Death of the Author and the web identity crisis
Zachary Colbert spins a story of power and deceit brought to you via your computer.
Yes, and what does this encompass but the extent to which “I” in our postmodern world revolves more and more around lifestyles. Rather than more substantive, historical demographics. Lifestyles that by and large become part of one or another market. It’s not just a matter of attaching your identity to “one of us”, but of all the things out there that you can then purchase to demonstrate that you really are “one of us”.
And, given this pop culture/mass consumption mentality, some of the most absurd confrontations can unfold. For example, in the film Twentieth Century Women there a scene where a character is confused when she walks to her car and notes that someone had spray painted ART FAG on one side of her car and BLACK FLAG on the other?
Why? Because her son happened to be listened to the Talking Heads, the Art Fag band, instead of Black Flag, the hardcore punk rock band. “I” reduced down to something as idiotic as this.
And here the lowest common denominator mentality is writ large across the entire globe for literally millions of us. We attach our ego to the dumbest fucking things to at least to be counted as “one of us” and not “one of them”.
Again, it’s not what you believe but that you believe. Something, anything.
Unfortunately, that mentality can also be attached to far more serious things like politics. Here the consequences of being or becoming “one of them” can be literally a matter of life and death.
Yes, but that doesn’t make “I” here any less virtual. And even the virtual identity that we choose is no less anchored to dasein. As for “me myself and I” that’s clearly rooted out in our own particular world.