The Future is Cancelled | Mark Fisher
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- Mark Fisher was an influential author who believed that our future had been cancelled. How and why? Let's take a look at Fisher (AKA K-Punk) and what he meant by "The future is cancelled".
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I went to a music festival in 2011 where all the headline acts were bands from the 90s (e.g. Pulp), and it gave me quite a 'Wait... what about the... the new... the new things since then...?' moment.
Really good video! Thanks for simplifying Fisher!
This discussion of the slow cancellation of the future needs to go much more deeper in other fields of society. It is a way much deeper problem.
First of all, economically, we have to understand that in today's culture industry, the creators are not making a lot money anymore, but distributors are. Any companies that owns media products (Netflix, Disney) makes much more money than the creator itself. These distributors are also giving close-to-free access to any product they have in their catalogue, putting the price down for any project close to nothing in their streaming service.
Second of all, in the art world, money is used as a source of energy. The more money you give the creator, the more risks the person will take and the more creative and surprising the project will be. If the artists are given less and less money, less risks is taken, therefore it willl never try to push any boundaries.
This problem only arrives to any media that can be fully-experienced on a screen and/or with headphones: Music, Cinema and Video Games. Some industries, like the circus/performance type of culture projects, are not affected by this.
The more it will go, the less money creators will have, the more money distributors will keep, and the more frozen the culture will seem to be. Soon enough, video games company will become smaller and reduced to a few people. There will be stagnation soon where the supply will surpass the demande, and companies will need less and less people to do the job.
The problem is our unwillingness to let go of this culture industry. We have looked on cultural objects and eras as a narrative for our history, but this doesn't need to be this way.
I suggest people should read a bit more on what Fredric Jameson has to say about post-modernity, and also the book "The Society of Spectacle" by Guy Debord, explaning a lot of the "Spectacle" and the way we look at cultural objects.
I agree with everything you said apart from this;
"The problem is our unwillingness to let go of this culture industry."
I don't believe it's a power of will of individuals that is the problem. Big data has essentially allowed companies to hack our psychology, to get us literally addicted to our devices. We stare into screens and someone who doesn't love us stares back.
I'm so glad there's been a wave of small youtubers coming out to critique the system and wake us all up. You and Yaz Minsky have given me hope for a new era.
Of course we have different music we have
V A P O R W A V E
Dubstep?
Vapour wave is not even a genre. Nor does it any original aesthetic. It is after all, a haunted, regurgitative output of technology, which is trying to ape the 80s. Mostly for the white male, born in the mid 1970s. As a sound it is boring and predictable, industrial.
@@AudioPervert1 I wish the report feature included "poster is being a bellend"
@@djshire1984 Bellend being the slang for the tip of a penis. However inconsequential the 'bellend' - Vapour Wave like Nu_Wave and RetroWave are but bogus genres like Bass House and Future House. Marketing tricks, like new washing powder to make you happy and shiny. Ciao Adios.
No that is goofy and gimmicky
I remember seeing this when it was new and I never wrote down Fisher’s name and for the last two years I didn’t know what to search for to find it again. Then I happened to hear his name mentioned on a podcast and it finally clicked. Hurray!
2005 would've been Linkin Park for me. But I take your point there is no sound of a specific era because we've become disperate, seperated from one another. And we're recycling the 90s
Someone show him 100 gecs
I was ready to call a cultural disconnect penalty in regards to music, because I'm fully aware of what the 2000s sounds like. Lil Jon. It sounds like Lil Jon.
So, capitalist realism sounds very fatalistic. Very cyberpunk downer ending. The giant machine has already won, and everyone that hasn't completely bought in is just doing the best they can with the scraps. That's either the end of a cyberpunk story, or the beginning, depending on how you see things.
So, okay. This giant overbearing societal malaise that everyone under the age of 40 is fully aware of in the Year of Our Based God 2019. It was the Reagan 80s that brought on the 90s. Now, you could say that this time also brought the world wide web, reality television, and Dragon Ball Z. And you'd be right. You have to believe that we are not done creating. Ideas and inspiration reached the world without the internet. Civil unrest happened without it being streamed, because knew the revolution wouldn't be televised.
But it really comes down to this---too many people are perfectly comfortable. OR, too many of us are struggling so hard with our day-to-day lives, that the bigger picture has become impossible to see. My car broke down and I need to replace the alternator. The policy nuances between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will have to take a seat to that.
