Late stage capitalism

[JennyB]

Hello,

I didn't know where to post this so I'll throw it up here.

https://archive.ph/jaPms

Good. I refuse to use them at my local grocery store, especially after a big expansion of them a few months ago, because it clearly means fewer people employed.

Our labor union partners told us a long time ago not to use them, so ever since then, I've stopped.

[Dr. Medulla]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-s ... 937ff47ff2

"We keep giving her money and for some reason now she thinks she we'll keep giving her money!"

Okay, kids, see if you can move from regarding this as being an individual problem to understanding it as a systemic one.

[Low Down Low]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-s ... 937ff47ff2

"We keep giving her money and for some reason now she thinks she we'll keep giving her money!"

Okay, kids, see if you can move from regarding this as being an individual problem to understanding it as a systemic one.

This is simultaneously horrifying and knee slapping hilarious. That four albums to make the clock face pretty much finished me.

[Dr. Medulla]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-s ... 937ff47ff2

"We keep giving her money and for some reason now she thinks she we'll keep giving her money!"

Okay, kids, see if you can move from regarding this as being an individual problem to understanding it as a systemic one.

This is simultaneously horrifying and knee slapping hilarious. That four albums to make the clock face pretty much finished me.

On one hand, I feel I should be sympathetic to someone waking up to the fact that they're being gouged and treated like suckers. But on the other hand, an entertainer—or anyone—with a billion dollars didn't get that way without picking the pockets of their fans.

[Low Down Low]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-s ... 937ff47ff2

"We keep giving her money and for some reason now she thinks she we'll keep giving her money!"

Okay, kids, see if you can move from regarding this as being an individual problem to understanding it as a systemic one.

This is simultaneously horrifying and knee slapping hilarious. That four albums to make the clock face pretty much finished me.

On one hand, I feel I should be sympathetic to someone waking up to the fact that they're being gouged and treated like suckers. But on the other hand, an entertainer—or anyone—with a billion dollars didn't get that way without picking the pockets of their fans.

I actually had to do a triple take to satisfy myself that piece wasn't satire. There's still a part of me convinced it's all part of some fascinating social experiment, to see how far you can push people before they stop being dumb consumers (who will bitch and moan but still stump up the readies) and finally pronounce I'm out, not buying your tat or repackaged albums anymore. On the evidence of that article, I think we remain some distance from that point.

[Dr. Medulla]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-s ... 937ff47ff2

"We keep giving her money and for some reason now she thinks she we'll keep giving her money!"

Okay, kids, see if you can move from regarding this as being an individual problem to understanding it as a systemic one.

This is simultaneously horrifying and knee slapping hilarious. That four albums to make the clock face pretty much finished me.

On one hand, I feel I should be sympathetic to someone waking up to the fact that they're being gouged and treated like suckers. But on the other hand, an entertainer—or anyone—with a billion dollars didn't get that way without picking the pockets of their fans.

I actually had to do a triple take to satisfy myself that piece wasn't satire. There's still a part of me convinced it's all part of some fascinating social experiment, to see how far you can push people before they stop being dumb consumers (who will bitch and moan but still stump up the readies) and finally pronounce I'm out, not buying your tat or repackaged albums anymore. On the evidence of that article, I think we remain some distance from that point.

Fans see the relationship as one of love and pretend the commerce angle isn't key, or perhaps a way of returning the love they believe the artist is bestowing on them. At best, artists may be more conflicted. Some look upon their most ardent fans as those who should be rewarded with for their support; others see them as sheep who just can't wait to get sheared again, even before the fur has grown back. In any given day, I imagine Taylor Swift talks more with business advisers than musicians.

[Low Down Low]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-s ... 937ff47ff2

"We keep giving her money and for some reason now she thinks she we'll keep giving her money!"

Okay, kids, see if you can move from regarding this as being an individual problem to understanding it as a systemic one.

This is simultaneously horrifying and knee slapping hilarious. That four albums to make the clock face pretty much finished me.

On one hand, I feel I should be sympathetic to someone waking up to the fact that they're being gouged and treated like suckers. But on the other hand, an entertainer—or anyone—with a billion dollars didn't get that way without picking the pockets of their fans.

