Version 2.0

“All art is quite useless” Oscar Wilde. Wilde is of course right. In terms of plain old survival; art is useless. That is part of its joy. To have the time to try to make or enjoy something beautiful, or thought provoking, is the one of the most sublime aspects of leisure. That’s why the verb “To Netflick” exists. That is also why a lot of the internet, is people talking about the useless . We share our overlapping narratives whether they are fictional or not. So, the summer’s gone and so too has that weird moment in time when my YouTube recommendations were chockablock with Vlogs and video essays; ranting about Star Wars and Game of Thrones. Now, I know I locked myself into an algorithm bubble. You Tube’s A.I. just fed me that stuff because I click, click, click. Even so, that’s a lot of content generated and a very big bubble. When the new trilogy of Star wars came out and everybody was happy for a while and then the Fandom started to complain that the Force Awakens...

The Scene: It’s 1995, the year in which we saw Richey James Edwards heartbreakingly surreal disappearance from the Manic Street Preachers, Tupac have   a No. 1 album whilst in prison, The Beetles and   Queen release “new” material and Bjork   telling everyone about the joys of being quiet. But did you know that the Oasis song “Wonderwall” hit No.1 and No.2 in the British charts at the same time? The original:                            Wonderwall by Oasis was the anthem of my youth, and there is no way in hell that overplay could scratch its raw honesty and ubiquity. My mate Keith played and sang a great version of it, we sang it on the way to parties, we sang it at parties, on the bus on the way home from parties, at our school graduation, at weddings, we chanted along with it, at the pub. It came on the radio like the unexpected visit of a good friend. From it’s simple opening gui...

I love being pretentious. It’s my third favorite thing to do in the world (don’t ask). I’m really good at it. I’ve being doing it all my life. Knowing things granted me the attention I was desperate for at school, I soon became addicted to it, and like many addicts I soon found it surprisingly easier than I thought to “phone it in”, and sound smarter than I really am. I think all swots and teacher’s pets are pretentious people in training. I especially enjoyed the gambler’s adrenaline rush of multiply choice questions. Yet modern society frowns on pretense. At least, it does in our face to face everyday interactions. It’s important to distinguish between this form of pretense and the on-line form, because on the Internet we have entered a golden age of pretense. The ability to edit our lives, find videos of cute cats to share, intellectually pose on reedit, in other words; make ourselves and our ideas sound far more important than they really are. Goggle has also had a warping...