Eventually, there HAS to be a breaking point. There has to be an equal/opposite reaction in the same way 9/11 caused the shift that it did...otherwise, we're all ready the future humans from Wall-E.
But the 2000s sounds like Lil Jon, Mags. You're from the south. You should know that.
lil b is the based god not lil jon but its all love my friend
stay based
Hey it’s not my theory! I’m just the messenger! Also I never listened to Lil Jon.
2000s sound like Emo rock and Dance 2010s sound like Trap and dubstep imo
@@MagdalenRose And I certainly didn't mean to make it seem like I put that on you. But we're still creating.
"If you have any life at all it's pretty hard to get through". God, I must have no life at all. I've watched that thing a fair few times now.
I think that Death Grips is one of the few artist that are actually doing something original. They are the crack that shows a future, but it is the farthest from a positive one.
RIP Mark Fisher
I blame The Gap, those swing commercials in the 90s I when retro became commercially viable to large corporations
Good explanation. Down to earth of what is going on with this super fast accelerat(ING) realm of reality and realism..
Such a treasure of content & humor we need in this matrix. Thank you for this!
This is my intro to your channel, just want to say I appreciate your work and what you're saying.
I'm a bit more skeptical that we'll be given a chance to vote on anything terribly meaningful or long-lasting. Everyone should do it, but more than that too, if they can. I would also argue against strict veganism for personal health reasons, but everyone should be eating much less meat.
Anyway, just subbed, looking forward to your next video!
Meanwhile, time to see what vaporwave you've been listening to...
You don't think an American from the '90s would freak out to see Korean pop singers being big stars while singing in Korean on American TV & radio?
That’s too literal. The cancellation Fisher proposed is a slow, gradual, process. And anyway KPOP specially is extremely formulaic and mirrors a ton of tropes from past pop music as well.
@@MagdalenRose ask some of your Russian-speaking friends to translate this video, it is called "why the future was canceled" ruclips.net/video/xoUXGgO0Lj4/видео.html&ab_channel=Нестор
@@superfuntimehappy "all the big recent BTS hits" -- but you're replying to a two-year old post, not a recent one
I like this question. And I'm certainly not put off by Fisher's more nihilistic tone. I still think there's room for optimism. As we enter a "post-work, final stage capitalism" phase, folks were shrug off corporate, Disney-esque homogeneity. In favor of something more, as you say, "real".
I need a 2 hour version of this ep.
The future is only cancelled in so far as what huge, monopolist corporations who control and produce media create. They've found and streamlined formulas that get butts in seats and content that's easy to understand while leaning back and disengaging, and they have no reason to change. I think you said it here in this video what I think the future looks like: supporting independent artists, which as a side effect usually means actively seeking out *challenging* media, media that finds that future. Supporting independent artists is often giving money to those *aren't* making content something that is directly valuable too, as you were saying :)
But also you got me thinking about music. I think it's easy to say that last decade (00's) some of the biggest music was definitely hip-hop, but also showcased the rise of intensely well-produced pop like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, etc take your pick. Even tho those artists are all around this decade (10's), I think this decade's music has been characterized by two very popular 'genres'. Meme music, and nostalgic vaporware/lofi hi-hop. Memes have been a huge part of music this decade, so many songs have spawned memes, so many songs have been turned into memes. Remix fads have come back in force, and you can't forget songs like Despacito and Gangnam style. The sort of nostalgic sadness of stuff like vaporwave and lofi hip-hop is probably because a lot of us wanna curl up into a little ball of comfort, forget the world and remember nice times (even the ones we haven't lived). Can't forget the 'lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to' channel either. The RUclips ecosystem itself has been the cause of the spread of both of these genres. Maybe this decade's music *has* been RUclips music, even.
lo fi and vaporwave music is in itself a regurgitation of older genres, so it would still support Fisher's theory.
Supporting indie artists just isn't enough to engage with the larger problem with all this. however it is great that a tiny bit of people enjoy discovering new music.
Thx to you i discovered Seal wow my hearth melted hearing that song.
