Dynamic Hypocrisy

Last century, we saw the rise of the teenager. The new class of people who were deemed too young to start working, but had consumer spending power. Fundamentally shifting the cultural focus to this age bracket affecting everything from fashion to music to celebrity. And now within the last decade or so with changing economics, we’ve seen the extension of teenagedom. The American dream of buying your own house, and raising a family has waned along with the stigma of living with the parents. 

However, teenagers represent more than societal focus. But also traditionally, a stage of self-exploration. Trying out new identities, new languages, new modes before settling on a set of frameworks of which to become an adult. Technology, however, with its ever encompassing ability to document and capture–is now also capturing these moment of exploration. What was usually a set of fleeting stages of experimentation is now encapsulated forever into the history books. 

The awkwardness and consequences are starting to be seen. As 14-year olds are being put on sexual offenders lists for sending photos to another 14-year old. Quotes and writings are being logged into the ever-improving search engines and social platforms. 

We have the most granular and powerful visibility into everyone’s lives than ever, and just as easily, we able now to inflict our own moral judgment and furor to any one participant. It’s a panopticon built by accident. 

And now that it’s now active, we have to reconcile with two things. 1) That something like that now exists, and to determine our relationship to the structure. 2) How we relate to each other with such a structure in place. 

The first battleground will be teenagedom. Do we acknowledge this phase of experimentation, and turn off the machine? Or do we keep the machine on, but fundamentally react differently depending on the context of any set of participants? 

It might not be possible to live simply anymore. There was a time when you all you had to worry about was your family, and possibly your own community. You had to remember who owned the general store, and who farmed the wheat, and who was fighting, and who were lovers. It could be complicated, but overall manageable with adequate interaction at dinners and church. 

But as towns got bigger, the concept of strangers developed. Now we passed the Dunbar Number, and you had vaguaries about your community. You didn’t know the consensus on a topic until a vote came in. You couldn’t just express your opinion, but also introduce yourself. Tell strangers who you are. 

The flip side of that now you yourself have to vet everyone’s story. You have you align to your framework, your principles, your reality. “Is that true?” “Is that a lie?” And then by the same token, people would question your story. Is what you said true? A lie? 

It’s all fairly exhausting. On top of that is the aforementioned reality. Does this story fit with your sense of reality? 

It’s one thing if someone says their name is “Chris.” You simply accept, and go “Nice to meet you, man.”

“Oh sorry, I identify as female.”

“What?”

“I’m Chris, and I identify as female.”

Does this mesh with your reality? Is this a truth? Is this a lie? Is “Chris” making a joke? Or is “Chris” serious about this? Am I okay with this? Is my community okay with this? 

And that’s just one data point to reconcile. When you meet someone, you’re meeting an entire lifetime of facts to reconcile. Even t-shirts these days are complex. Were they made in USA or China? Were they made by children? Was everyone paid a fair wage? How much pollution did the transport trucks create? Is the CEO of the retail store a good person? What’s a good person?

It’s not as if these complexities never existed before our present times, but rather we are encountering an era where it’s impossible to ignore them anymore. And while that on the whole is a positive thing, the problem looming is that none of us don’t have the time, energy, or capacity to deal with this much complexity with every interaction. 

How that gets solved will be the next breakthrough in data.

“It doesn’t taste like anything.” “I don’t know. It’s crunchy though. I kinda like it.” “Guess it didn’t kill us, we could grab some more and bring it back.” “Let’s call it lettuce.”

“What about these? They kinda look dangerous. All red.” “But they’re also squishy. I’m gonna put it in my mouth.” “No, wait!” “Too late, it’s pretty good actually.” Tomatoes.

“That thing.” “The rock?” “Yeah, it’s a pretty big rock.” “Sure is.” “Why is that rock moving?” “I don’t know.” “It’s heading towards us!” “Um, let’s try stabbing it.” “…” “It stopped moving.” “I’m gonna put it my mouth.” “…” “It’s good, I’m gonna call it meat.” 

“Dammit!” “What?” “This grass dried out.” “Well, you can’t eat it anyways.” “I was hoping to!” “Hmm, if it’s dry, why don’t you add water? Water isn’t dry.” “I suppose…” “Well?” “It’s kinda gross. It’s like dry stuff in wet stuff now.” “Smash it up so it’s just one thing?” “Okay…alright, now it’s just one type of wet, but it’s still gr—woah!” “Watch out for the fire!” “Oh no! My wet thing!” “No wait, let it chill there.” “…” “This is great, let’s call it bread.”

“Uggggghhhhhhh.” “What?” “Remember that meat rock?” “Yeah?” “Well, you also know how if you squeeze that one part of the meat rock, like, milk comes out?” “Yeah, that shit’s awesome.” “I know! So I got some meat rock milk a few days ago, and thought I could drink it now. But it turned into this!” “Eewwww, gross…I’m gonna put it into my mouth.” “No, wait!” “Hmm, I’m gonna call it cheese.”

