POPAGANDA: The Glossification of Media

I've been watching a lot of cable TV recently as my tokamak has been in the shop. And as I felt my brain trickling out of my ears during a marathon of CSYPD Blue Bloods Very Serious Acting and Crime Unit Miami, I thought to myself... "huh." And some other stuff as well. Here it is... my thoughts about the glossification of media.
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[@DinnerBells]

“The longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is fucked up.” - George Carlin

[@theodoreganymede2095]

_It is by will alone I set my mind to notice_

[@1873Winchester]

Never is the feeling stronger than when in an upper scale mall for me.

[@camelopardalis84]

@@1873Winchester Does "upper scale mall" refer to the size or to who shops there?

[@1873Winchester]

@@camelopardalis84 The latter, full of rich stylized people

[@camelopardalis84]

@@1873Winchester Thanks. I looked up "upper scale mall" before asking, but the malls I saw were big and I couldn't make out whether the people in these phtos were wearing fancy pants, so I wondered and asked you.

[@andrewsmithphoto]

I remember being depressed when I found Grorg was not real, but when I realized I wasn't real either...I became far more depressed.

[@flywheelshyster6549]

😂

[@EbonyPope]

Look at most movies these days. Argylle is the best example. The filters filter away all skin texture even the actors look like they are animated. Also everything is Orange and Teal color graded which makes blood look purple nowadays. Anyone else who noticed that? It looks like Orange puke and so incredibly artificial I can't help but thinking it might be intentional also to hide the massive amounts of CG these days. Something artificial doesn't stand out as much when everything looks artificial.

[@alisterfolson]

But his lava lamps are real enough for me lol

[@unduloid]

The day I found out I wasn't real was the happiest day of my life.

[@hincksman]

Look, I hate to break it to you but...depression isn't real either.

[@zxbzxbzxb1]

Well said, totally agree. Also the lack of lava lamps is troubling.

[@ViktorKruger99]

lava lamp is the only production value I ask for

[@bmljenny]

It was probably lost in a doomed experiment to use the blobs for lip filler.

[@zxbzxbzxb1]

@@bmljenny Georges lips do look bigger now you come to mention it... 😱

[@L_Train]

Brett Cooper is a prime example. She films on a studio set, meticulously fashioned to look like an average young streamers bedroom.

[@065Tim]

The Daily Wire as something for everyone. They young teenager, The young father, The classy gentleman, The devout Christian. Its a company, just like any company.

[@L_Train]

@@065Tim that certainly isn't everyone, just everyone in your little bubble. And it absolutely isn't a company like any other.

[@viscountrainbows2857]

When are they gonna make a comedy that's actually funny? And this is coming from someone who occasionally dips into their "Pwn the Libs" stuff as a not-so-guilty pleasure. ​@@065Tim

[@Sonic_The_Weredog]

​​​@@065Tim No, I think there's something different about The Daily Wire. ● Companies are trying to make money because that's what companies normally do. 💰 ○ *The Daily Wire* is trying to indoctrinate you to their ideology. That's the difference between a normal company and The Daily Wire.

[@samham3408]

Its great to hear another person actually say it but the only people watching already know.

[@j.2512]

Everyone knows social media is cancer and its fake, even social media influencers and addicts know this and still no one is pushing back against silicon valley in any meaningful way.

[@yannickclaes90]

Still good to know we're not alone in this godforsaken capitalistic shithole society.

[@greghenrikson952]

I believe Georg's level of bling is fully attainable.

[@tree_eats]

With regular HipTang consumption, perhaps.

[@JaesNSC]

Perhaps..

[@JH-lo9ut]

What? Do you even know how hard it is to find a good smoking jacket?

[@JohnnyOrgan]

I've absolutely no idea why your recent videos have kinda tanked in ratings. I've personally been really impressed by them. Up there with Charlie Brooker on BBC. Keep being you. Your videos are progressively awesome and have a real unique voice about everything around us all.

