Everyday I wake up (always a mistake) and do my best not to give any consideration to the media. Why should I? They are the knaves, of both higher and lower ambitions, who sell us whatever amount of lies match the worth of their salary. How much does a lie cost? I wouldn’t know, dearest reader: I write from a need for physiological catharsis, not to justify what the corpos paid for my soul. I tell the truth–and lie–for free. This ignorance has done me a great deal of good. I have banished social media (with exceptions–it is beyond my ability to escape the hyperreality) and with it all forms of media with the exception of two magazines: The Rolling Stones and The New Statesman. Read into that what you want: you get your news from Twitter, after all. Who really suffers the most from misinformation?

But, whatever my reactionary media practices, I have been unable to escape the various scandals of the last few months: David Pakman and his money-bags, Charlie Kirk getting one in the neck, and now hearing that Bari Weiss and Adam Rubenstein are getting control of CBS. There are probably a variety of other scandals in between these. I care very little about the scandals I decided to list–I care nothing for the other scandals. My disdain for the ‘media’ is complete, unflinching, and beyond reform. I have never much cared for those who write about how they ‘feel’ about events, telling us in chirping key pounding what they believe. ‘They do it for the money’–the excuse of a million now forgotten scribblers of greater talent than the lot we have now. I do not care about them…except…

I have come out of a self-imposed embargo on media slop because while I do not read the slop, I do watch it as it slides through the sewers, carrying with it families of mice on pieces of trash, alligators lost in New York, and the career of Ana Kasparian as she slimes her way to irrelevance. If one watches this sludge closely, one can see where things are headed. The role of a critic–in my case, a social critic–is no longer to respond to the bilge from Substack or ‘Free Press’ or The Bulwark or the Daily Wire. It is to watch where the sewers turn and report back. And I have a report: we now live in a world of posters.

I

World of the what now? Calm down, I will explain the reference: ‘world of posters’ refers to (and is a paronomasia upon…pick up a dictionary) the title of an essay written by Karl Kraus in 1909. ‘A World of Posters’ is a wonderfully written, typically poetic and pessimistic essay by the misanthrope from Vienna about the state of media in the then Austro-Hungarian Empire. I will not save you from reading it for yourself–you *should* read it for yourself–but I will summarize: Kraus traces his life from childhood to adulthood, noting the many ways that posters of the time came to not merely replace, but incorporate the fine arts, political ideas, and life itself into advertising products. That’s right: Baudrillard is a copy cat! The hyperreal and simulacra (both words used by Kraus, by the way) were conceived of long before Baudrillard lit a cigarette and denied the Matrix as his bastard child. Kraus notes this phenomenon in near-nightmarish ways: he talks of how he forsook even the inkling of reading books in exchange for letting posters teach him about the world. As he puts it, ‘Why pay money for cultural ideas when trousers-hanger wrappings cost us nothing?’ Oh, to hell with it, I cannot resist quoting it. Here is another:

‘When they began to banish intellectual life to the world of posters, I hardly ever missed a lesson that was being given. I learned from billboards, and this long before I recognized that the aim of the posters was to sell wares. I saw it as a warning notice against life. I was quick to learn about the status of the intellect. It was like a revelation to when one day in a the shop I saw in the window a picture of two men, one of whom was debating with himself about a cravat while another was triumphant and beaming maliciously: “Why are you getting so upset my dear, buy Schlesinger’s collar support. It will keep your collar and cravat in place.”‘

This moment, as the intellectual slowly bled into being a context for the advertising opportunity, leads Kraus to seeing those two men as ‘two faces looming [everywhere]; here, the vanquished, and there the victor in life.’ He admits to returning to the world of posters again, admitting that, at least, they had the advantage of showing him ‘the horror of life’. All intellectual expression, he concludes, had already been anticipated in this world of posters. Literature as quotation or subtitle, proverbs as slogans, and all that was ‘outside of advertising was a simulacrum, more or less, an advertisement for death’. One feels the trail, now an edge twisting about a large mountain, getting smaller and smaller, each step in this world of posters getting more dangerous, more uncertain, and more given to vertigo.

