#Ethical consumption is impossible under late capitalism

[deweydecimalchickens]

The impossible Venn diagram Pick Two Out Of Three strikes again. I love everything about Ethletics hi-top sneakers except how they feel to walk in. Which is sort of key, in shoes. They do need to be made for walking.

One day I will find the shoe that doesn't harm animals, doesn't harm humans, and actually feels good on my feet. If I sacrifice enough tofu to the Forgotten Gods, maybe it'll even be affordable.

(Running shoes are even worse. Do not get me started. Whyyyyyyyy are New Balance in partnership with the US military. Whyyyyyyyy are Inov8s always slightly too small. Whyyyyyyyy.)

[olderthannetfic]

Anon who sent the “too much work” for media ask.

My main point was not that it’s too much work to not like what everyone else likes. I do actually like Star Wars (mostly- we don’t talk about the last two movies) and GBBO for their own sake and a bunch of other mainstream and random, more niche stuff both, including indie things. But yes, I do like to have a balance, because I can’t talk to my coworkers about the latest mosterfucker book I read. I don’t think it’s crazy to want to have a few shared interests I can talk about with the people I spend 40+ hrs a week with.

The original ask that I was replying to was about how people shouldn’t consume mainstream shit because there’s indie media available. My biggest point of contention there was that the reason given for this was that - “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” doesn’t apply to media - and maybe I got a little off that and reading back, my ask does sound defensive. Oh well, too late now.

My problem is with the implication that all indie media is inherently more ethical than anything mainstream. It’s the inherent judgment that comes across. If we’re judging media by it’s creators, or owners, then it stands to reason that we’d apply that standard to all media, right? That’s what my point was, and that’s what I don’t have the time or energy for. If something or someone is famously bigoted then okay, I’m skipping that. But I don’t assume that everything mainstream is unethical and everything indie is ethical, and I’m not doing deep dives into every piece of media to determine if it’s ethically okay for me to consume, because it’d literally be impossible.

And books did occur to me, I just didn’t specifically list it or use one as an example. I don’t talk about books very often because there aren’t many people in my life that are interested in listening and I’m just used to not bringing it up, but I feel like my point still stands. I read all kinds of things and I don’t research the author or publishing house or bookstore I purchase it from. I’m not about to start, either.

Hopefully that’s clearer.

--

[writinggremlinskull]

About Hogwart Legacy

Tw for transphobia and antisemitism

I’ll begin by telling I didn’t buy the game. I don’t want to support Rowling in any way and I don’t want to support antisemitism and transphobia.

This is just an attempt to preach kindness. This is for the people who are hesitating to buy the game or already bought it but can still ask for a refund it or at least let a negative review. Not for the TERF crowd but for the people in-between.

I am not throwing accusation here but I know I got disillusioned with activism a few years back. This is me talking about my personnal experience and why not supporting this game matters.

I know the boycott can feel useless. Hogwart Legacy is breaking sales record, lot of streamers are playing it because it’s a really popular game and they want the money, lot of people are enjoying it.

I know ethical consumption is impossible under capitalism. I know the world seems fucked up right now and it feels hopeless at time. Trust me I know.

And yet, not buying this game still matters. Asking for a refund if you had it for less than 14 days and didn’t play more than 2 hours (this is the Steam Policy in my country, check what is it in your). Letting negative review is still possible. If you still hesitate to buy it, don’t.

You see, JK Rowling isn’t a corporation. Yes, boycotting Disney which has a monopoly on most of the entertainment industry is hard. Yes, when most of our food come from 5 companies, it’s almost impossible to boycott them because you need to eat, right?

But Rowling is only one person. One deeply rich person who uses her money in deeply fucked up way but just one and she’s been milking the Harry Potter’s cash cow for years because she didn’t write anything good since. If you don’t buy official Harry Potter things, her power lessen. Each pound not in a pocket is a pound which can’t harm anyone. Each pound matters.

You can not buy it. You can still ask for a refund and use the refund to give to trans right association. It isn’t too late.

Now, maybe all your friends play it. I don’t know what your social circle is like, peer pressure is a thing. Maybe you’re thinking I won’t make a difference, nobody seems to care.

This is why speaking out against the game is important. Show that it isn’t only a minority who cares. I’ll argue it’s more important if you aren’t yourself trans or jewish. If you have some degree of priviledge, you can use it. The more people speak, the better.

Speak out on social media. Tell your friend you won’t play the game and why. I’m not asking you to fight with them. Play it smart. Tell them “I’m disappointed, I thought you were better” if you know they value your opinion on these things. Nobody likes to think of their friends as prejudiced in any way but sometimes, being a good friend means gently telling someone ‘Hey bro, that’s a bit fucked up, don’t you think?”

Keep sharing the spoilers for the games.

I spoke of two reasons I can think of someone who, without being a TERF, could buy the game. Now, is the third one: you could want to because trans people and jewish people are being agressive about it.

Yes, it isn’t nice to be called transphobic and yes, some are very agressive about it.