[@AR-rg2en]

I came back after a while, cuz the algorithm recommended George, I still like the content tho, just forgot.

[@shraka]

Probably advertiser friendlyness. I've stopped being served his videos in the aglo - have to hunt for them.

[@MGX93dot]

@@shraka try subscribing and going into your subs tab once in a while

[@killergrooves2438]

I think about this a lot since the pandemic. I’m in my late 30s and I’m only now aware how messed up my perception of what is normal, real world appearance and how physically flawed we are and how normal it is. I spent my teens and 20s very self-conscious and insecure about my appearance and now I realize that I looked like male model back then. And only now am I starting to accept all the things I hated about myself because I’m realizing how fake everything I see in the media is. I didn’t know that before. But it had a negative impact on me for so long. I think the turning point was that I started dating a makeup artist. She was attractive, but still pretty normal. Then when we went outside, she’d do her makeup and she looked like a kpop idol. And she’d photoshop her pictures in very subtle ways that made her look like she should be on magazines. That’s when I started realizing that professional makeup skills and photoshop skills could make most people look like movie stars. And I never realized this because I’d never been exposed to that kind of stuff before. I’d never dated someone so skilled at makeup before.

[@camelopardalis84]

One Friday or Saturday evening about ten or more years ago, I was in a very public place. There were hetero couples everywhere. I saw the women of these couples and thought to myself "You're too ugly", "You're too fat", "You're too ugly", "You're too fat and too ugly". What I meant by that was that those women were "too fat" or "too ugly" to have a romantic partner according to society. But there they were, walking hand in hand with their boyfriends. Being held in their boyfriends' arms. This wasn't me criticising society's beauty standards. This was me walking in this place and seeing these "impossible" couples. Yet there they were. As ubiqutous as it is, the normalisation of certain "perfect looks" on screens still be very subtle. If we stopped with that nonsense, we could get to see such great acting in films and t.v. shows. Those extremely normal (and in my opinion in the clear majority of cases also fairly good-looking*) people couldn't make it at least in Hollywood. Elsewhere maybe. To a degree. But not in Hollywood. So we see the same maybe one hundred faces everywhere, with about a quarter of them only lasting about ten years. *I feel like most people look good. A more or less normal look is fairly pleasing to the eye, in my opinion.

[@ringsroses]

​@@camelopardalis84 It's fascinating watching older movies and tv shows where the actors looked more normal. Not just like "average and attractive" but interesting and expressive. It's clear that actors once were there to emote and be compelling with their faces, voices and physical movement. The added gloss is so numbing and it's mostly just, "look at this beautiful person LARPing". Also, I love early music videos. They're so weird and you see these amazing voices coming from, again, fairly average looking people. There's a way in which it feels like every person had more of a capacity to be something interesting before we were worried if we were glossy enough to be allowed to be seen in public.

[@camelopardalis84]

@@ringsroses I am planning on watching a couple of films from the nineties in the next weeks or months or so. No idea which ones yet. I think it would do me good to watch stories set in a time when a lot of things I hate weren't a thing yet. Do you think I'll find those "average and attractive" and "interesting and expressive" faces in these films or would I need to go further back in time? Also, regarding the LARPING: For me, it's a "look at this hyper rich person LARPING" thing. I'm not capable of the suspension of disbelief necessary to buy some A-lister cleaning their home themself. They have massive mansions. The type of mansion I'd set foot in an say "I could never live here. I'd have an unpaid full-time job cleaning here." But that's also my fault: I only see them do that in clips of films they're in, since I have seen maybe three films that have come out in the last ten years. (That's probably an even smaller exaggeration than I think. I know it's more, but it could be less than double that.) I'd be interested in a couple of examples for interesting old music videos. I know The Beatles made weird music videos, and I know the average one from the 80s also looks weird.

[@camelopardalis84]

@@ringsroses Also, try to emote with all that Botox and filler and plumped up lips and so on in your face.