Burgers are weird. 

There’s really just one way I’m thinking about clickbait right now. It’s that regardless of the headline, or its particular details—what’s frustrating is that by the time you read it, you’ve already invested too much energy into it. You’ve already been forced to process it without consent.

I think of the trick “Don’t think of an elephant.” Of course, you think of an elephant. Your mind has to process what the word “elephant” is before it can nullify it. Which is the crux of the trick, it’s impossible. You already spent more energy on the elephant than the premise called for. 

That’s the exhausting part of clickbait for me. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with it because by the time you read it, you’ve already spent more time with that elephant than you ever wanted to.

It’s a weird thing when you start questioning your own taste. As a creative, it seems like the death knell. Because your taste is what anchors you. Whether you consume (or even produce) good or bad or great or terrible work—your taste keeps you in perspective. With a baseline, you can actually determine whether it’s good or bad or great or terrible. 

My taste seems duller these days. I can’t quite tell whether a meal I’m eating is good or bad or great or terrible. And I can’t pinpoint what dulling my taste. 

Perhaps I’ve taken “Reader-response criticism” too far. Too open to relativistic nature of allowing the audience to dictate the work. 

Or perhaps it a general growing apathy? Things wash over me more than they used to. A sitcom suddenly feels like every sitcom I’ve ever watched. An abstract painting looks like every abstract painting I’ve ever seen. There’s a wariness in recognizing patterns all the time. 

The third could be a faltering confidence. That I’m actively distrusting my taste which has always been there. But now I fight it. There’s a terror that I would expend energy like an auto-immune disease. 

Worst, it might be a combination of the three. A multi-pronged attack that involves complex strategies to combat. It seems daunting in the light of already being a bit tired from it all. 

Or maybe I just need a vacation?

“Pop music sucks.”

That phrase comes from varied places. It’s poorly constructed. The artists are trite. The lyrics are terrible. It isn’t of artistic value. 

I’ve always defended pop music as both having a place in the world. That there’s a need to counterbalance “deep” music. That isn’t always duck confit and salmon roe and souffles. Sometimes you just want a cheeseburger. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about spectrums. Firstly as a varying characteristic (the loudest at one end, and the quietest at the other.) And secondly as a distribution (how many loud people exists versus how many quiet people exist.)

I get the sense of anti-pop people think about the latter. That it should be all “good” music, and no pop music should exist. That’s been the general argument I’ve engaged in.

But a thought occurred to me: what was about widening the spectrum? People say there should be more good music. More thoughtful singer-songwriters. More complex chord progressions. More cohesive songs and albums. That seems to me as making the spectrum taller. 

A taller mountain of categories. But what about widening? What would that mean? I think about the advent of jazz music. It wasn’t just new and novel sounds. But the flexing of known conventions on how to create music. The articulation of a new emotions and ideas coming from people of impoverished or difficult lives. Its integration of new technology and techniques (e.g. electric guitars.) 

Its own expanse and experimentation widened what was known to be possible to be music itself. And it moreover, it expanded music in all directions. Its ideas being subsumed, translated, misappropriated, properly appropriated at all ends of the spectrum.

Things always happen in-parallel, but we often just talk about one vector for simplicity purposes. So we talk about the increase and refinement of a category. But at the same time, it’s should be remembered to talk about the expansion and creation of new categories.

The signifier is the symbol that represents the signified, or the concept. The five letters a, p, p, l, e in that sequence represent the concept of the fruit that grows on a certain species of tree. 

A college degree represents a body of work and time invested by a person. Usually in a particular topic or industry. Something that tells another person that they are qualified to perform certain tasks.

But what about diploma mills that give anyone a fake degree? What is that person misrepresenting? What skills is that person not qualified for?

Let’s not dwell on that too long. Because let’s ask those questions of real degrees. What is being misrepresented by a real degree today? What skills is that person not qualified for?

Is a person who spends four years practicing an academic endeavor qualified for? Or six years? Or eight? 

Medical degrees are pretty straightforward. Law degrees too. But what about my degree? A Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts. Am I an artist? Am I a valid practitioner of visual craft? Am I qualified to curate? Or paint? Or sell sculptures? Or run printing presses?  

Can I swap my degree for another artist’s BA diploma? What would that mean if we did? 

My platonic ideal is that the piece of paper represents not a sum of tuition spent. Or credits given. But of toolset of learning. That the person learned how to learn. That the person gained experiences compressed into a timeframe that is not normally achievable. That the person met and built relationships to people that they respect and are impressed by. 

The letters a, p, p, l, e attached to an object only vaguely tells me that the object should be a fruit roughly hand-sized. Should be a ratio of sweet to sour, but not necessarily savory, salty, or bitter. That its skin is bright and thin. That there are seeds at its core. 

