the opiate of the classes

social media is a deathtrap for elites

i was having a conversation with noted internet wit and longtime gatopal™ @elonbachman last night. we were talking about how just utterly, unbelievably awful social media is for “the elites.”

at once it offers one to one communication yet also demands it.

it becomes the path to the top of the attention scrum, but requires that you live in the scrum to get there.

worst of all, it’s simply uncontrollable and un-curatable.

you just never know what’s going to pop out, what will trend, what you might streisand effect by mistake, or what fire, friendly or unfriendly, might hit you in the back (or in the face).

it’s 12 zillion mistakes waiting to be made beneath the unwavering and merciless klieg lamps of the 24 hour attention cycle and the terrible narcissistic need to play a game whose primary aim is to dice you into pieces and serve you as an ironic amuse-bouche.

and we’re all waiting for dinner. it will be served.

tonight’s theme is: “tone deaf vanity and addled headed virtue signaling mistaking entitled hypocrisy for righteousness.”

our first exhibit is a piece entitled “some women are more equal than others.”

imagine mistaking this for a good look.

but this is the virus, the addiction, the obsession: notice me, take my picture, establish my bona fides and my rectitude.

all the venal privilege to flout laws and restrictions because “covid cannot afford to get into french laundry or the met gala” pretentions all come out in the end.

these modern day aristos seem to place the rakes on the lawn themselves then gleefully shove the way to step upon them.

even mocking them is a challenge. (though “the bee” remains undefeated and a gleeful addition to the pig pile)

many are deeply stupid. the rest just see themselves as such a breed apart that they simply cannot imagine being held to account by the damnable proles who really ought to have the decency to know that rules are for thee and not for thy betters.

and through the magic of social media, they wind up showing all the true colors they ought to have the sense to hide because the minders and editors cannot save you here and these actors are simply not ready for live theater in the round.

it’s like watching trees line up to run into a wood chipper.

they wag fingers and demean your desire for freedom with one hand and book a trip to martha’s vineyard to boogie down with the whom’s whom of hollywood with the other.

and even if THEY have the sense and decorum to seek to keep it quiet, it does not matter because their guests won’t. they need to feed the vanity dragon and prove they were there. so they leak like a boat made of sugar cubes and word gets out, because word getting out is what they live for.

vainglory is an expensive hobby.

folks like this literally advocate for severe, shelter in place lockdowns then ask their mistresses to traipse across town to see them. and, of course, they get caught.

occasionally, one of the lesser pantheon has enough shame to actually resign, but not usually. usually the game just goes on and on.

and the amount of stupid you can inflict on yourself never ceases to amaze. it’s just cruel out there

even those that literally OWN social media are not immune. hell, they are begging for this.

they are like exhibitionists in flagrante delicto in ever more precarious places and “losing” cell phones full of naughty fun time video in the paparazzi bathroom.

they seem to want to get caught.

perhaps it’s desperation for attention, perhaps it’s just world-class, weapons-grade obviousness and inability to self-image.

whatever it is, it's just amazing.

it’s perfect hubris and nemesis straight out of a euripidean tragedy complete with a chorus of furies to to drive them to madness.

they are such narcissists that they have to play a game they cannot possibly win because the only alternative is not being famous and THAT is worse than death.

then they wonder why they are viewed as so many grotesque aristocratic barons and kings, marie antoinettes and eva perons.

i don’t think i ever really understood the french revolution before this year.

i never understood just how wildly out of touch an elite faction could become or how gratingly, stunningly, persistently un-self-aware. i always imagined “let them eat cake” was some 6 standard deviation black swan of ill chosen speech.

i never realized it could be a whole ill-begotten ethos and misjudged pathos.

but it really can. this self-absorbed echo chamber of entitled preferencing, privilege, and presumption of the right to rule can become an entire soup to nuts worldview.

belief sets rooted in the assumption that because you are smart or rich or famous that you have some special place and special insight into the common good and therefore a right and perhaps a duty to force it upon others “for their own betterment” are incredibly seductive to clever narcissists and power hungry solipsistic sociopaths.

but social media turns it upon them.

it’s like watching cannibals fight over who gets to jump in the pot next.

it would be hilarious were it not so endlessly pernicious.

those who would force deprivation upon thee but never me just won’t see it coming.

they’ll still have the accelerator pinned to the floor when they hit the wall and the very social medium they so desperately seek approval from will highlight their every foible and failing in real time (and for posterity) as they do so.

and one day, the people will realize there is another option.

“allons enfants de la patrie…”