[@Torgo-and-the-Lucifer-Cat]

"A popaganda meets a momaganda, and that's where ya get a buncha little goslings!! Nyuck-nyuck!!"- curly ❤

[@JarrodMedrano]

That's funny. I used to work for a company named MomAgenda

[@wynngwynn]

dude morning television I sometimes have to witness in doctors office waiting rooms gives me a crisis. It feels so bizarre.

[@MistyDusker]

Dude, same! I wish I could sit in total silence and relax before an appointment and not be overloaded with morning television, stupid magazines, and the Buggles playing on the speakers.

[@RichardPhillips1066]

​@@MistyDuskerI take ear plugs everywhere I go

[@camelopardalis84]

@@MistyDusker If at all possible, I recommend you wait outside in such cases and ask the people working there to call you once it's your turn.

[@adashofbitter]

I love the disdain with which you say “and toys for adults!”

[@GrafEisen1]

If anyone's looking for yet another book to read I highly recommend On Bended Knee, about Ronald Reagan's interactions with press. He and his administration knew how powerful controlling his image was, and the book goes into great detail on how he did it and how it benefitted his presidency. Great read for helping understand the transition to the glossy peformative world we live in today.

[@MelancoliaI]

I remember his 'Ranch' appearances being particularly coreographed, with his western wear and crossfades of him riding a horse or something. Felt plastic and fake

[@mattvanmantgem8600]

Welcome to my impression since 1985. It only gets worse. I mean, in 1985, I noticed on Public Access channels how much they looked like Phil Donohue. Then, I'd see images from Nicaragua and, oh, yeah, there's the world. After college, and first job, and "starter home" and first Marriage, and first kid, I noticed it had become seamless- Commercials were Kid's TV shows, Sit Coms, MTV, CNN, HLN, CIA, FBI, my neighbors, and so on. I went insane, got a divorce, moved to the desert, shot my TV ( literally) and was as close to what now gets called 'Off Grid" for a few years. It felt as real as when I was a kid in the 1970's. But, the culture moved on. Eventually, I was persuaded back in. New wife, new job, new house in the suburbs. By now, KZbin was becoming a thing. It's even more seamless these days. Now, it doesn't matter if I am in the desert at a bar, it's virtually assured I'll see at least one person who looks directly beamed in like a hologram from Home Shopping Planet. Not a damn thing real, out here.

[@joshjacks2837]

Neil Postman described the drastic tonal shift as the "Now... this" of television broadcasts in his 1985 Amusing Ourselves to Death.

[@frozenbinarystudio]

"Don't forget to hit the bong" Thanks Georg. Good looking out mate.

[@Novataro]

This'll be the Hiptang. Probably.

[@slagrajag]

I came here for the Hiptang

[@nezuminora9528]

There was a funny moment at the start of the pandemic where you could watch Stephen Colbert broadcasting from home in a far less professional set than your average KZbinr. For a brief while he had a kind of homemade aesthetic just from necessity.

[@zoranbasic4959]

Love cyriak's work ❤

[@Zeithri]

5:50 - It is as I've said for years. YT and Twitch died when it became all about money.

[@aSinnerMan7]

These days the old school minimalist videos are such a breathe of fresh air!

[@austinh7110]

I just found this channel after a 7 year old video got recommended to me randomly. Damn great content

[@johnxina1833]

4:38 Didn't expect to see John Campea on this channel "Freshly cut hair" 😂

[@Barnaclebeard]

This is the sort of thing that a person posts before leaving society.

[@jonathan2847]

Based and Ted-pilled.

[@TheBeird]

The brief glimpse of Spare Me the Madness by Swede Mason reminds me that KZbin was in danger of being cool for a second there

[@AtentieCadMere]

Georg, you remind me of the janitor in Scrubs. I'm constantly being pushed by a larger and larger part of my audience to polish my image. My "hair" is all over the place, I wear plain clothes, shave my "trademark" beard whenever I get sick of it :))) don't do the right things... at some extent it makes me retreat, show myself less and less often. Not the place for creativity it was ten years ago. You are doing a great job, I'll be dialling up the crazy. It's KZbin, it's meant to be derailed, and unpolished.