I’m going to ask you something. Think about your own marginalized identity if you have one. If not, imagine what if you were discriminated against for something out of your control like being blond. Imagine if people like you had been harassed, discriminated against. Imagine having a doctor denying you medical care because you exist as yourself. Imagine people calling the cops on you because you EXIST.

I know a lot of you on Tumblr don’t have to imagine it because it happened, even if it wasn’t transphobia or/and antisemitism.

Now, imagine someone, a well-known writer, spoke against people like you vocally. Imagine she support laws against you and people like you. And there is this game out which will brought her a lot of money. And people buy it by the thousands, some because they are bigot and other because lot of people are buying it, me doing it won’t change things or the voices speaking against it seem so small, what’s the point or all my friends are buying it and they aren’t transphobic or antisemit isn’t it?

Won’t you be angry? Really angry? Won’t you lash out? Think about the last time you were that angry or the last time you were discriminated against. It sucks. It fucking sucks. People are not going to be nice and polite when they are scared and angry and at the end of their rope. They still deserve to be treated decently as human beings.

This is for the people who bought it or hesitate to buy it without being TERF.

You made a mistake or hesitate to make one but it isn’t too late to do something.

Ask for a refund. Share spoilers. Speak out on social media. Let negative review of the game. Point out the antisemitism and transphobia of Rowling, point out the antisemitism in the game, explain how the game support her.

Be kind to marginalized people. Be kind to trans people and jewish people and people who are both. Not buying this game, telling people you won’t buy it or thought about it ans asked for a refund, giving to trans right association instead.

It isn’t too late to choose kindness. It isn’t too late to show the trans community and the jewish community you are an ally. It isn’t too late to apologize. Choose kindness. You can still choose kindness.

[1ore]

exhausted-drone

So this version of the imperium doesn’t have the absolutely horrifying strangle hold on the populace that’s enforced with rabid priests, indoctrination, and a secret police force that pops up when worlds get a bit tooo lenient?

after writing a paper for like 3 hours this has activated my infodumping brain. Hope putting this in its own post is ok! This is one part answer and three parts needless extrapolation LOL

I would say the Empire does, in the sense that it has the /appearance/ of conformity as a result of draconic enforcement, and doesn’t, in the sense that even under the cruelest, most restrictive regimes there are still countercultures and people who are aware that something is Wrong, even if they can't articulate what, but are just trying to get by and not get got by the inquisition.

of course I'm most interested in these edge cases of resistance and survival, and people who are in the process of becoming these edge cases, so the sampling group is already skewed in that direction. But on the whole I think the Archive and inquisition have only driven opposition underground. Just because these people have to organize in clandestine ways doesn't mean they aren't out there-- though to the bystander and to the Archive, it sure feels like they have an iron grip on things.

Ultimately these are still humans enforcing these systems on other humans, and humans is messy. one of the things I really enjoy exploring is how the same characters can harbor a little bit of that spark, while also stomping it out in others-- this is a system where we often hurt each other to bargain for our own safety, security, power, etc. (albeit one in which the old adages like "There Is No Ethical Consumption Under Late Capitalism" and "You Are Not Immune To Propaganda" are taken to their hyperbolic extreme, so it's more morbidly funny and cathartic instead of despairingly painful for me.)

like, Markus does this by keeping his real intentions guarded close to his heart, being 100x more clever, pitiless, and monstrous than his enemies, and clawing his way to power through any means necessary so that he can do the One Good Thing he wants to do. I imagine that the people who knew him before his ascent reminisce about how he used to be "one of them," and the betrayal of him selling his soul and throwing away his responsibility to them in exchange for power really fucking stings.

But when he is at the top, he can leverage his charisma and inordinate power to create nigh-blasphemous (read: marginally progressive) changes that nobody really has the power to challenge him on. (and also collect all all the gay people in the Archive under one administrative roof, i guess, yeah.) Arguably this catches up with him before he can do the One Good Thing he wants to do, and the One Good Thing was impossible from the beginning anyway, but for a minute there he sure is doing. Something.

The Doc does this by resigning herself to the role of pitiless doctor she was casted as. In action, she's doing everything the Archive asks of her, but she owes them no love or loyalty and jumps on any opportunity to go her own way and further her own (admittedly buckwild) interests when it's safe to do so. Even when she's being subversive, she has the appearance of reveling in doublespeak and doubledealing, and you can't be sure if she actually means it or not. But this is to reinforce an image of being emotionally untouchable, manipulative, and two-faced, which protects her and those around her from having any emotional ties used against them. Ultimately, she's the only one with the power to do things like make certain """mistakes"""" during MarkOS' creation, and look the other way when Reyes later takes a magnet to his brain.

And then, of course, when the culture of compliance and mutual enforcement fails, there are the people who are explicitly tasked with rooting out opposition. Hard to untangle from people who are in positions of authority already (i.e. Markus and the Chief) but there's the Sibyls and the late inquisitor. MarkOS too, technically, as most secutors are hard-wired to serve a surveillance function.