2000's sound to me = Pop punk bands. Tsunami Bomb, the Soviettes, Go Betty Go. etc. Bands that weren't super successful, but bands small regional bands from across the country that made music that meant something to me. I think that's telling. When people think of Napster, Kazzah, Limewire, torrenting, etc. They tend to focus on piracy, which is a big deal. But they ignored that it was also a media revolution that allowed people easy access to super niche media that wasn't easily accessible before. Are you a band from Southern California that has 2,000 local fans? A teenager in Japan can now listen to your song on demand. Back in mid 1970's NYC was terrible place. A disillusioned broke crime infested shell of it's former glory. That city produced niche music such as Disco, Punk Rock, Rap Music, Salsa, etc. Flash forward to the 2010's. Things aren't that bad on a global scale, but there is a similar sense of disillusion. That disillusion is now combined with the tools for everyone to create their own CBGB's. Think about it. Think of every friend that you have online or other wise. How many of them are into a synthwave artist with a band camp account that maybe 500 people are aware of, an indie game on steam with 2000 downloads, or an obscure movie from the 1970's that no one remembers, or a RUclips channel with 10,000 subs, etc. Welcome to 2019. We all have our own personal CBGB's. No one only consumes mainstream content anymore. It's the fragmented future.
Mainstream artists I remember from 2005: Black Eyed Peas, Jason Mraz, Green Day, Lil John, Jessica Simpson
Mainstream artists I remember from the early 2010s: Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Lil Wayne, Flo Rida, Kesha
Mainstream artists I remember from the late 2010s: Drake, The Chainsmokers, Halsey, Lorde, Harry Styles
Fisher’s point about pastiche is well-taken, but the idea that pop music hasn’t changed or innovated in any meaningful way is demonstrably false. The lo-fi sadcore and trap of the late 2010s sounds nothing like the bombast of the early 2010s, which sounds nothing like the rock, R&B, and Dirty South hip hop of 2005. A small comfort, but a comfort and a hope nonetheless.
Fisher's point isn't that new music isn't being made, it's that it innovative music can't reach the masses because it's risky for corporate profits. So instead, experimental music remains in the underground, enjoyed by only the few lucky enough to stumble upon it.
Magdalen Rose As someone who’s spent quite a bit of time studying the history of music, I would argue this has always been the case. Mozart wasn’t considered high art or avant-garde in his time, he appealed to familiar mass taste because that was how he made his bread and butter. People long before him had invented the musical idiom that he composed in, he was just the best at it bar none. By the time a new generation of composers had come onto the scene- Schumann, Mussorgsky, Schoenberg, etc.- the path to commercial success in a new musical idiom had already been paved by Beethoven.
This might be missing the forest for the trees here, but I think Fisher was talking about postmodernity’s fetishization of older artistic forms as a function of nostalgia rather than a lack of innovation. It’s like Woody Allen said in Midnight in Paris: nostalgia manifests from an inability to grapple with current realities.
Yes but I think it works better with movies than music.Take a guy(say a cinephile) from 1950 to 1985 and show him the top 10 highest grossing movies in that year and he'll be completed surprised but take a guy from 1985 and show him most popular movies from 2019 and he'll be aware of most of them.
2000s and 2010s music is just recycled 90s ideas with modern production
Yes, and 2020s
Clothing Styles Too
Everyone up Our A$$
No alarms and no surprises, yeah
A big reason is that for a type of music to be a the new trendy sound of the decade people have to care about what is popular and with music they don't any more, or at least they don't as much as they use to. You can listen to what ever you want so why would you just listen to what is on the top 40 stations?
What is even popular now? Since I'm no longer restricted to listening to the radio or having to spend hours digging through garbage at a pretentious record store to find good music, I don't even know what other people like outside the small number of people I talk about music with.
Edit: Also thinking about it chart toping bands sticking around forever isn't even new. Years that The Rolling Stones released at least 1 album that reached the top 5 in the US: 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 89, 94, 97, 02, 05, 16.
Grime, footwork, trap, EDM. These movements have been/still are huge and completely innovative. Play the previous generation Anaconda by Minaj, Harlem Shake, or Pon De Floor and see what they think, they'll shit their pants. I think there's some hypocrisy in the argument that 'X generation was more innovative and less nostalgic', as they themselves are being too nostalgic, forgetting that The Osmonds and Cliff Richard existed, and that the highest the Velvet Underground (by far the most innovative artist of 60's) peaked on the billboard charts was 85, Velvet Underground & Nico peaked at 178...