[@OTOss8]

You're freaking me out man. Am I really imagining all this? The smells are so vivid though. My wife's handsoap, the dog's bed, it's so damned real.

[@tonebenderx]

Speaking of good looking - I'm really enjoying the big-budget Hollywood aspect ratio.

[@sadetwizelve]

5:05 "content creators...bluugghh" AGREED

[@BB-te8tc]

The only content that term creates for me is discontent

[@madman407708]

You're trying to convince me of something, I'm just not sure what

[@robloggia]

He's just making observations, and letting us know that he doesn't have any solutions.

[@j.2512]

drink soy, eat the bugs

[@H41030v3rki110ny0u]

​@@robloggiathere is no solution, only evolution

[@BrokeBrain42]

Yeah, Georg... a synopsis in the description would be helpful for communicating your point. I can't quite grasp what you are actually saying either.

[@BrokeBrain42]

I think I heard your thesis at 6:05 / 6:30

[@JagoKestis]

The only product I buy? HIPTANG! Die Zeit ist jetzt!

[@MarkNiceyard]

Another pretty good thought. Another good question. Thx!

[@mattbugr4283]

I like your colour grading. You've got yourself a subscribe.

[@GeorgRockallSchmidt]

Cheers :)

[@cyanotunes]

How has this become the best show on the platform. Love you George.

[@flywheelshyster6549]

Georg is on pointe per usual

[@fionavalkyrie]

I sometimes wonder if my reality has been warped, and molded, into someone who can wash down atrocities done in my name with a coconut creme Dr Pepper.

[@Snoozl]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot watching space ghost coast to coast, a lot of those old adult swim shows felt like local broadcast television, which is something I really miss when we can all just do it on KZbin and/or twitch a lot easier, without having to leave the house or paying for anything or have anybody paying you. But we don’t have “local” anything online.

[@coen123]

Honestly it seems like a weird snake eating its own tail situation. Internet video wants to look professional and flawless and starts mimicking the production style of corporate tv and advertising. Advertising wants to look more hip and appealing and starts adopting elements of the scrappy diy culture of the early internet (and the few remnants that persist even today). Obviously itself not a new phenomenon - but just like everything it happens faster and faster.

[@michaelmacy680]

This video is making me wonder if my portable face microwave is actually going to be the missing link in my life

[@raminagrobis6112]

Wow ! George is getting better everybtime I check his new video. One of the few true great without the fuss and gloss.

[@cristiancavalli1]

Excellent as always

[@stephenphillips4609]

I'm 2:07 into the video...and I'm seriously admiring Georg's hat in the background

[@fishsayhelo9872]

spectacular 👍

[@patrickhamos2987]

"The Counsel of Spirals" HAHAHAHHA Georg, God bless you.

[@jayuno3009]

For me this juxtaposition between the saccharine, overly glossy media & tragic world events is best exemplified by 9/11. I was 15 when it happened, I remember all the major news networks immediately changed their logos to be more patriotic, adding some variation of red, white, & blue. They paused all the commercials. The media ate up the tragedy in the most disgusting way, each network using it to push their brand of political bias. I’d go as far to say that event was the catalyst for the current political divide in the US. I don’t have any definitive proof, but I feel like 9/11 really altered modern news aesthetics & media in a negative way, it emboldened the 24 hour news cycle. And maybe this is just me getting older, but I cannot shake the feeling that we’ve been in a slow decline ever since then, both creatively and culturally. Of course, you cannot blame everything on the event, but there was definitely a shift, at least in my eyes.

[@NudlArm]

I like this new beginning approach George. Just put yourself somewhere random every so often

[@katanaman4]

Love a good video that reminds me why I don't watch tv anymore.

[@BaphometsLounge]

Thank you for using the word ostensibly, it made my day!

[@camelopardalis84]

Which word did he use ostensibly? What is "the word"? Just joking, I got what you meant.