I did Not get into it on their post, but the Sibyls in particular are walking two different paths re: being agents of inquisition. The current Sibyl enforces faithfulness with the fervor of someone who 100% believes in what she's doing, and that sincerity is where she draws her power and sway-- leading by example and scaring the shit out of anyone who doesn't live up to her expectations. This is why anything short of perfect adherence is so disturbing to her, from others and especially from herself. She's the shining golden child, and if she can't get it right, who can?

The ex-Sibyl, on the other hand, considered all the little lies and implicit threats of divine retribution to be tools in a toolbox, vital to keeping people alive in the face of unconscionable violence, and especially in situations where fragmenting and defecting could threaten their survival. whether or not this was actually true may have had some kind of effect on her going absolutely off the shitts later. But her understanding of The Propaganda as a utilitarian tool allowed her play both sides, forming authentic relationships with the rest of her company and more effectively identifying where doubt and fear is hiding through these relationships... Even if it tore her apart in the end.

Barring Reyes, most of these walnuts are coming from positions of relative privilege that make it challenging to let go of the lies sold to them. I think it's easier to see past the power blinders when you go down the hierarchy. Obviously there is a. Big interest in selling the public on the idea that they stand to gain from throwing their lot in with the Empire and the Powers That Be, in much the same way that certain political forces need you to rest assured in the idea that anyone can become a billionaire if they just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The alternative is also the threat of Death and Dying, or maybe being left to the "savage and uncaring embrace of the cosmos," which the Archive assures you is full of nasty things that want to drink your bone marrow and eat your eyeballs. Anyway. Point is, I think it's more common than meets the eye for the average citizen of the Empire to be aware that Something Is Wrong, but moved to inaction by despair, or fear, or survival, or just complacency.

And as long as that doesn't turn into visible, organized action (or as long as they are sneaky enough) it gives the appearance of cohesion, even if it's false. It's enough that even someone like Reyes could make the mistake of assuming the average Imperial is so brainwashed they're not aware of the power dynamics at play. (or at least. Some of them. misinformation about things like other spacefaring communities and nonhuman peoples abounds.)

Mostly this just means Reyes is surrounded by people who are uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh acting out of fear of something that both does and doesn't hold the power over them that they think it does.

The God-King Isn't Real. He Can't Hurt You

[cicada-s]

I looked and it didnt seem like anyone addressed this point so i cant help but step in with some more context here!

All of the replys urging people to shop locally and in garment districts are absolutely right, everyone should do that! Stop giving you money to Big Joann TM and find a craft store near you! But it seems to have missed us that the Reason for doing that isnt finding ethically sourced fabric. Buying offcuts by the pound is not at all supporting ethical production (i know that no one is claiming this specifically - dont do a hostile read here give me a chance lol).

Supporting local business is great! Full stop! But the fabric youre buying there was produced in the exact same sweatshops in indonesia, china, india, and pakistan that go to shein workshops to be made into disposable, single-use garments. The pay, working conditions, etc. are not going to be any more ethical or sustainable.

However by making your own crafts (even if you get the materials from aliexpress!) you are eliminating at least one stage from the cannibalistic ourobouros that is late-stage capitalism, and youre making sure that at least one unethical company (in this case jewelry so claires? Forever21? Where are the kids buying theire nonsense nowadays ?) is not profiting off of your purchasing power, and you are not participating in their control over the system as a whole.

But i hear you saying ah! But it doesnt matter! As OP said you cant claim ot was ethically made when the materials were not Also ethically made!

Tragically, clothing/fashion/fabric production is the quinticencial example of that memefrom the good place where they conclude that there is No ethical consumption under modern day capitalism. There are simply too many stages in development, and we have globalized them so thoroughly that if you arent purchasing from a company that publically documents every single stage in production (which i have had yet to find anywhere close to my price range) Because otherwise its impossible to be sure there wasnt slave labor in there Somewhere.

Where was the cotton/linen/wool farmed? How were the materials shipped? How was the fiber spun? And then shipped again? What was the fiber blended with? How was it woven/knit? Was it crocheted? (Because we currently do not have a mechanical process for crochet! If you purchase a crochet garmet, it was done by hand! Entirely!)

What about the dye process? How about the environmental regulations around dye manufacturers and fabric dyers? How could it have potentially contributed to pollution or to adverse health affects for workers?

Then, and only then, can we get to the problems with shein-style clothing manufacturing.

The attention paid to the conditions of fast-fashion production is disproportionately given to this final stage in the process (not that it doesnt require our attention - obviously the conditions are inhumane, unsustainable, and just wrong in every ssense of the word). But when youre asking the question, where can i/should i look to buy ethical materials for my craft work, it is extraordinarily difficult to aswer even one of the questions from above.

