The Frankfurt School meets Fisher in this critique of capitalism incorporating memes, mental illness and psychedelia into a proposed counterculture.
The Frankfurt School meets Fisher in this critique of capitalism incorporating memes, mental illness and psychedelia into a proposed counterculture.
Criticism, Political, Popular culture
The Frankfurt School meets Fisher in this critique of capitalism incorporating memes, mental illness and psychedelia into a proposed counterculture.
Spring 2020 to 2021 was the year that did not take place. We witnessed a depression, not economically speaking, but in the psychological sense: A clinical depression of and by society itself. This depression was brought about not just by Covid isolation, but by the digital economy, fueled by social media and the meme. In the aftermath, this book revisits the main Frankfurt School theorists, Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin and Marcuse, who worked in the shadow of World War Two, during the rise of the culture industry.
In examining their thoughts and drawing parallels with Fisher's Capitalist Realism, The Memeing of Mark Fisher aims to render the Frankfurt School as an incisive theoretical toolbox for the post-Covid digital age. Taking in the phenomena of QAnon, twitch streaming, and memes it argues that the dichotomy between culture and political praxis is a false one. Finally, as more people have access to the means for theoretical and cultural broadcasting, it is urged that the online left uses that access to build a real life cultural and political movement.
Click on the circles below to see more reviews
With a host of respected academics—including Matt McManus, Alfie Bown, and Conrad Hamilton—already endorsing Mike Watson’s The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What To Do About It, there is little that has not been said to praise Watson’s latest work. Indeed, if with his 2019 book Can the Left Learn to Meme?: Adorno, Video Gaming, and Stranger Things Watson announced himself as a significant voice of the online left, then it is with his latest offering that he establishes his reputation as one of the most impressive analysts of our strange digital era. In building upon his previous work, in which he sought to recuperate and reimagine Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s 1944 essay “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” for a contemporary audience—championing the power of new media (such as memes, online gaming, and social media) as offering boundless opportunity for expression and advocating the utilization and abstraction of it through persistence production—Watson once again revisits the work of the Frankfurt School as an antidote for the sickness of modern times. Such pathology is diagnosed through the unwavering, if not increased relevance of the late Mark Fisher’s 2009 book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, which echoes the bleak skepticism of Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek in arguing that it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism. In considering the enduring nature of Fisher’s work, the systematic failures of the online left and the expected remnants of a post-COVID-19 society, Watson recalls another point of collapse and cultural re-emergence, namely that of the post-war period and, in particular, the work of the Frankfurt School theorists Adorno, Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse as he looks to pick up the mantle of Fisher’s unfinished work Acid Communism and tries to sketch a blueprint for a new dawn. Located within the framework of the Frankfurt School’s critical theory, The Memeing of Mark Fisher boldly riffs on everything from conspiracy theories and memes to economic policy and election campaigns, as it skillfully assesses the role that new media has played in the recent rise of right-wing populism. In reasoning that the perceived dichotomy between culture and political praxis is a false one, Watson identifies the memeosphere as a key marginal seat, possessing the ability to decide our social and economic futures. With the Right so adept at leveraging new media, The Memeing of Mark Fisher culminates as a call to arms and urges the online left to use cultural production in a rally against apathy and cynicism. ~ merion west review by Al Binns, https://merionwest.com/2021/09/17/review-the-memeing-of-mark-fisher/
'It is tempered and thoughtful and engages with different meme trends, wondering how they express certain structures of feeling and relate to different philosophical concepts and movements' ~ Matt Colquhoun (Xenogothic Blog/Repeater Books), Xenogothic.com the essay 'Memeing Politics' ... https://xenogothic.com/2021/07/01/memeing-politics/
"Mike Watson's book describes our current social environment in a detailed and very imaginative way, connecting ideas taken from media studies, philosophy, political theory and internet culture. Also, he makes a very bold statement about the importance of creative work and artistic production in challenging the most dangerous tendencies of neoliberalism, urging the Left to embrace desire and its creative sublimation - also in collaborative forms - in order to build a better society." ~ Valentina Tanni, art historian, media researcher, professor at Milan Polytechnic and Naba Rome, request for endorsement
"The basic strength of the work is the way that it fixates on the formal attributes of technology in the age of Instagram, eschewing both philosophical polemics and dry economic analysis… if Srnicek is the best Marxist thinker of the data economy, Watson is—dare I say it?—the best Marxist thinker of the culture of data." ~ Conrad Hamilton, co-author 'Myth and Mayhem: A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson', request for endorsement
“The continued relevance of Mark Fisher’s work is strong evidence of the period of Capitalist Realism we still find ourselves stuck in. Mike Watson builds on this important tradition by directly addressing the memeosphere and social media discourse. Perhaps the emergent “doomerism” of online youth subcultures contains within it a glimmer of hope for an alternative future beyond neoliberalism.” ~ Joshua Citarella, Artist, Researcher, Twitch Streamer, request for endorsement
'Watson's fantastic intervention takes on the depressive inertia of a post-covid, data driven, society and asks how an important history of philosophy can argue us out of the impasses of contemporary social and political life. Working with a tradition from Benjamin and Marcuse to the late Mark Fisher, Watson shows that a particular form of economic and political theory needs to be combined with his own brand of media studies and pop culture analysis to bolster the causes of the digital Left today. Assessing the defeats of socialist causes over recent years and analysing the digital world of elections and desire, Watson rebuilds a class solidarity from an important history of Marxist theory that can re-invigorate the Left today in the battle against right-wing populism and capitalist media discourse. This ambitious book, taking in everything from conspiracy and memes to economic policy and election campaigns, is a must-read for anyone who wants to join the battle for a better future.' ~ Alfie Bown, Royal Holloway, University of London, request for endorsement
"Watson is fast becoming one of the most impressive left analysts of our strange digital era; helping to fill the void left by Mark Fisher's tragic passing. In his new book-part tribute to Fisher, part cultural analysis, part reflections on the Frankfurt school-Watson shows the enduring power of a dialectical approach to capitalist realism and exposes the many ways post-modern neoliberal culture has successfully neutered liberating aesthetics. In the powerful final chapter, Watson rethinks the potential of Frankfurt school critical theory to provide answers, and sketches an inspiring vision of what the acid-left can be. We may not have all the answers, but all of us should be very grateful Watson is on hand to help us ask the right kinds of questions." ~ Matt McManus, Professor of Politics at Whitman College, request for endorsement
"In the wake of Trump, the pandemic, as well as notable social democratic electoral losses in the West, Mike Watson is doing something that is much needed; he's asking the right questions. The meme wars have indeed coincided with a perilous fog of confusion and tension among those invested in emancipatory politics, but Watson's analysis of such trends is a luminous source of clarity." ~ David Stockdale, Nightmare Masterclass Podcaster and YouTuber, request for endorsement
