this is this is dangerous, I suppose, that they they it does kind of is a bit Trump like in that way, although very different, I suppose, in in in actual in actual way he expresses himself. But, that that you just think he's pissing around all the time with his flame throwers and things, ridiculous cars. And and, obviously, he's doing something. Something must he's doing stuff behind the scenes. You know? If you talk to like,
like a tech bro Elon Musk fan, like they may I think they'll have the idea of the opposite actually that Elon Musk is actually very, he's very laid back, he's very chill, he doesn't care about power, he's just like hanging out, you know, know, he just like, he just likes funny memes, he's just like me, except with like billions of more dollars than me. But so, like, I feel like the the use of the memes for him in his context sort of like hides the actual callousness and like the actual power that he has. He uses like this this humor of like the Dogecoin or like whatever whatever other stupid memes he does as a way to like hide or mask the actual power that he has as a billionaire and as an the owner of, like, very large companies.
Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And, yeah, I don't and I have no idea what what he really owns, to be honest, apart from Tesla.
The SpaceX, the the space one, and the I think those are the two two big ones. He had one of them, some green energy solar power energy that, I think joined with Tesla. But, yeah, he has some pretty big some pretty big companies. Also, notably, I think it's interesting that these companies are ones that are not, like, at least in the case of Tesla, like, it's definitely not valued at any sort of reasonable amount in terms of, like, traditional ways of measuring the price of a stock, like, in terms of price to earnings or or whatever else. It's it's, like, horribly overvalued when compared to, like, traditional car companies like Ford or, or GMC. It's I mean, it's just it's so much higher than those companies, and these other companies have real profits. It's this really weird detachment of reality even within, like, capitalism's own logic.
Yeah. Well, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's always a distortion, but it's it's even more distorted.
But maybe moving on to to the next meme. So I think it's pretty easy to spend a lot of time criticizing and shaming the people who may have partaken in all this madness, and you can go in all sorts of directions. But, you know, I think one of the ways, at least as as Marxists, I think we can take a look at it is through class. So there's this really interesting meme that I found, but, it's this meme of Bernie Sanders with his mittens and his legs crossed, like the really famous one for the inauguration of Joe Biden. And in the background it has this, it has a candle chart, mostly going up looking like it's about to to skyrocket. And it says all I want is to become financially independent within three months by huddling a small amount of crypto and checking its value every four minutes.
So I think that is that for that is the kind of that. That's what, you know, novice investors basically do. And I think it's interesting. I don't know what portion of the market is kind of very small and novice investors at any one time, but I don't think they tend to probably do very well. Anyone who's investing a very small amount of money is probably gonna have to take it out at some point soon because, you know, if you if you're if you can afford it, you're probably investing bigger amounts. Yeah. So I I think people new new to it tend to dive or put a little bit of money in, realize they don't have enough money to, I don't know, go out on Friday night as as we used to do before lockdown. And and then they and then they sell for whatever reason, they sell. So it's it it yeah. I know that's your experience with people.
I mean, I'm I'm not I don't know for sure. I mean, the vast majority of people I know, I think just by nature of not knowing that many extremely wealthy people, is that, of knowing people who have smaller amounts, maybe in cryptocurrency with the hope of, like, you know, one day making striking it rich because they held the the correct one. But I think for this meme
specifically I think the risk there is sorry. Because I just had to say this. I don't know why. Yeah. And it's not very important, but the risk, the risk is that one forgets their passwords of all time. If you if you if you like if you put a small amount of money in several, cryptos, you end up forgetting which cryptos you have and even what platforms you have them on. That's why I've I mean, I found that myself. I've I've refound some of my currency in the last couple of months and and invested in some more. But I I I think, it's probably quite common. There's probably a lot of unclaimed crypto.
Yeah. No. Yeah. That's that that's absolutely true. I just think it's it's it's crazy how this sort of, like, anxiety, I think similar to, some of the things that I've heard Mark Fisher talk about before in terms of, like, the the anxiety you get of always being, like, connected to the digital world, but, like, this also anxiety of, like, constantly checking the price, especially in a world where in which, like, social social democratic gains are sort of being lost, over time. So that's why I think the the Bernie Sanders aspect is also really interesting of like having this met this that this political figure who wants to provide health care in The U. S, he wants to provide higher minimum wage, like all these other things that he'd advocated for before, and how, like, all people want is like to be financially independent. And in a world where that is so difficult to do without social welfare, like, one of the only maybe small bits of hope you have is to spend, you know, your extra cash into into Dogecoin and hope that Elon Musk, tweets about it.
