Work Text:
This is a short preface but this essay consists of seven parts and introduction. I don't think it needs a final conclusion. I hope it is not too depressing and that it is at least semi coherent.
Also, thanks to Ao3, I failed to attach the image of Tankie mentioned below but there is a description of it.
Introduction
The video Amazon™ Crowbar depicts two anarchists rioting. They both realise they have purchased their crowbars from Amazon. They are then depicted on Conservative’s phone who then states “good one Jreg, you show those anarchists whos boss” who then appears on Tankie’s phone who repeats the same mantra. Tankie then appears on Ancap’s phone who also repeats the same phrase. But at the end of the video, one of the anarchists, posed in front of a burning local business utters the words “good one Jreg, show those capitalists whos boss” and then in a violent red rage, hammers their crowbar into a window.
What does this 36-second video mean? What is the meaning of the so-called ‘circlejerk’? Are we even meant to circlejerk?
Part One - the Dog
Two critiques can be made from this video, the first one is an analysis of those who are circle-jerking and then one of the anarchists. Concerning the first, the figures of the circlejerk could represent Jreg’s politically diverse audience. Jreg has a history of building up a diverse fanbase, his content centring around promoting political extremism of all stripes and colours.
Therefore it can be inferred that this may perhaps be a critique of his audience and the rhetorical approach they make to his content. Jreg has been promoted as a political Rorschach test, every viewer reading from the neutral content their own meaning and this is most likely what he is critiquing. He is pointing out that many of his viewers will watch the video and believe that their political opposition is being satirised while intentionally ignoring they are being satirised at the same time or blissfully unaware.
It is a critique of cheap critique, critique solely used to further reinforce your viewpoint.
If Jreg were pointing out this to be the message of his video, it would be hypocritical as it would be like trying a dog to roll over, making it roll over and then laughing at it for rolling over. But it could also be him trying to tell us how easily we were played, we will ignore all logic and nuance if it simply means we can “dunk” on our political opponents, turning politics into a boxing ring of competing ideologies or a game instead of actual real-world politics. Or one could say, the detachment of politics from real life.
As at the end of the day, the only ones who are doing praxis are the anarchists who start off being mocked. They are the only ones who are not detached from real life but they are attached to those who are living in the digital realm, as they are watching themselves be critiqued and satirised by others on the phone. This points out that what we say on the internet and also internet politics will actually have an effect on the real world as at the end of the day, there are real people on the internet which take what they have said on Reddit, Twitter or 4chan into their daily lives and act on it. Our digital lives are merely just an extension of our physical lives, where we live out what we cannot do or be in the material.
A prime example of this which hits a raw nerve for me personally, as a New Zealander is the Christ Church Shooting. The shooter knew no fascists in his physical reality and probably spent most of his waking moments in the digital reality where he picked up the ideology and was radicalised to the point where he brutally took the lives of 51 innocents.
This is a morbid and depressing example of how the internet does splash into the physical world and that we should not ignore what is said or done online. The mindless political circlejerk may be treated as a game but does affect us, as it has affected me and you.
Another issue with turning politics into a game is that for most, they care about various abstractions like the community, future generations, culture, revolutions and countless other things. For most, they seek to help these people. Anarcho-communists seek to help the poor, fascists seek to preserve their race and so on and therefore, for the holders of these ideologies, it may bother them that they’re being treated as a game.
But at the end of the day, these are only mere abstractions so does it truly matter that politics is being treated as a game? Does this bother you? And if yes, why?
Does it bother you that your ideas are being described as mere phantasms, mirages not rooted in reality?
In conclusion, this video could be interpreted as a critique of Jreg’s own audience but at the end of the day, it’s a baseless critique. He is asking us to do something, we do it and then we are mocked. And no matter if we do anything or not, no matter if we engage in internet politics, we are both doing nothing and everything at the same time. We are splashing onto the material but we are also simultaneously playing a game where none of our abstractions are furthered.
Part Two - the Red Herring
But this can be argued with. One could easily state that in this endless critique of online circle-jerking, those who are actually “winning” in the game of ideological war are those on the ground doing so-called praxis. The Amazon crowbar is nothing but a meaningless red herring and a tool that Jreg uses for the video to “start”, for his critique to start. It sets the circlejerk in motion, just like a Marxist Leninist being told they are tweeting from their iPhone.