I have a lot of different political/economic opinions from the author of this book (i am a communist, she is an American economist sooooo….) but she gives an amazing overview of the timeline of fast fashion production, and its economic history. So if youre at all interested in exploring that i do really reccomend this:

The travels of a T Shirt in the World Economy - i found a pdf of it here

The point of this was not for me to be super discouraging though! I do not want to discount the power that making your own clothes, thrifting, or buying locally has! All of those things are incredibly significant - it takes money out of the ourborous that is H&M and gives it to your neighbor, or local shopkeeper. What it doesnt do (necessarily) is take it out of the cannibalistic system entirely.

But there isnt a way for us, with our personal purchasing power, to do that. Instead we must use our political power to continue the ongoing campaign to force political bodies to regulate international companies like Shein, like H&M, like forever21. To prevent human rights violations and promote labor rights internationally.

One of the more interesting sections of that book was where the author interviewed a garment worker, surprised by the fact that she repeatedly purchased clothes made in the same sweatshops she was forced to work 16-18 hour days in. To us westerners, that is a very reasonable question! The concept of the ethical ramifications of individual purchasing power is very entrenched here. But the garment worker was taken aback that the author would even think to ask her that - because her individual purchasing decisions mean nothing in the grand scheme!

Companies have successful diverted the blame from themselves, and their deeply unethical business practices, to us! Theyre saying “well youre the one who buys this stuff! Its all of your fault! If you want the people who made it to be paid more than 10 cents a hour, go buy shit from somewhere else!”

And then theyve made it so that “somewhere else” is not only owned by them, so they can keep their profit margins the same, but often literally produced side by side, in the same exact factory, and just given different packaging down the line. And so many of these damn companies own each other that its impossible for the average joe to work out all the red tape, and so Big Joann TM continues to take my money, time and time again.

Basically, just do whatever you can, wherever you are, and support labor rights everywhere, in all cases, without exception. (Except cops fuck those motherfuckers they dont count as labor).

And distrust/discount any label on a fiber based product that claims ethicallity until doing Extensive research to prove their claims. No saying it doesnt exist! Just saying that the standard is extremely hard to reach under current conditions.

Anyway if anyone has made it this far i hope you have a lovely day and craft to your hearts content and dont let Big Joann TM make you feel bad for being unable to afford to buy solely entirely “ethical” materials. They dont really exist, and its not your fault for being poor. Big Joann TM likes it that way.

I feel like something that doesnt get talked about enough is how fast fashion is coming to hobbies as well. Sure, you can sew, knit, and crochet something better than youd buy in store, but good luck finding quality materials

Want a fabric that doesnt fray from being gently caressed? Want yarn thats not 100% plastic and splits if you touch it wrong? Good luck finding that if you dont have a genuinely good crafts store near you.

Go on any thread where people are trying to figure out where to buy fabric. 50% of it is people saying big stores are servicable, online stores work, or the like, and the other 50% are talking about how bad the quality is or how the quality of a website dropped because it was bought out

Were running into a problem where fast fashiob is so integrated into society that even the ability to make your own, comfortable and long lasting, clothes is being threatened by capitalism

[princessnijireiki]

torn between "why people gotta act new" & "why people gotta act like the validity of their ancestors is based entirely on token model minority esque purity politics where human flaws or self serving intentions knock them off the fictional pedestal they put those folks on as if that makes them unworthy"

"why people gotta act new" is faster to say, though.

[shittyavatarideas]

Avatar of the Web except it’s Nestle owning everything and making ethical consumption under late capitalism next to impossible.

[brothfan1997]

i think the phrase “there is no ethical consumption under late capitalism” legitimately set my development back multiple years when i first heard it in high school bc like ? yes its true but also i think a lot of people hear that and think ‘oh well nothings ethical so why shouldnt i eat at chick fil a or shop fast fashion” etc when like...... its not black and white... and you should always strive to be better and do better and be conscious of the paths the items you consume take before they are put before you. its true that under capitalism its practically impossible to exist without consuming something that, somewhere along the lines, exploited someones labor, but why shouldnt you try to the best of your ability to be aware of what you use? and support systems of individuals that strive to provide the best lives possible for themselves and others?

[thatheathen]

“Seize the day. Then set it on fire.”

We are living in that cyberpunk dystopia now, the very type Philip K. Dick warned us that could happen and is slowly creeping its way into our personal lives/minds and that's mainly due to big internet providers and the fascist governments whipped by corporations hijacking all modes of freedom even virtual freedoms. everything is connected in the system the ruling class decided and you are a slave with in that caste system until you die. oh gee fun. 

I feel bad for the devs that are forced to time crunch for this month. CD Projekt RED better compensate their workers for pushing this game out for them greedy selfish CEOs who are attached to this game that will no doubt be a hit and make tons of money, but at what cost? video game developers need to desperately unionize before its too late to even do so as most triple A games are made by wealthy liberal and or centrist elites who pretend to be progressive but actually hate unions, socialism, sharing, comradery, solidarity, grassroots fund raising cuz that’s all anti-capitalist and bad you see.  

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and that's exactly what cyberpunk is; it's a genre of unchained sci-fi yeah but it's also showing capitalism on steroids, corporations gone rogue and eating up all the earth's resources just to produce enough power and energy to run a whole city now requires a while country of power to push harder and harder to keep that light pollution at the maximum. animals should be going completely extinct in a cyberpunk future, what do humans even eat? 