[@2IDSGT]

Georg’s lifestyle looks completely obtainable… I just need a good microphone and a lava lamp. 😁👍

[@FirstThief]

Who would have known that a 7 minute video could sum up the thoughts I’ve had for years on

[@Gunnahan]

oooh george you sickeningly honest sarcast.. again i dont know wether to laugh or to throw up.. what a fascinating conflicting feeling.

[@euphorictyrant4572]

I don’t think I’ve been hit so hard about how fake and stupid and bleak everything is in such an elegant way in my life. Great video man. Back to acting like everything is all good lmao

[@terminalmode]

This is peak critique. Please don't stop.

[@Spudcore]

Very good bong.

[@ronstewtsaw]

Popaganda was a good 1984 album by Doug and the Slugs featuring the great song, Day by Day.

[@eikeluth319]

What a twist - one of the most real person on yt has also a real life with a real persona 🤯 thanks for the work; always gives me a sad and a happy smile with a little bit of hope (just a little bit 😉)

[@CrookedSkew]

Asking the questions is important.

[@crispico4727]

The book Roadside Picnic by the Strugaskis, I think, really exemplified something unique and fresh becoming controlled and corporatized. Really made me think of the internet.

[@benfennell6842]

I'm 33 pages in right now, do you mean it was corporatism in a meta sense of lile stalker 2 selling NFTs of there's a narrative element of corporatisation I haven't encountered yet?

[@crispico4727]

@@benfennell6842 I think it comes clearer after the timeskips when the zone gets more controlled

[@GeorgRockallSchmidt]

That’s one of my favorite books

[@rabudman]

Thank you.

[@theloreaxe]

It's been bubbling up in my mind too. It's so absurd that I'm eating microwave popcorn while being served Temu ("shop like a billionaire" ) commercials while children on the other side of the world are being blown up because they were born from the "wrong" loins. 😵‍💫 This world is nonsense.

[@065Tim]

Thank you for reminding me to like and subscribe after your essay on how monetized internet sucks.

[@chanceizosom]

Yes. Thank god someone’s saying it.

[@irpwellyn]

Aw yeah Georg post-structuralist arc

[@chrisprou9216]

there is nothing new under the sun, just new people discovering that fact. I include myself. I worry for my children, how can I teach them to create art for art's sake when telling them won't accomplish that?

[@antlerman7644]

Interesting food for thought

[@ReaperCH90]

All we can do is accept that things always go to shit and enjoy the short time things aren't crappy

[@NecromancyForKids]

When money is involved

[@neoream3606]

Dude you are so funny you are one of my favorite KZbinrs

[@evanthesquirrel]

I don't watch KZbin. I listen to it 4-6 hours a day depending on drive time. My feed is so curated to me. Fake faces don't hold my attention. You could be talking finance, science, movies or Sexy Red, but you need to hold my attention and have a back catelogue of content that is more than just what everybody else was talking about that week. You have to get me to care about something you care about. The videos that get my attention are the ones that are the ones the creator wanted to make, regardless of production value, because it comes across in the voice.

[@hanumaniam]

Oi! My vegan cakes are real. At least my waistline thinks so!

[@LukeStrife]

I wasn't expecting to see Cyriak clips, but they are welcome nonetheless. I appreciate his unrestricted creativity, no matter how dark or disturbing his work gets.

[@tjenahoj]

Why this glorious thinker and worker for the wellbeing of westernkind, does not have tens of millions of followers, is beyond me.

[@otocan]

Have you considered that your presumption that this is the desired end goal is part of the problem?

[@yannickclaes90]

@@otocan Keep the plebs occupied and happy so they'll never know what really matters or happens. Panes et circences.

[@three_seashells]

I remember reading once that the author of The Hunger Games got the idea for her novels because she was channel-hopping and could only find glossy gameshows -- juxtaposed against channels that had footage of the war in Iraq.

[@caseyvorpal9314]

This reminds me of the Kick Turn video(!)