And then you can, I mean, it's the Bernie seated, you know, at the, inauguration with his mittens on, and he he looks kind of hopeful and resigned? That's kind of how the meme looks, how how how he looked at that point. And I suppose there is that thing of, like, that is what it's like for a lot of investors. Like, there's not much hope, especially, you know, in the last year. So, you know, you you you put a little bit into into crypto, and you hope, but you also resigned because you're like, this isn't gonna do anything, probably, for me. Or, you know, you it's but I like that I'm not gonna get rich off this. And yeah. I mean, it's interesting like that. I mean, he's almost like, you know, the consolation prize. We can't have socialism, but we have got crypto to play around with. You know, unless we have, like, a crypto socialism, which I guess is your thing.
Yeah. I like that. Yeah. If we don't have socialism, at least we can, like, trade our, crypto tokens for fun. Well
But but it's it's funny how it's like it is like a commodity fetish in the Marxist century. You know, like commodities that that has a value that goes in excess of its its its material value. You can turn money into something kind of more fun, by investing in your crypto. You can see it go up and down. You can probably get it out, you know, at at the same value you put it in at, if you're if you're kinda careful. So you you you probably won't lose or it's a good chance you won't lose anything. But you put it into crypto and it and it takes on this other kind of quality, which is kind of cold, kind of meme like. You see what I mean? It's, it's a bit like having a new skin for your character in League of Legends or whatever thing people play. You know, they why would you want why would you pay for a new skin of your character? But then it does something, obviously, for people. I don't really play. I used to play a bit of league. I never got a new skin. I couldn't see why, but, you know, I know that people a lot of people tip on this stuff. And it's yeah. So much stuff we get today is, like, digital digitally owned. It's not it's not really real. You you know, a lot of Kindle books we buy digitally, I think, probably when they're starting to read an actual books or or let's say it was similar. You know, in the I think people find books often and don't read them. It's they've always been a fetish object. But, yeah, it's interesting that it is like it's like memes. It's like YouTube. It's like, it's like a Patreon. You know? So you get all these patrons that you don't look at that much, but it's kinda you buy into something about the the person who's made it or more likely their platform. Yeah. So it's like, I support them. It's kinda cruel. I feel kinda good about that. You kinda feel that you have something, but it's not tangible. Mhmm. It's not it's not really there. And I and I get that a bit personally, I get I get that off crypto. Unless they become a patron of mine, then then they do get something out of it. Yeah. And they get something on mine as well. On the asset left, we give a whole lot of stuff. But the thing is I don't know I don't know, I don't know. I better not say it. It's supposed to be selfish to to put it in a better way. I don't know how much I'm looking at the people who I'm giving money to on Patreon. I think I'm getting much more off, like, the kind of the notion of ownership or patronage of these. I feel a little bit like, an architect must feel, because you think, what are these architects is getting? They have so much money that keep buying. Like, they kinda spread better, and they buy many, many different artists at $1,000 each. This is kind of a principal investment if you don't if you're not buying, like, the the blue chip pieces a million. You're gonna you buy many different young artists banking that one of them will end up being really big. So you your money, you know, you will you will end up making loads of money. You don't put a million in one young artist. That would be dangerous. You've got a thousand and a 100 young artists, for example. And then you you think, you know, how much is the collector getting off this? I think they they get something out of the experience. It's kind of a feeling patronage has its own kind of fetish value, should we say, in in the Marxist sense of fetishism. And I think this is the same with patron to an extent, but also has the whole point of it being patreon. It's like being a patron. And I think you get it off, the same thing as saying of crypto. So I think this is just the thoughts coming in my head. Sorry. Sorry if this is kind of flow of consciousness stuff, but, I think there's something to be said for this. There's a new economy happening of commodity fetishes that don't really exist. You know? Yeah. There's certainly even if they're giving something, it's much more about the fact of an ownership of a digital
part of a digital whole. I I I've written a bit about commodity fetishism in the in the cryptocurrency space. I would be curious to to share it with you and and get your thoughts,
with my my very crude Marxist analysis. That would be great. I I I think, yeah, I'd be really interested because it's something I I would like to look into more. I keep thinking I need to, like, revisit Marx then. I mean, his quality fetish is fairly straightforward, but I'm thinking about if there's any other elements that might be useful. But I think this definitely warrants attention because, you know, Marx says that all value is predicated on labor. And I think that's essential to the associate's message. How much that's true or not, I don't know. But I think that it becomes somehow very true once you have an economic depression and you're like, okay, all our all our value is literally disappearing in our banks. Our investments are going down. You know, people will have investments. And and then you're down to how does one still hold on to some kind of some kind of value. And in that desperate position, you realize that the only value you really have is in labor, particularly being that, you know, in certain industries, everybody's probably buying their kind of base materials and buffing the same price. The only way you're gonna, like the only way you're gonna create extra profits by driving down the cost of your labor somehow. So, you know, when you get to things that aren't actually made or only made once, but then distributed, like, a lot, you know, video games, etcetera, avatars and games or new skins, etcetera, Then this brings you to what actually is there really labor value beyond this or sorry. Behind this, is there a correspondent labor value that really means anything? Because eventually, the labor value is far superseded by the value generated by just selling the game if it's a video game, for example. So, I mean, I surely thought of all of this if you're looking into this kind of thing. But I think it's a very, important area to try and fathom out what this really means.