To my mind cyberpunk should be about breaking away from cultural programming that makes us hate each other, fight and kill, it always boils down to those who have and those who have not social structure. That's a lot like Feudalism and a false sense of safety for all people. Cyber-feudalism is how it's structured underneath the veil. “Seize the day. Then set it fire.” 

Cyberpunk seems like a countercultural idea within the hyper-capitalist world that's still very male dominant. The feminine exist only to tantalize the masses, domestic females to slaves of profits and glamour. The brutal police forces ignoring human rights laws daily. Journalism is remotely impossible. So is the world of cyberpunk really a world of freedom and choices? Cyberpunk can be seen as a connection of like minded folk hungry for freedom and not need to fall into crime to survive. For many that’s the world you’re forced to live in or die in. rights are not natural handed from god, they are taken. cyber-rights seems like a fruitless fight in a hyper-cyber-capitalist reality; big brothers eyes everywhere. mass surveillance that would make PKD’s jaw drop.  cyberpunk-world cops are thugs beyond what we could imagine and could kill you on sight if they chose and nobody will care or not be able to do anything. nobodies memories can be trusted unless you express a certain class. all the punks, rejects, anarchists, anti-corporation, hackers, etc. are all outsiders, terrorist suspects. Every queer person or Muslim or any kind of marginalized group of that era is vulnerable as the system doesn’t favor them nor see a reason to protect them, with fascist-leaning politicians WANTING certain groups of people to literally die out. Those who struggle in any unequal world are going to be feeling the most pain. Lots of pain may mean; drug addiction to numb this awful reality, mod addiction to be less human maybe or change your identity completely. Lots of pain could also mean lots of anger towards the system and the state that’s making life so miserable for the 90% the citizens who have no power. cyberpunk 2077s idea is an “anything-goes” kinda place. here’s a sci-fi GTA/Witcher3 sandbox about a fucked up capitalist future that’s super fun and action packed!! It’s okay it’s not real though. Meanwhile capitalism as it exists today is grinding down the working class including the Dev employees working on Cyberpunk as I type this. long hours for the same pay. was it worth it? will it be worth it? will cyberpunk be the GAME that will end labor abuse in the gaming industry? 

People who are different, people who reject authority and anti-human social constructs, people who are spiritual without an organized religion, people so different and taboo to where the ruling elites see them as a threat, mocking those gross punks/queers/dissidents, but love their style and aesthetic because the rich have no soul and ZERO creativity. stealing is what rich assholes do best. rich people steal everyone’s aesthetic claiming it as their own and you begin to see YOUR aesthetic in the media regardless if it's offensive, it’s just unfettered anarcho-capitalist-land, there's no more restrictions to anything really. like ayn rand vision that would result in Bioshock’s world. that was a steampunk nightmare to an extent. point being the rich can do anything. money is power and it only matters to those who thirst for power. Many people just deal with money and hate at the same time cuz what other choice do people have? Poor people get no choices and all the bad days.

The rich and powerful will indulge in the vices of the poor to get another experience; meanwhile the real poor struggle to survive in this electronic hell world and your only choices are to fight and kill these hyper-corporations that run the planet's economy basically and that sucks. seems prophetic in a way to see what the future would be like if capitalism still stood and there was business as usual. I think a true dystopian cyberpunk world is full of dark skies and contagious air due to the extreme pollution i.e. climate change the previous generations of humans ignored and still ignore because profits and luxury and drugs and opulence and legacies and authoritarian rule is far more important to uphold you see. "human nature" is always condescendingly professed as an argument killer to why capitalism is the only way because hooomons are deep down real mean and violent... which is not true. 

Human infants literally can't live without being held and nurtured in a healthy environment. Humans are wired to love and communicate. humans lived a long time cuz they worked together. Humans lived even longer when they learned to domesticate animals leading to agriculture. only in the last 20,000 years have humans begun to grow their ego and misunderstand its message and purpose. fascists and billionaires take advantage of human minds and fool people into thinking there's no other way to live. it's a fucking lie. human beings are disconnected with nature. wires and cables are not non-nature, those are materials derived from nature. everything is nature, but not everything is natural like human concepts fabricated by civilizations.

“Deleuze and Guattari describe capitalism as a kind of dark potentiality which haunted all previous social systems. Capital, they argue, is the ‘unnamable Thing’, the abomination, which primitive and feudal societies ‘warded off in advance’. When it actually arrives, capitalism brings with it a massive desacralization of culture. It is a system which is no longer governed by any transcendent Law; on the contrary, it dismantles all such codes, only to re-install them on an ad hoc basis.” ― Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

I want a cyberpunk game where it's a good kind compassionate civilization, a star trek like society, full of infinite exploration into the cosmos and into our minds... I want a cyberpunk world worth protecting, protecting the people from sneaky politicians (demagogues) and authoritarian thugs ready to install the capitalist religion of endless self-destruction and pain. remnants of evil scatter and reform, we must always help people who struggle under capitalisms spell.