But those letters do not guarantee those qualities. They only set up the expectation of such. To make sure, I have to investigate this “apple” myself. As I have to with every object with or without signifiers. 

Obvi is obvi: mismatched expectations is a fundamental miscommunication, and causes issues. What’s interesting is how the magnitude of the differences can be. 

Note: Industries changed to protect the participants at-hand.

Imagine a NBA team that wasn’t been good for a couple years. So the coaches decide to turn over its roster, and draft a lot of young promising players. These players know they’re entering a so-so team, but they’re excited just to play basketball. 

A season goes by, and they actually improve. Instead of losing 66 games, they only lose 53 this year. The coaches are ecstatic because they’ve improved their record. But those young players? They’re devastated.  They worked so hard just to lose 53 times. Just getting dinner with them, and hearing them talk can be a salty affair. 

Both those coaches and players were in the same games, same bench, same locker room. But for the coaches, their expectations are tied to the historical performance of the team. They have a view into previous season, and the previous one before that. Meanwhile, those young players have tied their perspective not to the team directly, but to the standards of basketball itself. 

They see the team that won 67 games going to the playoffs, and then the championship game. They see the league MVP break records, and getting cheers, and their jerseys being worn by kids from the neighborhood. 

And this gulf of perspective causes a lot of pain to the young players. Worst still, they feel like their coaches are out of their minds. How could you be happy? We just lost 53 games. We’ve been humiliated by our peers, and we’re no where near that trophy. It’s absolute insult to injury to lose respect for your coaches. To see them so “disconnected from reality.”

But you can imagine if the coaches had level-setted the expectations. To put everyone into their perspective. That this will be a load road. That these young players are integral to this process. That to become that championship team, not only is it possible, but what’s needed is that we all grow and raise up to that level together. That they too know that golden standard of basketball, and that also see what the young players are striving for. 

Obvious, right?

It’s weird to me to see an unhappy designer. The category of “designer” to me means “problem solver.” So to see an unhappy designer is like seeing a baker with too much flour. They’re both respectively in the best position to remedy their situation. 

When it comes to the workplace, yes—a designer’s primary task is to create artifacts that help solve a problem. To design, to create a solution that addresses the problems at-hand. But there’s a secondary task, and that is to design their work environment. Or to create solutions that addresses the problems at-hand. 

Are you not growing your skills enough? Do you lack a mentor? Do people not respect your opinion? Is the bathroom too far away? 

These are problems that need addressing. And as a designer, aka a problem solver, we are well-equipped to fix them. That is literally our jobs.

And if you think that “Fuck that, I’m not pay enough to deal with that shit.” 

Guess what: that’s just another problem to solve.

It’s easy to become jaded with a new framework for working coming out every few months. The four-day work week! Open offices! No email! D.school! 

Of all these things, it’s easiest to scoff when these frameworks rename old tools. “Shit that happens” is now agile-based blockers. “Checking in” is now scrums. “Brainstorming” is now, I don’t even know what it’s called these days…

But I realized that I’ve been scoffing from a position of creative majority. I’m lucky to exist within an industry is inherently “creative.” In both terms of imagination, but also of actual “creation.” We are trained to naturally move between free-form thought-making to structured synthesis. To know when to accelerate into an idea, and when to discard and re-shape. 

I often forget that there are people who haven’t had the luxury of practicing those concepts. Like how I can appreciate how a dancer moves, but at the same time—truly have no idea how that dancer makes their decisions or even how they flex their muscles to create those movements. When that happens, I go “I’m amazed by this, I cannot do this. I must defer to these experts when it comes to dancing.” 

But on a bad day, say maybe I encounter a style of painting or drawing. Me, coming from a visual art world, sometimes I’ll go “Oh, that’s visual art. I see what’s happening. I sure I can do that.” 

And that’s the danger of hubris. Because I easily could be missing crucial nuances, but my brain doesn’t assess that I may be missing them in the first place. And I may go on my merry way telling people I know how to do that when I really don’t. 

It’s not until someone goes “Oh, that’s impasto painting. It requires…X, Y, and Z.” That my brain goes “Wait, this is a new term. I have to process this now.” And after assessing, I may finally pick up the nuances that I missed before, or at least realize there’s nuances.

So that’s why I’m okay these days with all the new frameworks. Things that seemingly just put a new coat of paint on very old concepts. Because it’s not the experts or even the amateurs I’m worried about. It’s the people who think they’ll experts, and actually end up trampling on the overall process. 

Those people need a circuit trip to get them to pause, and assess whether they really know the process or not. And I’ve seen even just a renaming of something can be enough to trigger that. It’s a really inexpensive technique to help remove old baggage and help reset bad habits that people bring in.