[@theosphilusthistler712]

btw Congratulations George on being cast to play Tyson Fury in the upcoming biopic. I look forward to some insider vids on how you added 9 inches ( _height_ ) completely naturally through training diet and Hiptang.

[@alexbalak7558]

Great video ! In one word the world is Fucked ! Hope I will be here when it end.

[@nutherefurlong]

The harder to see vector is the face-to-face interactions of people who still wind up having those. You get the two axes of horror and gloss, so maybe the low-key sincere and mundane is a balm. Seems the genuine is craved by people younger than me, perhaps for that reason. The horror may be genuine but it's syphoned, so seeing some positive, small kindnesses in person are what keep some people going, at least

[@djobnoxious6407]

I remember laughing at the baudrillardean "stopping the simulation is the goal" clique from uni, as if their concerns were silly.

[@joshuahebert7972]

I shall subscribe, ring the bell, and purchase hiptang.

[@1873Winchester]

Everything sucks when it becomes monetized.

[@chrise8275]

When the hell will Georg finally announce his make-up line!!!!!

[@spacedoohicky]

A few things. Makeup is common in performance roles, and has been used in T.V. shows since black, and white T.V.. Particularly heavy makeup that keeps people from looking like weird ghost skeletons under studio lighting. Performance type people, and show runners are more concerned about appearance due to larger T.V.'s, and HD quality screens that emphasize blemishes, and other unseemly details. That is compared to 3 decades ago when tiny blurry screens covered up many tiny imperfections. As far as plastic surgery, I think as time moves on generally people have warmed up to it, even though it might seem weird to some of us. Some people who get it look uglier in my opinion. Though it's just another body modification to many, much like piercings, or tattoos. In regards to how media has become a factory of nonsense you can blame ads. Ad publishers force platforms to sanitize content. The ultimatum is change, or we'll take away the money. As a result many interesting unique creators get left in the dust under the effects of the algorithm that was build to please ad publishers. I assume that's why paid services typically provide somewhat uglier, deeper, and more charming content. We could also blame culture, but when haven't we.

[@csours]

Popagrandizement

[@spfnapwergfapg]

schipong schkipere. haga son fel essimo. Bagdara!

[@botulin1443]

True Detective-like cinematography here

[@blacknapalm2131]

*These soulless drones don't even drink Hiptang*

[@Romir0s]

Wait a second. Was that Glukoza's 2005 "Schweine" song in the beginning of the video?

[@miintyfresj]

I can't even watch videos that are super glossy.. something inside of me rejects it.. This is it, I think.. this is the dystopia...

[@Bearcade]

Thank you, someone had to say it

[@ivanriskin1167]

Grande Jorgito, tkm

[@pmtoner9852]

I liked this video

[@tylerlynch2849]

I love your weary, witty pensees on the decay of modern Civilisation. Vital stuff keep it up

[@IconOfSin]

What are you filming this with it looks great!

[@Lawh]

I've been thinking of creating a boring news channel. What would happen to information if it was stripped from all attitude problems and glam? It would probably taste a little plain at first, but it might reset the inner scales on what we feel we require from our information.

[@torgo_]

We can cry or we can laugh, but it probably doesn't matter anyway, or make any difference. So we may as well just barricade the doors and windows and cackle away.

[@rossgardner9412]

30 seconds in and no lava lamp.

[@tropezando]

This is why I only watch unhinged video game lore videos and animals videos titled "Steven zoomies June 9th 2009" Those video "beauty" filters are ridiculous

[@kildogery]

Your transformation into a cynical KZbin version of Adam Curtis, has been a delight to watch.

[@steverambo4692]

woooooah someones been listening to their green day albums

[@stizanley3987]

We don't know each other, but I always thought you were a real person. Damn... AI is just getting better and better...

[@TheFlyingScotsmanTV]

yeh! it's not every day you see Peter Duncan doing his acting!

[@greghumphries]

Good lighting and grading. Are you gearing up for another film?