[fightmeyeats]

Skin Care as Self-Care: The Appropriation of Self Care by the Beauty Industrial Complex

Because we live in a society where our worth is heavily framed in terms of our production/capitalist exploitability as workers, emphasizing the importance of taking care of ourselves is absolutely important and can even be radical. However, “self care” as a framework has increasingly become individualizing and part of the larger neoliberalization of health/wellness in the U.S.. One place where this becomes especially clear is in the way self care has become deeply intertwined with the beauty industrial complex in contemporary practices and ideologies of “skin care”. 

More below the cut. 

Self care, at its root, is not the problem. As Audre Lorde’s famously said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare”. We are frequently made to feel that our only value is in how much we are able to do, how busy we are, how convenient we are; in this context, taking care of ourselves can feel selfish, and reframing the way we value ourselves and our needs becomes particularly important. However, increasingly we can see the ways in which self care serves to make contemporary capitalism (appear) tenable. 

This becomes clear first and foremost through the way self care is positioned as a response to the harm which occurs through late stage capitalism; we only need self care because of neoliberalism/capitalism, and yet by imagining self care as a practice of healing and revaluing the individual over the corporation, self care implicitly naturalizes the system which produces the need for self care. Essentially, self care operates through a neoliberal framework, individualizing care, healing, and wellness, in ways which disrupt or obscure communal networks of care. Through this framework, care not only becomes something which is enacted by and for the individual, but also constructed as the responsibility of the individual--typically in addition to regular obligations.One of the central problems exploiting workers causes corporations (assuming workers do not strike) is the problem of selling products--if no one can afford to purchase items, the system starts to fall apart. Because of this, mobilizing self care to encourage consumption helps support the entire system. “Self care” has increasingly become appropriated and intertwined with consumption; not only has he phrase itself becomes a kind of marketing, used in ads to sell products (for example, targeted instagram ads by a companies with the handle such as “selfcareisforeveryone” offering t-shirts with catchy slogans like “GOING TO THERAPY IS COOL!”), but “self care” as a practice is frequently associated with buying the things you want (#treatyoself) or, more and more often, buying items specifically marketed as being specifically necessary to produce relaxation, namely bath bombs, facemasks, and other skin care products. 

This is not a failure of those who are using self care to survive, but something directly produced by and through neoliberalism/capitalism; the necessity of self care starts to feel like

[image id:Seth Rogan putting duct tape over huge crack in the wall] 

but the central issue isn’t the people using the duct tape, it’s the way the late stage capitalism and neoliberalism intentionally frame band-aid solutions as meaningful responses to the damage capitalism produces--and then sell the band-aids for a profit. 

The connection between specifically skin care related products and broader “self care” discourse is certainly nothing new or surprising; in the last few years skin care has increasingly become a central focus in the marketing of U.S. beauty practices, with the concept of “self care” often being mobilized in these discourses. As Constance Grady argues in her 2018 Vox article “The skin care wars, explained,” contemporary ideas about skin care have not been hijacked by corporations “because skin care in its modern form has always been corporate” (emphasis added). 

While there are many ways in which one might critique this--for example, the way someone’s “natural” face comes to mean a face without makeup, subsequently naturalizing the artificial, expensive, and extensive routines which are required to achieve “clear” “moisturized” “healthy” “glowing” “natural” skin --what I am interested in exploring here is the shift in language from the beauty industry’s heavily “choice feminism” flavored branding of make up to the current branding of skin care. Whereas the branding of make up was (and still is) typically linked to discourses of creativity, freedom, and power (ie “winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut a man”), skin care is dominantly a neoliberal disciplining discourse, centered on the notion of individual responsibility to clean/purify skin through strict regimens of “care”. This is absolutely not to imply that make-up is better than skin care, merely to point to the various ways the beauty industrial complex deploys certain positive associations, often appropriated from or in conversation with the language of various feminisms, in order to increase marketability. 

One of the things which Jia Tolentino points out in her 2017 New Yorker article “The Year That Skin Care Became a Coping Mechanism,” is the way that while beauty standards have remained largely the same, the framing of these ideals shifts as feminism becomes more common in society--for example, rather than emphasizing looking young/anti-aging, there is an increase in the use of words like “radiance.” While her overall argument suggests that anti-aging skin care is an act of resistance because of the way it insists that there will be a future during a moment where the future feels increasingly unstable, the “coping mechanism” actually seems to be a response to agency panic, a way of controlling one’s self as a response to general instability. Again, like self care it imagines that individualized practices resist structural violence, while simultaneously increasing the marketability of misogynists beauty ideals. 