EDM has been around since the 90s.. there have been little trends within it but nothing brand new. trap is a slight change to hip hop. Grime is a slight change from trip hop. I don’t think someone taken from the 90s would be very shocked. Anaconda is literally Baby Got Back with different lyrics over it. You couldn’t get less original than that track.
@TTFPouyii By innovative I mean they have a sound that sounds modern and fresh, that doesn't mean it's not inspired by, or a continuation of an established genre. I said X generation, not generation X.
Video games changed a lot in the 2000s compared to the 90s.
That's more because of technological changes than anything else
The most obvious exception I think of is Dubstep. I believe if you took some dubstep back 10 or 20 years, people would *definitely* have complained that it's not even music. I've watched most of Mark's lectures online - he is the single worst speaker I've ever had to listen to but it's worth it - and I'm not 100% sure he wasn't just missing some of the wilder and weirder musical innovations that have happened this century. They are a long way from the mainstream but they still exist.
His point is it’s increasingly difficult for innovative things to reach wide audiences because capitalism has such a stranglehold on the market.
@@MagdalenRose Sure, but I think dubstep has acheived some kind of mainstream recognition, at least as much as Jungle and Drum 'n' Bass did in the '90s, and those were his examples in the lecture you referenced. But I'm not disagreeing with the premise of a cancelled future. I'm the same age as Fisher and his work mirrors my own feelings about the modern era, but I can't help but wonder if it's a real problem, or if I'm just whining because I'm old.
Great vídeo!
russian vloger also have this kind of video of Feature is canceled and why , so interested
This was amazing. Subbed and belled.
Resist through your dialogue at work - refuse to call your personnel department "Human Resources." Humans have intrinsic value, we aren't commodities to be managed.
Interesting/ historical note on that: In the GDR (German Democratic Repaublic - the undemocratic state-socialist one) the working people, I think of capitalist states but also at home, were called "work-giver" and the corporations "work-taker". In the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) it is and was the other way around.
If you happen to be tempted to read Mark Fisher's books (they are well written, well argued and memorable) then consider writing "Mark Fisher killed himself in 2017" somewhere (like inside the front cover) and refer back to it often.
His arguments regarding music are a fine example of confirmation bias. If you buy into this perspective you will simply screen out excellent new music because ...why bother because the future has been cancelled.
There's so much fantastic / deep / uplifting music to discover.
You're alive. Mark Fisher is dead.
Fisher did indeed take his own life in 2017. Depression is a common hallmark of many influential philosophers. Sadly, this is also a common end for many brilliant minds.
However, just because a philosophers ideas are a total bummer doesn't mean they have no merit. They may have dwelled and ruminated on these ideas too much, but the slow cancellation of the future isn't an idea that should be discarded because it's a bummer. Before he died, Fisher was working on a new theory that he thought could help combat the problem. Unfortunately, he didn't live to finish it.
Additionally, in my opinion I don't think music being resurrected and retooled from the past means it has less value. Vaporwave is a great example, Future funk is as well. Fishers depression definitely colored his perspective but it doesn't mean he was entirely wrong.
Voting will not solve this.
3:20 when you’ve watched that lecture twice 😅
The modern era of music is marked by a remarkable diversity of styles, genres, and subgenres that reflect the globalization and democratization of music production and consumption. Unlike previous decades, where a particular genre or style of music dominated the mainstream and defined the sound of the era, the modern era is characterized by a fluid and dynamic musical landscape where new sounds and movements emerge frequently. This is partly due to advances in technology, which have enabled musicians to experiment with new sounds and collaborate with artists from different genres and cultures. As a result, the modern era of music is a vibrant and ever-evolving tapestry that defies easy categorization or definition.
lol nothing diverse. A large portion is regurgitated.
More than 2 years later and I still think about the conclusion "eat less meat, tweet radically" and it is honestly the most goofy, delusional thing I have ever heard. It really shows how the LARP-ey political Twitter actually is. I love this video up until the last 30 seconds, but those last 30 seconds are so silly that I can probably never forget them.
And may I ask what the music is at @55seconds?
If I recall it’s a remix of Massive Attack’s Teardrop by Haircuts for Men
@@MagdalenRose thank you so much! :)
Those sounds are all from an American perspective. The future doesn't revolve around one country.
Mark Fisher was British.