But Kraus presses on: commercialism creates faces that have the same, daily effect on him that it was said Napoleon’s face had on pregnant women–but where in the latter one suspected adultery, in the former, belong to this world of posters, one is instead merely condemned to seeing this face–and other faces–everywhere. Kraus notes that even ‘[w]hen the train takes us out of the city, we are bound to see green meadows, but this meadow is just a concoction of the lubricant manufacturer in complicity with nature, continuing his advertising even here.

From here, Kraus enumerates the many ways we cannot escape this world of posters. Close our eyes and dreams? No! One dreams of slogans and these faces and those posters. Commercialism, Kraus notes sourly, can construe conscience as a billboard. Turn to culture? No! Kraus notes how Macbeth’s atoning for guilt becomes an opportunity for the ‘Kings of Life’–‘…the Button King, the Soap King, the Textile King, the Picture-Postcard King, the Carpet King, the Cognac King, and finally the King of Rubber.’

Don’t forget the Burger King, I sneered in a moment of bravery as I read this descent into a Hell that I suspected I lived in. My sneer was duly punished: for the next three pages, Kraus documents a mind drowning in advertisements it cannot escape: images give way to slogans that ring and ring and echo and echo as every part–no, every thought Kraus has is usurped and turned into a slogan. A line from Robert Schumann’s Diechterliebe Op. 48 turns out to be nothing but an advertisement for lozenge. Romulus and Remus become an advertisement for umbrellas. People as real as the town bartender to creatures as fictional as gnomes and gremlins can only offer slogans and products. A liberal threatens to kill himself if he cannot get clothes from Gerstl’s. And yet…well, you must read this. It is a nightmare, but it is the only way to wake up. If I spoil it, how will you wake up? At the end, all slogans, images, and faces worn out, Kraus comes face to face with a gun dealer, whose slogan ends the essay:

‘Be your own murderer.’

That is Karl Kraus’ world of posters.

II

It is our world too, y’know. The difference is emphasis and definition: now, the emphasis on world would change to an emphasis on posters–and ‘posters’ are no longer a reference merely to advertisement. They are a reference to people who post. It is a fact of our world that advertising is now a democratic act: I listen to a song, read an article, have an epiphany while on the toilet about how I really like my toothbrush, and I go to social media and post about it. I advertise the song. I advertise the article (and, hopefully, you will do so with this article…pretty please?). I advertise the toothbrush, my porcelain throne excluded…unless… Our propaganda is now democratic too, not that it has ever really been anything else. That supreme mediocrity, Eric Blair (only real fans of his work know who that is), was wrong to see propaganda as the top down, heavy handed griping of empty suits. Propaganda has always been like murder–it is more likely to be committed against you by those you love most. We advertise to ourselves. We propagandize ourselves. We tell ourselves what is wrong with the world through the carelessly cultivated opinions we hold, the blogs, podcasts, and influencers (I reach for a barf bag) we keep on our timelines–along with the churning of that virtual wheel we call ‘the algorithm’ which feeds us (and all the bots sitting with us) our pellets of anguish and outrage. Instead of a gun dealer telling you to be your own murderer, a 15 year old Marxist from Utah or a 26 year old fascist from California will tell you to kill yourself any day. And who can forget that Burger King commercial that played while Damar Hamlin laid on the field, his heart having stopped? Every podcast now seems to begin and end with an advertisement, while TikTok and Instagram influencers will lie to your face to sell you skin cream or dog food.

This has led to the reason for me writing this. Honey, you have to wake up. You are going to miss the–well, not the bus, but you will miss the take over of our media by the blogger punditry. Well, take over is a little melodramatic. I should say, its replacement. You see, people have been rather shocked by all of these developments I mentioned (and, to keep the liberals from returning to brunch, I will add–yes, people were surprised about Jimmy Kimmel), and yet had you asked me, I would have been rather sang-froid about the whole thing. The Fourth Estate? No one lives there anymore, folks. They just claim to. Once (upon a time?), the only thing that was empty about the Fourth Estate were the empty suits and their hairspray that menaced us. They would tell us whatever they saw on their teleprompters, saying every lie right into the camera for a considerable salary. From David Brinkley, Chet Huntley and Walter Cronkite to our current assortment of knaves, they were the faces that haunted us. They were the villains of Network (1976) and the heroes of The Newsroom (2012-2014). They were enforcers of state narratives and ‘champions’ of free speech. Along with other dinosaurs of the ‘legacy media’, they made up the infamous Fourth Estate.