The reason why this is a red herring is because even if their crowbar happened to be purchased from Amazon, that is meaningless as they are still doing the so-called praxis. And the effects of their praxis when weighed against the purchase of the crowbar, greatly outweighs that of the crowbar.
But one could all say that this is an idealist critique instead of a materialist approach and you would be correct. An idealist critique of this would be that the material world creates and changes these ideas instead of the opposite being true. The material world brings forth the conditions needed to usher in new riots, new terrorist attacks and new ideologies as we watch capitalism crumble due to its own internal contradictions.
At the end of the day, none of this satire or making fun of people online truly changes anything. Perhaps the internet is only a tool of the masses instead of something that actively changes anything. The internet is not causing these incidents, they were already happening due to material conditions and the internet is using being wielded instead of the cause.
Part Three - the River
One thing the video implies is that no matter how hard you circlejerk, the real winners are those who are on the ground doing actual political action instead of sitting behind a keyboard. The onlooker vs the active participant in the material world.
No matter how much you argue on Twitter or Reddit, the real world continues, fueled by material conditions and conflicts in society instead of petty arguments. Your words and deeds as an individual have no effect on the material reality. History and time will continue to pass, like a wave bubbling down a river, lined with beautiful trees, its rays falling onto the ground, dappled sunlight. And you are bobbing on this river or you are merely sitting on the idyllic bank, watching everything go past. Either way, you have no control over the ever-flowing river, it will flow no matter what you do. You are too small to damn it or change its course and the same goes for history.
Some may believe in the inevitability of the revolutions, that class conflict and the internal contradictions of capitalism will result in the overthrow of that said capitalism and usher in a new era of communism and prosperity. But as some may say, it is “cope” and that will be touched on in a later part.
And where does this river carry us? Where does it end? Does it run through a beautiful valley, lined with vineyards like the Rhine Valley? Or does it simply end? Shrivel and dry up?
We may not like to admit it but only one thing is certain and that is the end and collapse. We try to hold onto good things in our lives but whether we want to do or not, those things or people will die or simply collapse and so will civilisation. Whether we like it or not, the effects of industrialisation will be our demise and at this point, it is too late to stop them. We have essentially made our bed and now we have to sleep in it. And neither communism, capitalism, government regulation and so on can address this issue since it’s already in motion. The river is flowing. We cannot stop the swollen greedy river, we can only watch as it happens and maybe save ourselves and others when the banks burst.
In conclusion, no matter how much you try and make fun of these protests, they will continue whether you like it or not. Change will continue to happen whether you like it or not and in that video, only the “anarchists” are truly winning.
Part Four - the Autumnal River and the Coming Winter
As many know, the American word for “autumn” is “fall”. This reminds me of a lyric in a song called Bloodstains by the duo named 100gecs. The lyrics goes as such:
I'm walking feeling fall, I might just catch a falling leaf
I'll catch it in my mouth and I'll refuse to tear it up
I'll take it home and put it on my table in a cup
This may not seem much but it links back to the idea of the river. The whole song itself is about the declining state and mental health of the writer but the idea of autumn is particularly interesting as autumn is oftentimes used as symbolism.
One thing which autumn often symbolises is the slow decline rot and the creeping in of the inevitable winter. And I find that fitting because I’d like to believe that we are in our own autumn. We are witnessing the effects of climate change and capitalism on the world and waiting for the inevitable cold. So essentially, hope is dead. All we can do is watch the leaves fall as we sit on the banks of the river. We huddle in the cold, pulling our coat shut. We watch the brown leaves float down from the trees in the gentle breeze. Maybe we can try and catch one but they’ll never stop falling as there is nothing you can do to stop the spin of the earth on its axis, there is nothing you can do to stop time and the decay it brings with it.
But the flip-side, it can be argued that winter passes. Ushering in spring and new life. Make of that what you will.
Part Five - the Shadows
One could easily compare the imagery of the phone in the hand to that of the Madonna, or in this context Pieta by Michelangelo. She is cradling Christ in her arms and this is reinforced by the composition of the video itself. Both Mary in western art and the video uses the same pyramid which is often found in Renaissance Neoplatonic art.
Pieta by Michelangelo, sculpted in 1498–1499. St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.
Not featured: image of Tankie holding the phone, his head and his arms creating a triangle. And the phone and his hand are lined up with a horizontal line.