Feminist aesthetics and language are frequently appropriated by corporations to sell products to “conscientious” consumers (obligatory reminder that there’s no ethical consumption under late stage capitalism), or to profit off of the increasing visibility of various feminist activism. Just as we can see with the way the broader category of  “self care” is increasingly mobilized by corporations to sell products, in the last few years we’ve seen “skin care” culture come into vogue as the “positive” new version of make-up culture. The idea here is that skin care allows people to be “natural” and “healthy,” simultaneously justifying the time and expense associated with these updated beauty regimes, while also imaging that a) “healthy” skin is clear/even/looks “perfect” without the need for makeup and b) this skin is attainable by anyone who puts in the effort to achieve it. At best, skin care culture is a kind of capitalist ambivalence: regardless of whether prioritizing skin care is better than prioritizing cosmetic routines, the beauty industry only cares about selling product. As Tolentino argues, “when my skin feels good, I feel happy...at the same time, it’s impossible to ignore that the animating idea of the beauty industry is that women should always be working to look better”. Grady similarly points to this ambivalence, pointing out that “while it’s true that some forms of acne and dry skin are physically painful, the drive for “perfect” poreless skin is primarily an aesthetic one”.

At worst, skin care is insidious and damaging because despite the rhetoric of “care,” skin care is, at its base, a discourse of neoliberal bodily discipline--skin “defects” cannot simply be covered up but must be addressed through intensive routines which center a personal responsibility in fixing them. It is these same logics which produce the idea of a “glow up” (or “glo up”) which frequently compare an “ugly” picture of an individual--typically during their early teens (while they were going through puberty)--next to a “glowed up” version of the individual as a young adult. While these pictures do frequently involve makeup as part of the “glow up”, weight loss and clear skin are often associated with a glow up, and one of the central ideas being conveyed through this practice is that beauty is something “achieved”. 

Ultimately, my point is not to critique those who engage in skin care as self care, but rather the beauty industrial complex itself and the way that corporations intentionally appropriate and mobilize discourses of resistance in order to sell products. We know that physical appearance is associated with inner qualities and value; having “bad” skin often becomes a social signal for poor moral qualities (uncleanliness, laziness, unhappiness, lack of self care, etc); as many have come to realize, “choice feminism” is useless because while we do of course have agency, our choices are in part produced by the contexts we find ourselves in; the problem is not the individual people who engage in extensive skin care regimes, but rather the way that this is produced as a necessary and/or desirable choice. What we need to do is de-corporatize self care, and expand self care into practices of mutual/communal care. What we need is to create a world where self-care is more compatible with community organizing/striking/protesting than it is with the consumption of serums, lotions, face masks, face oils, exfoliators, toners, and eye creams. 

[wholesome--memes]

On a side note:

Ethical consumption under late capitalism is impossible. All companies whether they support Trump or not have other reasons to not be supported. If one cannot afford to change products, it will be okay. Gotta do what you gotta do.

[deweydecimalchickens]

I know ethical consumption is impossible under late capitalism but it seems unfair that it's also a complete pain in the arse.

[copperbadge]

Have you seen this article series by Kashmir Hill at Gizmodo? gizmodo[.]com/life-without-the-tech-giants-1830258056. She spent six weeks cutting the five big tech companies out of her life. It seemed up your alley, given your Amazon boycott

I heard an interview by her about it on a podcast, and while it’s a really interesting social/technical experiment and well worth reading about if you guys haven’t, I feel like I got the gist from the interview. (It started to get real deep into the technical nitty gritty after a while.) 

I like that it had a different slant from the usual “I gave up the internet and it sucked/I found inner peace [choose one]” because I always want to yell “THE PROBLEM IS YOU, YOUR BEHAVIOR IS THE PROBLEM NOT WHAT YOU ARE BEHAVING AT” because anything is harmful if you obsess too tightly over it, but that’s a You problem, not a That Thing problem. 

ANYWAY this was different, because it was specifically aimed at trying to survive in modern American culture without these hugely pervasive giant corporations getting involved. And I think that’s a much more challenging and interesting way to start addressing the issue. 

I mean, at this point, my no-Amazon rule isn’t even a boycott, it’s just a habit, because as she demonstrated, it’s difficult to truly exist in our society and not touch Amazon. Even in a retail sense, not using Amazon products has been harder going since they bought Whole Foods, since Whole Foods is one of the only places near my work to get actual facts groceries or any kind of, how do I put this, modular meal food (most of the places near work are like Chipotle where I’d be paying $8 for $4 worth of food I’ll actually eat and $4 worth of food I will either ask them not to use or pick out of the food I’m eating, but I still have to pay that $8). 

And of course it’s impossible not to use sites hosted by Amazon or built using Amazon tech, so it’s not like I even live a fully Amazon-free life. And at work we’re about to start using Amazon AI tech for modeling in our analytics division. So it’s not like I think I’m particularly great for not shopping on Amazon, it’s just at this point, I haven’t in so long that I don’t really consider it an option. 

Remember kids: There is no ethical consumption under late capitalism! Not Doing A Thing only gets you so far and activism and support of your local activists is the best road to effecting change. 

