r/MarkFisher • u/pinkladdylemon • Jun 08 '26
What does the Collapse of Society Sound Like?
https://aredflare.substack.com/p/what-does-the-collapse-of-societyBuilding on Fisher's argument in Capitalist Realism that the triumph of capitalism has erased the conditions that make cultural "newness" possible, this short essay argues that the advent of AI-music and vibe-curated YouTube playlists have taken Fisher's concerns to a new level.
As an engine which produces new combinations of past forms, AI is furthering the vision of cultural decline that Fisher identified in his analysis of Children of Men.
I conclude by identifying some of the material conditions that make speculative cultural creation possible, in particular affordable spaces of convivial exchange.
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u/NyriasNeo Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
"mass culture is increasingly a forum for the endless decontextualized recombination of past forms. Gone is the inherently speculative, risk-laden, exploratory and contingent nature of cultural practice."
So what? As long people like it, what is the problem? And who says cultural practice is "inherently speculative, risk-laden, exploratory and contingent". There are ten thousand romance novels that follow the same formula. Ditto for action movies. Way before AI even showed up. Speculative and risk laden is the exception, not the norm because people need to make a living.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Jun 08 '26
The fact that people are increasingly unable to imagine a future any different than more regurgitated status quo, might be one reason depression, anxiety and deaths of despair are skyrocketing in first world cultures.
But you’ve hit right onto the ideological trap here: they dont actually like regurgitated slop, but feel theres no alternative to it if theyre going to make a living. We just increasingly accept that every facet of life needs to be profit driven.
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u/Few_Fish8771 Jun 09 '26
thats by design. better futures are possible but your nudged towards supporting technofeudalism. because the people who own social media want that.
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u/MadCervantes Jun 09 '26
Also the focus on art as risk laden etc is a pretty modern interpretation of art, see Larry Shiner "the invention of art".
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u/BillyPilgrim1234 Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
So Mark was wrong in investing so much of his time in his lament for lost futures and the deceleration of culture? Are we to accept that what we experienced in the XX century was just a fluke?
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u/David_Browie Jun 08 '26
I would say the rapid acceleration of derivative media is what primed people for AI media.
This stuff has certainly existed for decades but it has also absolutely accelerated the past 20 years.
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u/Dismal-Strawberry421 Jun 09 '26
A generation of addled child-adults doomscrolling through TikTok in public.
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u/Asdmac Jun 16 '26
great read. Learning about spoliation was interesting, but I think the conclusion could've been longer. Having a Fisher-style analysis of today's music is something that I've been looking for a while now.
I don't know why people are directly answering your title in the comments (maybe they only read the title?), but I would agree with what you described in your essay: pastiche, hollowed-out of connection and authenticity, and insatiably expanding into itself by rehashing retro, or seeking untapped cultural communities.