Exhaust

There is no sanctity of the self anymore. We've created a culture of mass produced, manufactured individuality. Even our counter-culture idols stand up and scream at the top of their lungs, "Be like me! Think like me! Behave like me!"

I don't even feel like ranting about it anymore. I've got no faith that anyone sees the fallacy, or that I'm correct for feeling and seeing the world this way. I'll just make it my Holiday Wish this season that everyone can stop pretending that they're not drones following whatever popular trends arise. It's fine to adhere to popular gestalt; we are, after all, products of the time in which we exist. We consume the pabulum we are fed, and everything we are fed is pabulum. Whether it's Chef Boyardee, DIY Punk, Paste Magazine, the latest Scholastic Books release, or whichever underground indie flick is wowing audiences across the nation, we're not really much more than the exhaust of the consumer culture engine.

I'm just going to quote some of my favorite pabulum, because I'm part of the problem:

We owe so much money, we're not broke we're broken.
We're so poor we can't even pay attention.

So what do you want?
You want to be famous and rich and happy,
But you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world;
Nothing to say and no way to say it.
But you can say it in three languages.

You are more than the sum of what you consume!
Desire is not an occupation.

-KMFDM. Dogma, XTORT. WaxTrax/TVT Records, 1996.

What am I even talking about? I need a milkshake.