What do I meme: Memes that could cure capitalism
Mark Fisher should have talked to The Speaker's Lab
Usually, What do I Meme newsletters are only for subscribers that pay me to explain myself, but they’re getting a whole month’s worth of 🐇hole shit, and full dose of my feelings next week in a new format called Friday Feels. If you’re into that sort of thing there’s still a week left on my speshul offer!
To satisfy my curiosity this week, and inadvertently inspire a new meme and possibly the cure for capitalism, I scheduled two calls with organizations I am deeply skeptical of. I didn’t even think of this as memefodder, but if you’re looking to become a meme page admin with a slightly more pleasant disposition, just do weird innocuous shit that goes against your better judgement and you’ll never run out of material. This week I’m talking to:
The Speaker’s Lab - about How to Develop a Career as a Public Speaker
Grow the Show Accelerator - about How to Improve my Podcast
Both sound like reasonable educational programs, but something felt off. I spoke to Jim Kukral from Speaker’s Lab who was nice enough, but right off the bat, he doubted my commitment to kickstarting a 6-figure career from public speaking.
Smart man.
I told him that my husband prodded me to do this - that he was friends with Desmond Clark who does this kind of thing. Ken thinks I could make a career out of public speaking, too.
“Oh, Des is one of our students.” OF COURSE he is.
I immediately felt that he should be talking to my husband. He was a smart, savvy, and a talented sales guy, but I’m married to a man who could have invented the game he was playing. He shared the webpage of a “self-proclaimed scientist” and recommended that I check out her work so I could model my business after hers.
I wanted to say “BRUH. NO” but I was polite-ish. “Let me just stop you for a second. I’m going to be frank. This is not the vibe I’m going for.” I hoped he would say he understood, and he was just kidding. That this was a baseline test to scan for replicants, but he didn’t. Instead, he said “This is what people who cut 10k checks are looking for.” To which I replied something like, “That’s icky.”
He didn’t seem to like that. So I tried to speak his language. I wracked my brain for someone in his world who broke the mold.
“I’m more like a Gary V.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth I thought what the fuck did you say that for?!
“Oh, well Gary is one of my personal friends.” Ugh. Of course, he is.
“I just mean I’ve got a sense of irreverence towards traditional ways of doing things.”
“Well, Gary is a unicorn. 🦄 99.99% of people are going to have to do things our way.”
He went on to show me a couple more speakers in their group, but I had heard enough. This program was not for me, but not because as he put it “I wasn’t ready to decide on my brand or audience yet.” I know who I am, and I know who ya’ll are. I’m just not the bitch who is going to spend thousands of dollars for a list of leads, a cheerleader, and a common sense execution strategy. I’m not 99.99% of people. I’m that 0.01% of people who will book a call and then turn it into a newsletter on cultural theory.
I ended the call and went back to my work of growing my podcast and speaking to the public. lulz. I headed to Twitter to follow up on a conversation with a couple of guys from Plastic Pills and Epoch Philosophy who I might have the podcast.
I then clicked over to YouTube and was greeted by an Adorno & Horkheimer video. I wondered who would have sponsored Adorko’s YouTube channel and a meme was birthed.
Whether critical theory is bunk or not, these guys seem right about a lot of things. Culture is certainly pre-packaged into little feel-good bits that can be mass-produced for profit… Oh shit, that’s what was so gross about The Speaker’s Lab! These speakers follow a model to become a nicely packaged product that can be filed in some HR consultant’s CRM with the goal of jumpstarting your sales force’s metrics.
This image from the Plastic Pills video reminded me of my new friend Jim from when he said: “I get it. I spent the first half of my career thinking about money and marketing. Now I’m more into artistic stuff.” Jim is a talented salesperson, but I would wager he makes something like anti-art. Ok, maybe, I’m being a hoity bitch about it, since I quit my job and pretend to be above monetary needs. Keep making art, Jim. It takes a while loosen ties with the world of mass production, and once you do, they’ll probably try to mass produce your art with your consent or otherwise. It feels like the system has turned art inside out. Same thing with the “educational” material that everyone puts out now: it’s anti-educational.
I realized what I hate about anything that claims to be educational these days:
It’s either dry as fuck,
trying to sell me something, or
culturally stunted
and usually all three. This is why I don’t claim to be making “educational” content. So, if you see me up on stage doing a speaking gig, please heckle me - you already do a great job in my comments. “Read Acid Communism, you hack.” Thanks, guys. I’m always learning from you. I really love this method of hurling insults with advice, like… thank you, hater. You’re making me greater.
Adorno and Horkheimer may have predicted the state we’re in, but to my knowledge, they offered no solution. In the hopeless stolen words of Mark Fisher or Frederic Jameson or Zizek or someone:
ya’ll motherfuckers can better imagine the end of the world than imagine the end of capitalism.
So what should we do? If it’s impossible to imagine the end of capitalism, maybe we need a magical creature to do it for us…. which is actually kind of what Mr. Fisher was about to suggest in Acid Communism before he…. So, Jim, can you forward this on to Gary V? Perhaps he could take a stab at curing capitalism with his 🦄unicorn🦄 horn.
In the meantime, I’m just going to continue making shit that makes me smile, and maybe a couple of ya’ll too. We need to placate ourselves until me or Gary V figure this shit out. I don’t know if Jim will be able to help me, but I’m damn sure he could coach one of my clones into being the poster child for Ted Talks. He’s smart, and I hope we can be friends after I’ve made a comedy act from our call. It’s nothing personal Jim, I’m just a meme lord at heart. So, if I ever get a 10k check for public speaking it will likely be from a company like WHIP SHOTS.
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Here’s hoping my call with the Podcast gurus will solve all the challenges of capitalism and still keep my nails did.