Two things can be touched upon from this. What does the phone represent? Does the phone represent the baby Jesus? A new start? Does it represent Jesus’s idealised corpse? What does this say about internet politics? Is the 16th century’s understanding of Neoplatonism relevant to the video? And if yes, how does this link to the aforementioned “abstractions”?
It can be inferred that no matter if the phone represents the infant or the dead Jesus, joy of birth or the mourning of the deceased, it is an endless cycle anyway that will live on forever. Jesus may have died but he will resurrect three days later and that is certain. Perhaps this is a critique of how the lack of the end of the circlejerk. Perhaps politics was a game all along especially for those who have no stakes in it.
An analysis of the stylistic features though might tell a very different story. Both works of art, whether intentional or not both reflect elements of Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism is the idea that we are all living in a cave and that the shadows of heaven are being played across the wall of the cave. An immediate link can be drawn between this and the internet which I will touch on later. But for the time being, both works of art use the pyramidal structure. This is important for the following reasons, it represents the tiers or the steps leading to heaven and not in a traditional Christian viewpoint but in a sense that we start at the bottom (the cave) and then by contemplating the divine and the beautiful (the shadows of heaven) we can ascend up these stairways to where the real beauty is.
One thing that can also be touched on is the idealised nature of the characters and the idealised nature of Mary. Her face is unmarred beautiful and her arm is extended to add revenant serenity, it thus becomes a meditation over Christ’s life and this would then help someone in the 16th century contemplate the piece to ascend up those to stairs.
She has been idealised as Michelangelo himself said, a true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. And maybe Tankie, Conservative and the other ideologies are not a shadow of heaven but a shadow of true politics, they are nothing but the shadows on the cave wall instead of genuine politics. But this contradicts the idea that politics influences the real world as I stated before but it is also true that satire has affected the real world, for example, Pewdiepie, his “jokes” and the effect those have had on the real world and the far-right. Satire has real-world implications as it is wielded as a tool by people who have had their political opinions formed by the conditions of the material world.
One thing to touch on is that both the idea that we can reach heaven by the contemplation of the divine and that we can reach real political action by consuming political satire are false. The first reason for this being that we are purely engaging in phantasms not based in the material world. Heaven has no material reality. And to add to that, both the serving of communism and capitalism are as some would call it, “spooked”. You are serving an abstraction instead of the individual and thus the individual is wrapped up in abstractions, commodified and turned into a resource. So one could clearly label contemplation of both as idealist instead of materialist.
Also, something that should be mentioned is that connections can be drawn with the shadows on the cave wall and the internet, the internet is nothing but the shadows of real life. But as I have stated a million times, the internet is the tool in the hand of real life.
Part Six - the Worship
One other thing I’d like to touch on concerning Neoplatonism, Jreg and politics is the worship. What do I mean by the worship? I mean the worship of abstractions. Many people may have become atheists but they still worship these abstractions as if they were a new god. The second coming of Christ has become the revolution. The saints have become political icons. Lenin, Makhno and Hitler have become the venerated saints. The disciples and Christ have become Marx, Evola, Rothbard and so on. So essentially, for many atheists, politics has supplanted the old religion.
Who are your idols? Who do you worship? Is your political ideology just a so-called “cope” which you use to deal with misery and the lack of control you have over your own reality?
Part Seven - the zip
Onement I by Barret Newman is a small unassuming artwork hanging on a plain white wall in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Many people loathe modern art and believe it does nothing and takes no effort but if you were to approach the painting, you would instantly line yourself up with it’s so-called “zip”. You become the zip. This zip represents the human. Maybe even the material.
Onement I by Barret Newman, painted in 1948. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Just like with the painting, you click on the video and line yourself up with it. You bring all your preconceived ideas and ideologies to the painting and then compare it to yourself. Does it match with your ideals? Are you even objectively looking at it anymore? Are you trying to find meaning where there is none?
What you are most likely doing is projecting your own abstractions onto a simple and small work of art. Though the aforementioned art does serve a purpose, there is not too much that can be gleaned from it apart from reflecting the time it was made in and small meanings. Examples of this would be WWII, Black Lives Matter riots, the primal human and so on and so on.
And even though you are projecting, all art is just the shadows on the cave wall. But this time not of heaven but of reality. But not just a reflection of the artist’s heaven but your own heaven.
At the end of the day, this is all pointless.