Pop culture is a deadly virus

Pop culture is not innocuous. In fact, it might be the worst thing you’re doing to yourself. In this post I share my personal story and thoughts

When I was a kid I had little contact with pop culture. I did not watch popular shows and I did not play video games.

Instead, I spent my time reading books and studying science, all by myself. I had a drive for that, and a natural inclination.

My family supported that or at least did not obstruct it.

But as I grew older I realized that I had nothing to talk about with my peers. It was as if my classmates existed in a completely different world.

I remember that when I came to the first grade and the guy who sat next to me asked whether I played Playstation. I didn’t even know what a playstation is. And I haven’t found out, really, in the following several years.

I felt the disconnect from my peers but there was no negative feeling about it. It was just a fact. Then puberty kicked in.

And that’s when shit hit the fan.

Without much conscious realization I started to tune in with my classmates interests. I needed to talk to them, needed to talk to girls and what not. Boy was that a stinking pile of garbage.

But I watched some shows. I listened to what they called “music”. And the virus infected me. I was craving for more even though this consumption made me feel wrong, feel drained, it took away all my focus. I still expressed my distaste towards the more trashy things, but still, I learned to speak their language.

At high school that grew worse, as I started dating a girl and hanging out a lot with her and with high school friends.

High school was a weird time indeed. I was in the “cool” clique. We were not the most popular clique but we were respected more than they were, because we brought results to school, we liked better stuff (which was still shit, in retrospect). It was the time when indie culture really hit in music and entertainment, so it gave me an illusion of being of better taste.

Then I went to the university and things got worse and worse. In an international environment people brought their globalized taste, which is a synonym for pleb taste.

The bottom line is that during all this time there was a conflict going on inside me.

I was drawn to poetry, real music, history, literature, art. But all around me everything was fake and trashy glitter, and if I were to survive, I needed to learn that too.

I did.

I spent endless hours consuming popular entertainment and I was feeling the growing addiction.

Eventually in course of my inner journey I ditched all that. I will tell you about that another time.

I went back on the path of complex intellectual stimulation and living in reality, not in a virtual world. But I had wasted a huge amount time and energy killing my focus and pouring my life energy down the gutter.

Now I do not consume any pop-culture, at all. My focus is back, I am able to concentrate for hours on end on doing things I really wish to be doing. I am working on my pursuits, not someone else’s. Moral of the story: if you want to have a chance of leading a life that is meaningful, pop-culture must not enter that.

If you watch Bunuel and Fellini before you watch any netflix, you might throw up when you see a minute of a netflix show, and never have to deal with unlearning shit.

Do not repeat my mistakes. Pop-culture is a deadly virus.

The only healthy way to engage with pop-culture is when you already have a deep basis in real culture, and have a personality strong enough that will not get hooked on cheap dopamine. Then you can analyse pop-culture to see what is going on in the collective unconscious.

Still, approach it like a scientist approaches a specimen under the sign “BIOHAZARD”.

Do not support pop-culture with your attention. Do not support it with your buck. It promotes slave mentality and degeneracy, and it is not your friend.

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