@@MagdalenRose you got me
6:45 mcguyver_removing_sunglasses.gif
2005 sounds like my chemical romance to me. 2010 sounds like vaporwave.
@TTFPouyii excuse me?
Yeah, which wasn't new music
vaporwave sound 80s
fantastic
Anyone has the link to that video at 3:20 ? I have no life at all and would like to watch it very much 🙃🙃🙃
Here you go :) ruclips.net/video/aCgkLICTskQ/видео.html
What a pretty woman
I agree with you because this is with everything hell even filmers, artists, are having a tougher time to do something beyond the boring norm or the same stick over and over And I don't disagree with you on this
ha this is pretty much what I think - MF is very interesting and very smart, but very heavy
We do have Death Grips. I would say someone from the 2000s hearing that would shit themselves.
Funny. But they rip off Our Culture.
That is older than the 2000s
Are you a Comedian ?
Creepy as Fvck how Our Cultures are ripped Off
Then one has to read THAT fvcking CRAP
This is a great video and you are great at making videos, please keep doing 'em! I understand what Fisher is arguing for here, but for me, there are a lot of distinct sounds from the 2000s, mainly within the electronic/experimental genres and extreme music in general. They're just not mainstream.
Voting is definitely not the way to go, although it seems important to me to not completely discount it like old school anarchists did. It's more about keeping politicians accountable and pushing them to make better decisions for the people through direct action/civil disobedience. It cannot stop once a Bernie is elected, even a Bernie has to be pushed to serve the people better.
The issue is that neoliberalism actively destroys the bonds between people so that there is no big enough collective force to keep politicians accountable right now.
No, voting is very important. But collective activism is also important .
Nice one Mags. SO pertinent to Hip-Hop. I don't want to go blog in this section but:
I grew up on the "Golden Era of Hip-Hop" (c.late 1980's - early 2000's). Songs had 3-4 verses (w/ a purpose), chorus, a bridge, and a close. They were educational, riling, enlightening, etc. Full of content/words. Complex, head bobbing tracks.
Today: cookie cutter tracks, misogyny, violence, drugs/alcohol are multiple choice topic, same cadence, word limits, essentially dumbed down. Of course there are exceptions but this numbskullery is what gets rotation on the airwaves.
Check out
Autechre, Arca, Burial, Laurel Halo, David Sylvian, Aphex Twin, Oval, Fennesz, Alva Noto, Bjork, this music is for the future you just have to find it it's underground it has always been underground
I think that’s the point Fisher was making. Personally I would never consider Bjork or Aphex Twin to be underground they’re both extremely well known. But I love Bjork she’s always evolving.
@@MagdalenRose maybe the other artists I named are check out Laurel Halo's Quarantine she foreshadowed this pandemic haha unintentionally. The other artists are really experimental and ahead of their time like Fennesz and Oval and Autechre
Idk if you know about mbti but if you subscribe to the idea (I love the theory of mbti personally), are you by any chance a INTP / INTJ?
The mbti is a generalization and doesn’t take into account a lot of nuance, but it does have some validity behind it. I’m a ENFP by that chart!
I think I love you (I mean, in a dumb version)
I do appreciate your constructive tone. It can get exhausting just watching a "here's how capitalism is destroying us all, kbye" video, but you give a sense of hope and activism in your videos.
I don't think voting is gonna help lmfao
I'm actually making a little video (on spanish) regarding capitalist realism, i hope you don´t mind if i steal the puppy break... haha
nice video :)
Of all the decisions I have made across fifty years, the one I least regret is subbing to your channel.
always except the unexcepted
You are cool
ok 1 mim in and I gotta start.
2005, definetly skate punk (eg alien ant farm), black eyed peas, katty perry (tick tock)
2010, Emo for sure "Havent you people ever heard of closing the god dam door"
2018 .... sadly, a lot of shitty rap.
(The rest of the video: "Ahhh, I miss watching these videos, I'm glad I came back")
TIk Tok was Kesha, not Katy Perry. And it was from 2009.
Your example for 2010, "We Write Sins Not Tragedies", is actually from 2005.
Might need to switch those two. :P
@@ArmadilloAl Oops,
I meant to say Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For
. Screw Tick Tock.
Also, We write sins not tragedy took a while to become mainstream, but you're right that it definitely didn't outlast 2007.