I actually had to do a triple take to satisfy myself that piece wasn't satire. There's still a part of me convinced it's all part of some fascinating social experiment, to see how far you can push people before they stop being dumb consumers (who will bitch and moan but still stump up the readies) and finally pronounce I'm out, not buying your tat or repackaged albums anymore. On the evidence of that article, I think we remain some distance from that point.

Fans see the relationship as one of love and pretend the commerce angle isn't key, or perhaps a way of returning the love they believe the artist is bestowing on them. At best, artists may be more conflicted. Some look upon their most ardent fans as those who should be rewarded with for their support; others see them as sheep who just can't wait to get sheared again, even before the fur has grown back. In any given day, I imagine Taylor Swift talks more with business advisers than musicians.

Know little about her but that's certainly the impression i got reading the piece. I suppose there is a level on which you could say fair play to her for taking control of her corporate output and ensuring they don't rip her off like so many of her fellow artists, but really her experience seems so divorced from that of 99.9% of artists that all i can see, once the initial humour dissipated, is the grim sheer naked greed of it all.

[Dr. Medulla]

This is simultaneously horrifying and knee slapping hilarious. That four albums to make the clock face pretty much finished me.

On one hand, I feel I should be sympathetic to someone waking up to the fact that they're being gouged and treated like suckers. But on the other hand, an entertainer—or anyone—with a billion dollars didn't get that way without picking the pockets of their fans.

I actually had to do a triple take to satisfy myself that piece wasn't satire. There's still a part of me convinced it's all part of some fascinating social experiment, to see how far you can push people before they stop being dumb consumers (who will bitch and moan but still stump up the readies) and finally pronounce I'm out, not buying your tat or repackaged albums anymore. On the evidence of that article, I think we remain some distance from that point.

Fans see the relationship as one of love and pretend the commerce angle isn't key, or perhaps a way of returning the love they believe the artist is bestowing on them. At best, artists may be more conflicted. Some look upon their most ardent fans as those who should be rewarded with for their support; others see them as sheep who just can't wait to get sheared again, even before the fur has grown back. In any given day, I imagine Taylor Swift talks more with business advisers than musicians.

Know little about her but that's certainly the impression i got reading the piece. I suppose there is a level on which you could say fair play to her for taking control of her corporate output and ensuring they don't rip her off like so many of her fellow artists, but really her experience seems so divorced from that of 99.9% of artists that all i can see, once the initial humour dissipated, is the grim sheer naked greed of it all.

In the very abstract sense, she's labour in the relationship with the record company, but fundamentally they're both capital, and a very predatory type.

[Low Down Low]

On one hand, I feel I should be sympathetic to someone waking up to the fact that they're being gouged and treated like suckers. But on the other hand, an entertainer—or anyone—with a billion dollars didn't get that way without picking the pockets of their fans.

I actually had to do a triple take to satisfy myself that piece wasn't satire. There's still a part of me convinced it's all part of some fascinating social experiment, to see how far you can push people before they stop being dumb consumers (who will bitch and moan but still stump up the readies) and finally pronounce I'm out, not buying your tat or repackaged albums anymore. On the evidence of that article, I think we remain some distance from that point.

Fans see the relationship as one of love and pretend the commerce angle isn't key, or perhaps a way of returning the love they believe the artist is bestowing on them. At best, artists may be more conflicted. Some look upon their most ardent fans as those who should be rewarded with for their support; others see them as sheep who just can't wait to get sheared again, even before the fur has grown back. In any given day, I imagine Taylor Swift talks more with business advisers than musicians.

Know little about her but that's certainly the impression i got reading the piece. I suppose there is a level on which you could say fair play to her for taking control of her corporate output and ensuring they don't rip her off like so many of her fellow artists, but really her experience seems so divorced from that of 99.9% of artists that all i can see, once the initial humour dissipated, is the grim sheer naked greed of it all.

In the very abstract sense, she's labour in the relationship with the record company, but fundamentally they're both capital, and a very predatory type.

That's it precisely and it seems rare you'd see that so perfectly incapsulated. Maybe U2 i guess, but even then, I never saw that relationship so pronounced as that.

[Dr. Medulla]

I actually had to do a triple take to satisfy myself that piece wasn't satire. There's still a part of me convinced it's all part of some fascinating social experiment, to see how far you can push people before they stop being dumb consumers (who will bitch and moan but still stump up the readies) and finally pronounce I'm out, not buying your tat or repackaged albums anymore. On the evidence of that article, I think we remain some distance from that point.