[telesilla]

So the majority owner of the Giants gave money for some goddamn racist GOP ad and all of a sudden Giants fans are upset? Like, those of us who have to do our due diligence on the entertainment we consume are all, “yeah we knew that he gave money to Trump and the Bushes and McCains and Romneys before him and we don’t support it, but they’re good for a sports team when it comes to LGBT+ issues and anyway, welcome to corporate America where the rich want to stay rich.” 

I think it’s interesting to see presumably decent cis het white men suddenly facing the fact that ethical consumption is all but impossible under late era capitalism. 

[artemisbarnowl]

Tired of the idea that being moral is just a one time decision and suddenly all the things that mattered before don't matter now and it's not a choice you make every single day where you weigh up wants and feelings and common good and personal responsibility. See being vegetarian. I chose not to eat meat every single day when I buy food. Every now and again I think about how much easier it would be to change my snack habits if I could eat tuna but I have to decide every time that even if I wouldn't feel guilty and bad it's a huge detriment to the environment and I know better. Clothing too. I like this dress. I know it was made by a woman or child in poverty who will not benefit at all from my purchase and while yes ethical consumption is impossible under late capitalism and all that but I can also just not buy it. If I need a new clothing item I can find one made locally using less wasteful manufacturing who pays employees a living wage. I know in some things individual efforts can't stop environmental degradation and all while major companies do nothing but I can't fix that on my own. I can only do what I can do and what I would like others to do.

[lifeduringlatecapitalism-blog]

Notes Page

1. The “Dear Reader” letter serves to provide the overall vision for the multigenre project. Inspired by the haunting poetry of Xu Lizhi, former migrant worker who took his life after suffering at the Foxconn factory, the project uses multiple genres to further illustrate what life under late capitalism feels like. I encourage readers to look at the primary text link, displayed on the cover page (paper + digital format) to read a brief description of Lizhi’s life, aspirations, and obituary, along with the text versions of all of his poems read aloud in the video post that follows this one.

2.   This video consists of a compilation of Apple product commercials. The voiceover is performed by me, as I read Xu Lizhi’s poems published on the website Libcomm after his death. Instead of simply posting the poems (which are striking and gutting on their own), I felt that the contrast of commercials we all see every day playing in the background of Xu Lizhi’s poems about depression, monotony, and hopelessness presented my point in a stronger way. Apple produces over 40% of its products using the factory Lizhi worked at until he (like so many of his coworkers) jumped to his death.

3.   These tables, taken from Wikipedia, present the statistics of all the people who have committed suicide or attempted to do so at the Foxconn factory. They are presented in a moving “gif” format, with the image changing approximately every 7 seconds. As Wired.com reported after the string of suicides, the company’s response to the deaths was to install netting on the building so that jumping would be near impossible. “The nets went up in May, after the 11th jumper in less than a year died here. They carried a message: You can throw yourself off any building you like, as long as it isn't one of these.”

4. This moving image of collected tweets, taken from various Twitter users, helps convey the feeling everyday people and workers experience living under late capitalism. They are presented in a moving “gif” format, with the image changing to a new tweet approximately every 5 seconds. Please allow time to view all images, as they change after 5 seconds.

5. When clicked on, this image displaying a song list of 13 songs opens in a new window and plays on the website 8tracks.com as a mix, like a cassette mixtape. It consists of songs from a variety of musical artists, all talking about money and/or capitalism’s effects on the human being. Some are subtle, some are blatant. Enjoy listening and look at the page after the attached ‘Works Cited’ to see the lyrics to each track!

6. “The Bottom Line” is a short piece written by me. It illustrates (in a slightly sardonic manner) the way in which there is not ethical consumption under capitalism, no matter how righteous I or any of us might think we are. We only need to look at Lizhi’s life and so many others to see that is true.

7. This video, entitled “Capitalism,” shows a slam poem written and performed by Porsha O. It cleverly demonstrates the stronghold capitalism has on all our lives.

8. An image of Barbara Kruger’s 1990 art piece, “I Shop Therefore I Am” shows that for everything that has changed in the decades following, consumer culture and the idea that our selves are constructed via the products we buy and/or desire remains the same.

9. This quote about “culture jamming,” an idea often illustrated in the magazine Adbusters, talks about how the “one freedom we have left” as citizens under late capitalism is “to be voyeurs of [our] own demise.” It comes from Kalle Lasn’s book Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America.

10. This is a photo of graffiti on a building. It was published in Adbusters, and illustrates the vicious cycle capitalism perpetuates, pitting people against one another while the elites reign supreme.

11. The short excerpt, taken from Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation by Dan Lowe, discusses Marx’s theory of alienation. It includes analysis from Lowe and a direct quote from Marx.

12. This video is an edit of an actual commercial that aired during the Super Bowl in 2018. The original commercial used a voiceover of a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. to sell Dodge Ram trucks. A YouTube user edited the commercial to better reflect King’s actual socialist views. Quite clever of the user to do so, although the original provides ample (albeit unintended) irony on its own.

13. The closing quote for my project comes from the essay mentioned in the “Dear Reader” letter that opened this project: “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” by Fredric Jameson.