So for one of my last questions, I wanted to go to this one last meme just to and I because I think it's a very close link to to Mark Fisher's work and I think the work that probably, you've written about in your newest book. But I think ironically a lot of the things, a lot of the issues I think that that we're coming across in terms of memes and crypto can be summarized by this pretty infamous, at least on the left, meme. This we should improve society society somewhat meme. So you have the the the feudal peasant who's saying we should improve society somewhat and then the little guy popping out of the well he's saying, yeah you participate society curious, I'm very intelligent. So although it comes from like a very stupid place most of the time from the right, I think that there is a little bit of truth to it and I have a hunch that because we aren't answering that question very clearly on the left, is why partially maybe we're getting what Mark Fisher describes in Capitalist Realism. So you mentioned, that in your new book you talk a little bit about how we can sort of counter Capitalist Realism, but how do you think maybe if you have any tips on like the best way to navigate this space especially for what I would call the crypto left, or people who just want to imagine something different when it comes to what is perceived as being super capitalistic, like blockchain.
But you mean literally, like, how should how should we improve society? I think, like, the meme is is so is good because it's just so true that you get this, like, oh, you're, you know, you're making left wing videos, but you're using YouTube. You get this quite a lot in in in in different, different forms. And I think one thing, is that we have to just be very clear with ourselves about our level of, responsibility or, how would you say, level to which we're we're involved with capitalism. That that that is no good thinking we're not. It's it's no good at pointing the finger at people saying, oh, you know, you're somehow to some degree involved in capitalism, therefore, you can't challenge it. I think the answer is gonna have to come somehow from within. And, actually, that's what Mark said, and that's what, Adorno and and Niall Frankfurt School said in in in in their various different ways. So, actually, for Adorno, the, the artwork can resist capital to some degree because the artwork is, basically an illusion, and so is capital. So the commodity fetish is an object that kind of claims to have things in excess of its core kind of material self, so people buy into it. And then the objects end up kind of ruling over the people. And Mark said that the the artwork, it kinda does this to a much greater degree because it pretends to be completely autonomous altogether from society. So you have an artwork that that claims to be a landscape or abstraction, you know, which is kind of otherworldly. And he would call this Donna called this the absolute commodity. And he said because it kinda claims to be separate from society, it can kinda lead people into suspended kind of dream like state in which they realize their true link with nature, that we're not separate from nature and each other. And this is exemplary of how we can live, in better ways, this kind of link in this with with nature. So, I mean, that's interesting. I I think a similar thing is applicable, to memes in generally that we have to see them as kind of cunning ways of, invading the system from within. So, you know, there's this whole thing of memes actually being held on online. Therefore, they're part of the data economy. This is clearly the case, but, you know, at the same time, you know, we're we're kind of, fulfilling our role in within the data economy, probably not upsetting, capitalists too much then. At the same time, we can we can, hopefully spread, counter capitalist or or or socialist messages. So, you know, I think that could be applied to crypto if I only knew how. But I'm sure there are ways of working within crypto and and and trying to yield something something better. But there's a lot of work to be done. We just have to keep, kind of playing around with these things.
Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Thanks a lot. So maybe to cap it off, love to know where can people keep up with you and your work and and your new book?
Okay. Well, I have this platform, said the acid left on Instagram. It is at the acid left. YouTube, you can find us doing a simple search. And my website is mikewatson.fifor Finland because I'm actually in Finland. And that's probably enough. You can you can keep in touch, find me in in those ways. And yeah. Great. So yeah. Thanks for having me. It's been a brilliant conversation. Yeah. It's been really great.
Yeah. Hopefully, we can improve our meaning and, create socialism through that.
Yeah. And improve our our blockchain investment.
And and get rich in the process. Alright. Thanks a lot. Cheers.