Fans see the relationship as one of love and pretend the commerce angle isn't key, or perhaps a way of returning the love they believe the artist is bestowing on them. At best, artists may be more conflicted. Some look upon their most ardent fans as those who should be rewarded with for their support; others see them as sheep who just can't wait to get sheared again, even before the fur has grown back. In any given day, I imagine Taylor Swift talks more with business advisers than musicians.

Know little about her but that's certainly the impression i got reading the piece. I suppose there is a level on which you could say fair play to her for taking control of her corporate output and ensuring they don't rip her off like so many of her fellow artists, but really her experience seems so divorced from that of 99.9% of artists that all i can see, once the initial humour dissipated, is the grim sheer naked greed of it all.

In the very abstract sense, she's labour in the relationship with the record company, but fundamentally they're both capital, and a very predatory type.

That's it precisely and it seems rare you'd see that so perfectly incapsulated. Maybe U2 i guess, but even then, I never saw that relationship so pronounced as that.

I think of Brian Eno’s observation about NFTs: “NFTs seem to me just a way for artists to get a little piece of the action from global capitalism, our own cute little version of financialization. How sweet—now artists can become little capitalist assholes as well.”

[Flex]

Taylor Swift is an interesting edge case for all of this given her extreme popularity and ability to monetize her music. For anyone unfamiliar, she actually has an interesting backstory to all this, which is essentially that when she was just starting out she signed a lousy record contract (as so often happens) and wound up not having the rights to her own masters. Her workaround has been to essentially note-for-note re-record her old catalog and point fans to those versions to listen to instead of her old records. She has the star power and command of her fanbase to, like, actually be successful doing this and as far as I can tell it's been a big success. This part of the story seems like the sort of thing we'd basically applaud on principle, regardless of the artist.

But, obviously, she's a savvy business person who has realized the level of support her fanbase gives her also means that there's an opportunity to make a lot of money with artificial scarcity, exclusive variants and the like. It's nothing the record industry and artists don't do all over the place, but because it's the most massive music star going right now - and because consuming her new albums has been cast in terms of a morality play where buying the album makes you a good person - the contradictions between her role as victimized labor and exploitative capitalist gets heightened and more obviously revealed. It's really quite interesting to see play out, imho.

I'm on the swift mailing list because I'm bought the missus some of her albums as gifts, and the funniest email I got was a limited 48 hour window to buy a variant of the digital album of 1989 with an extra bonus track. Like, what the fuck are we even doing here? They must have really good data on how these 48 hour windows boost sales of pretty much everything. That was laughable.

[Mimi]

I'm not defending Swift, but how much say does she have in the day-to-day operations of her business? Is this the label doing this or is she directing them? I mean, most celebrities, when they get that big, have a team of people doing their promoting and shit.

[Flex]

I'm not defending Swift, but how much say does she have in the day-to-day operations of her business? Is this the label doing this or is she directing them? I mean, most celebrities, when they get that big, have a team of people doing their promoting and shit.

I'm sure she's not involved on a super micro level but her whole thing is that she took back control of her music from her label and is in control of her music and how she releases it now.

[Dr. Medulla]

Bouncing off what Flex said, her case strikes me, too, as a critique of that kind of vulgar, liberal feminism, where it goes from originally criticism of an exploitative, marginalizing, demeaning system to a celebration of women who can succeed within and despite it. It's the perversity of calling Hillary Clinton a feminist because she's a woman who has scaled the ladder of power and can be just as nasty and reprehensible as a man. Feminism that isn't radical just means encouraging women to become exploiters in their own right.

[Flex]

Bouncing off what Flex said, her case strikes me, too, as a critique of that kind of vulgar, liberal feminism, where it goes from originally criticism of an exploitative, marginalizing, demeaning system to a celebration of women who can succeed within and despite it. It's the perversity of calling Hillary Clinton a feminist because she's a woman who has scaled the ladder of power and can be just as nasty and reprehensible as a man. Feminism that isn't radical just means encouraging women to become exploiters in their own right.

I believe they refer to that as "the yassification of Margaret Thatcher"