Can the Left Learn to Meme?: Adorno, Video Gaming, and Stranger Things

by Mike Watson

Taking in an array of cultural references from the contemporary art world, to cat memes, Stranger Things, the Kardashian-Jenners, Mad Men, Run the Jewels, and video gaming, Can the Left Learn to Meme? argues that there is positivity in millennial-era cultural production. Utilising Adorno’s unswerving yet understated hope in spite of the odds, Mike Watson embraces the abstraction of the new media landscape as millennials refuse to surrender to cynicism, by out-weirding even the world at large. They pose a radical alternative to the right wing approach of Steve Bannon and the conservative psychology of Jordan Peterson. Here, the cultural elitism of the art world is contrasted with the anything-goes approach of millennial culture. The left avant-garde dream of an art-for-all is with us, though you won't find it in museums. It is time the left learned to meme, challenging conventions along the way.

Genres: Theory, Philosophy, Politics

112 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2019

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

The references analyzed throughout, albeit meandering and disjointed, offer tidbits of profundity but aren’t fully realized into a cohesive theory. Would love to see these ideas conveyed in a more widely-digestible manner.

[Kit · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 Many Zero Books are notorious for a wandering university lecture’s nature, so here is a warning for folks that aren’t so fond of that. I deeply enjoy them, but the above certainly comes with the territory.

Touching on order vs chaos and their roles in creativity, the learned subjugation of the so-called successful young artist to the will of capital, the culture jamming of vaporwave and YouTube, and the conflicts between creating truly subversive art with the technological tools brought about by capitalism, Can The Left Learn To Meme? offers precious little about memes as I imagined they would be covered, but more about the birth of artistic expressions and work in neoliberal societies.

Discussion of Adorno’s shudder wind around abstract and political art, the surprising effectiveness of millennial sensibilities being presented through YouTube videos, and community building in online gaming abounds. The book is far more centered on the machinations of the world of high art than I had expected and, humorously enough, though this wasn’t really indicated by the title, I found it offered a fair amount to me as an artist, if little as a memelord. Go figure!

The discussion of art world investment and the ouroboros of art world consuming artist as artist consumes capital generated by the whims of the art world (read:dealers, collectors, and investors) going so far to rank artists in online industry stock markets of their own makes me feel a bit better that I wasted my art degree on a paralibrarian position that allows me to make art that matters to me, but maybe nets me an odd twenty every few weeks. At least what I do is mine that way.

The argument that millennials seek hope in their own absurdist and creative pursuits online because the art world has been too closed and exclusive is a fair and welcoming one, with the jamming of existing properties and the new user generated content being a more fulfilling focus before the full commodification begins. The book struggles to knit these things together for the majority of the read and seemed a bit more interested in using the namedrops and references than using them effectively. The Stranger Things one in particular made me groan a bit through it, though I was delighted to see Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared referenced and used in a manner that made great sense of the thesis. (For those who have not seen the series, it can articulate on its own what Watson is somewhat floundering at here, though well intentioned and with a few sparkling points to be sure.)

If only the title hadn’t sold me a completely different idea of what I would be reading I would be much happier with it. I expected some discussion of humor through memes and their political power being harnessed for the larger political conversation in social media and...well... guess it changed direction from when I first heard the title floated?

[Kit]

I think this book makes a pretty good assessment of which parts of Adorno are still on the money, which once held true but are no longer true, and those which were blind spots from the beginning.

I found many of the cultural references and their explorations to me illuminating: Why did: 'Stranger Things' resonate with so many? Oneohtrix Point Never's "Nobody Here" stir me so? The video series "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" delighted my whole dorm building?

I have definitive answers to these questions now where I had none before.

Other reviewers note the meandering text. That is a fair criticism, but I feel that we are witnessing the wavering of a gymnast who has been overly ambitious in choosing a routine; the issues at the heart of this book are only just beginning to resolve into clarity and it would take a master to to really nail the delivery. Even if this book is merely loose collection of themes and ideas that form constellations but not yet a zodiac, that is still a rare and welcome feat. The same could be said of other 'Zero' prints, god bless em.

Edit: After sleeping on it, I have to add some reservations to my praise. Watson relays two of Adorno's paradoxes: poetry is impossible after Aushwitz, yet we must try anyways; the culture industry makes us dumber while making us smarter.

Will communities spring up from video games with liberatory potential, or will they merely spin their wheels endlessly, forming and reforming identities? Can memes ever induce the 'shudder' of awakening, or will the clog up our imaginations with plaque?

I remain pessimistic. I think some of these digital mediums need to be treated as poisoned fields. It seems maybe Watson sees them rather as fields where the wrong crops are being grown. Memes, Video games, 'content creation' on youtube and instagram etc etc; all of these things have only ever distracted, numbed and weakened me. Perhaps the snobbery of Adorno had a kernel of truth to it.

[Chris Hearn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A creative & compelling work that contemporises Adorno for our current moment. A treatment the Frankfurt thinker unfortunately does not receive much of. Watsons work is a highly informative and original account of Adorno for the 21st century.

[Alex Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Underwhelming. Gets way too bogged down in theory and seems to drift away haphazardly from the topics the book tries to address.

More contemporary examples from online culture would’ve made things clearer to me.

[Mikkel Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Academia made artistic made fun. Confusing but interesting. I subtract a star for stale meme-game.

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wishy washy, didn't really say much. But can't deny there was some useful points

[Alexander Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is meandering. It largely leans on long exposition related to popular media, hoping that the reader has read lots of philosophical work prior to this. I can't say that this book was very helpful in developing a theoretical understanding. It seemed to hope I already had a firm grasp of the theoretical pieces such that these pieces could simply be put together from recent pop culture.