Mr. MacCruiskeen, I throw down the Art Gauntlet!

[MacCruiskeen]

Mediocrity Is the New Black: Penny Arcade On Making It in ‘The Big Cupcake’

October 30, 2014
By Bradley Spinelli
8 comments

http://bedfordandbowery.com/2014/10/med ... g-cupcake/

[coffin_dodger]

^^^Great interview Mac - thanks for the link.

Some highlights for me:

In the late ’60s, Guy Debord—who was a situationalist—he looked again at the work of Edward Bernays, and saw that now what we called the media was starting to be joined by governments and by financial banking systems. And he called it the “integrated spectacle.” So we’re all living in this completely false reality that doesn’t really exist. The thing that’s so funny is that we’ve become the mouthpiece of this consumersism.

The banking establishment, the government, the church, all of these big powerful groups think alike. They have the same agenda.

But we live in this Oprah-esque nightmare now. And the thing is that Americans—we’re hypnotized by the spectacle.

There is no ethical overview anymore. The events that happened with the banking crisis—the corruption at the highest level of commerce and government has trickled down into everyday behavior.

Look, I use Facebook, but I also know that I can post something that’s very intelligent and get 5 or 10 likes on it, or I can post a picture and suddenly 250 people respond to it. The attention span of people is super dumbed down. People are over-stimulated.

...When you see really good work, when you experience excellence, it makes you question yourself in very harsh ways. But you’re uplifted by the excellence of good work. But we’re living in a time where mediocrity is the new black.