Category: Mark Fisher
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“Got your number”: 118118 as the cultural ghosts of a future we never had
In the early 2000s, before the global financial crash ripped the world apart and the latent fascistic tumult was cloaked in a burial shroud of capitalist realism, the soon-to-be outgoing Labour government was not immune to the heady allure of the privatisation drug. In their sights was the clumsy, but…
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90s Lads’ Mags and the toxic masculinity we can’t escape
Like any teenage boy with his hormones raging, I admit to there being the odd poster of Jennifer Aniston on my bedroom wall alongside Pearl Jam, Faith No More and Duncan Ferguson. I was a child of the 90s, so of course I was exposed to the ‘lads mag’ culture…
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Bubblegum Dystopia: The Sweet Decay of Late-Stage Capitalism
I recently came across the term ‘bubblegum dystopia’ (this video explains that it comes from a quip about Terry Gilliam’s 2014 film The Zero Theorem) and oh yes, it’s a *chefs kiss* description of the current conjuncture of late-stage palliative capitalism we find ourselves in… Because while the world boils,…
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Against Future-Proofing
I was sent this paper by a colleague this morning and not only does it make for some extremely depressing reading if you work in (and value the merits of) public higher education, but it also made me extremely agitated by the use of the term ‘future proofing’. In the…
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The Big Breakfast: the first meal of Cool Britainnia
Yes I know, I’ve perhaps been reading too much of Mark Fisher of late, but I really do think he was on to something. Perhaps it’s because I’m a child of the 90s, maybe because my first ever proper job gave me a front row seat in the ever-accelerating juggernaut…
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The (not so) original sin of Apple’s ‘Crush’ Advert
Apple have a bit of history with controversial commercials. The infamous 1984 cinematic ad directed by Ridley Scott won a sack full of awards, but many commentators highlighted how it signalled the birth of a kind of consumerist tech capitalism in which products’ branding and image were far more important…
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Escaping 1997
Have you noticed that we’re stuck in the year of 1997? If you call recall that time, it was the apotheosis of neoliberalism with Bill Clinton securing a second term as US president and Tony Blair blustered into Number 10 riding the coattails of Cool Britannia culture and associated celebrities.…
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Hauntology: The Persistent Echoes of Lost Futures and Unfulfilled Promises
I sat down over the weekend to watch a Muppet’s Christmas Carol with the kids, and despite it being a tale a about a super-rich oligarch that is essentially guilt tripped into being a charitable entrepreneur, yet maintains his exploitative corporate enterprise but with just slightly higher wages in lieu…
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From Le Guin to Afrofuturism via Fisher: Decolonising revolutionary futures
The late, great American science fiction and anti-capitalist novelist, Ursula K. Le Guin said in 2014 these now oft-quoted words: “Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the…
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