Now these manicured clowns are trading in those empty suits for t-shirts and headsets that should belong to flight simulator enthusiasts. Megyn Kelly, Chris Cuomo, Bill O’Reilly, Rachel Maddow…they are all bloggers and podcasters now. The Fourth Estate? No one lives there anymore, they only claim to. At this very moment, we have all migrated to the Fifth Estate–and boy, is it noisy over here. The pundits are now bloggers, thus a blogger punditry is born. Who does the White House talk to now? Sometimes, if compelled, they might come to CNN. But if you want a real time account of what is going on, you have to watch Benny Johnson or The Daily Wire (if Candace Owens is on) or Charlie Kirk…well, not anymore, but once upon a time… All other news is either bare minimum journalism that will get used as content by these blogger pundits (the left wing progressives have their own versions, like The Majority Report, The Young Turks, and David Pak–wait a second) or it is chatter about the chatter about the original story that no one is entirely able to find, cite, or watch. How can I watch those wide, naive, blood shot eyes of Benny Johnson as he plays his non-speaking part for the White House? Perhaps ketamine is not a drug of choice for billionaires only, but for pod people who have to sit…and sit…and…one sees where Tucker Carlson got his screwed up stare from.

And who is it that propagandizes–I am sorry, ‘likes, subscribes, and shares’–this junk? You! You are the poster, the face, that would have driven the Austrians of the past to pontificate about the Rubber King before buying a Schlesinger’s collar support before deciding to be their own murderer…or only threaten to do so because they want to go to Gerstl’s. Your conscience is what is construed as a billboard, and all your friends have turned into advertisements for what they are binging.

Now, about that porcelain throne…

III

Why am I telling you this? Can’t it be enough that I enjoy seeing you feel despondent? Downtrodden? In despair? Perhaps. This gives a very junky kind of energy to me, you friendly neighborhood misanthrope. But…mostly, this is a matter of self-interest. I am sick and tired of the way we do…I sigh deeply as I look for a word that does not impose a sense of worth to what people do nowadays. It is many things, but it is not reporting, nor is it writing, activism, bringing awareness to, or influencing anyone. I am sick of the way we advertise. ICE agents coming from helicopters is shot like a movie trailer. An essay about the police brutality is given some dumb rhetorical question or ALL CAPS TITLE. A discussion of the issues of the day begins with the grandstanding of some viral (for the moment) street preacher of some ideology they feel the need to explain to us before they even get to the events they are oh so concerned about. What makes this more than a mere irritant (I already have many of those) is that one gets through the cinematic brutality, rhetorical questions, and ideological palaver, and we get…nothing. Outlets like The Majority Report can run interference for the Biden Administration (who can forget their talk of Biden’s night mind wanderings as being a ‘hit job’ that backfired ‘BIG TIME’) only for them to receive redemption at the hand of The New Republic? So concerned is outlet with being hip with the ‘youth’ and the ‘progressives’, they had Michael Teeder write–no, wrong verb, type–an article trying to lump them in with Hasan, who they then lump in with The Young Turks, all as ‘progressive new media’. If they are progressives, then I will begin throwing hogs out the window: they will either fly, or I will be enemy number 1 to every police department in the country for killing their brothers in the name of a silly experiment.

No one, of course, is keeping score. That is why they do it–because they can get away with it. Who knows how many times Ben Shapiro has changed his mind? Candace Owens? Emma Vigeland? If I were David Pakman, I too would skim some money off the top of what I get from the credulous audience who listens to me, while wiggling out of taxes on the money the corpos–of a Democratic persuasion!–decided to give me. I could pay off my medical bills, buy a new car, maybe buy some more physical media… Since no one is keeping score, the blogger pundits can do as they want, they can say what they want, and the audience will keep with them for brand loyalty alone. And they will advertise for them, being poster boys (and girls…but no trans folk, the theys have self respect) for their nonsense, sharing this video, that essay, and those links to those products not because they believe in what was said or even understand it. They will do it because their friends do it. They will do it because they are told it makes them a good person. That it makes a difference. Ah yes, that crisp, hopeful feeling. A difference! Influence! Awareness! Activism! All from your couch. Or is it bed? Maybe that explains the smell…

And all because you saw someone post about it

Welcome to this World of Posters.