(This piece will appear in a future edition of Bournbrook Magazine.)
There are many pernicious modern evils. However few, in my mind, are worse than the viral video.
The web is awash with short clips of staggering inanity. Whatever your particular catnip, you'll find something. Most, after prolonged exposure, will instil an unrealistic view of the world: the influencer's luxury beachside holiday and perfectly snapped snaps, the Manhattan duplexes with Michelin-star chefs on call, the blinged-out cars. It's a constant barrage of the hyper-attractive, the hyper-unobtainable, and most of all: the hyper-shallow. A perfect summation of the modern state of things.
Of course, having bought into the Great Lies, these 'influencers' won't promote family values or reveal that the trappings of modernity won't make you happy. Not to mention that to do so would put them out of a job. The business model is to sell you a Faustian bargain of apparently appealing momentary hedonism versus grinding long-term unfulfilment.
Additionally, modern corporate life in all its blandness is forever pushed ('I start the day at this amazing coffee place, then hot yoga: I'm all about hot yoga. By 11am I'm totally burned out so go to this super-scrumptious bagel place. Of course, it's all vegan and they put girly glitter in the paper bag, it's so cute...'), as if the sole aim of life is to consume as many flat whites as possible in offices with views of uniformly soulless urban landscapes.
It is little wonder that the young feel disenchanted, alienated and awfully depressed. Yet this is not a sport for teenagers alone. The number of people I know who spend their time ceaselessly scrolling through such videos is astonishing. Even I, at times, have found myself unable to sleep and mindlessly viewing whatever the algorithm decided I should watch. After the nth video of cute puppies it dawns on me that I am, irritatingly, as bad as everyone else.
Yet there is one category of online video that is more cruel and destructive than even the most airheaded of influencer's guff. It is what I term 'war porn'.
There is no doubt that the extremes of combat constitute a point of fascination for many men. The immediate proximity of death, deprivation and potential glory are a potent mix. In a country where few have military experience, it is glimpse into a frightening world we are happily shielded from. Without a comparable arena to prove ourselves, men are drawn to the spectacle.
No doubt we are lucky to be in this state of awestruck ignorance. Whereas generations past were occasionally called up to fight the dreaded Hun or fiendish Frog, modern man frets about his gender identity and whether his civet cat coffee beans are sufficiently ethically sourced. Most people's experience of battle is from war films or video games. Long may it stay that way.
For the realities of warfare are hideous. The battlefields of Ukraine are providing a constant source of material for the wannabe warriors of the world. Young men strap GoPros on to themselves and enter the fray. Grey, overcast vistas of scrubland overlaid with crack of bullet and explosion of shell. Running from cover to cover, before being shot, laying to die in some forgotten muddy field. The last groans of a son, father, brother, and friend caught and uploaded on the Internet for all to see. Entertainment, 21st century style.
It should be tragic to all who watch. Yet many revel in these barbaric broadcasts. Videos – overladen with metal to enhance its aggressive or funny songs to mock those on screen - of young men being killed in all kinds of ways: obliterated by artillery fire, hammered with machine gun fire or having their legs spontaneously amputated by grenade.
Witness the Russian conscript running for his life from a drone which threatens to drop ordinance on his head – some witty mind put the Benny Hill theme on top. Or the lads pinned in open ground, trying to roll sideways to safety – perfect for Limp Bizkit's Rollin'. A real lark for the flabby-bellied keyboard warriors sitting at home, commenting that they shouldn't be there in the first place.
It's all okay, naturally, because they are, a priori, bad people. Ukrainian fallen are treated with a solemn dignity befitting the dead, the other side as light entertainment whose suffering is to be lauded by the self-identified good people, whose consciences are yet to be pricked with the uncomfortable notion that 'there but for the grace of God goes I'. Thank the heavens we were not born into a life without prospects in some dreary Ural town.
I'm no pacifist. War may be a necessity at times. Yet it is undeniably a tragedy of epic scale: young men slaughtered for self-aggrandising dreams of the likes of Johnson, Blair, Putin and Bush. To get the populace to blindly go along, the opposition must be dehumanised. Not that such a trick is new, it is the staple of war in history. The less you make a man a caricature of evil, the hard it becomes to a jab a bayonet in his ribcage.
Perhaps the most depressingly amusing aspect of it all is modern society's utter cowardice juxtaposed with its delight for war somewhere thousands of miles away. Men who would crumple at hardship, deprivation and death sit, ogling the destruction of others.
It is a product of our virtual lives, which disassociate us from fact. It is where appearances matter more than reality and where we are safe in the knowledge that we can just log off and return to our cosseted existence.
For the poor lads in some distant dismal field, however, there is no such convenient luxury.
Well said. Voyeurism of the worst kind and a sure way to remove any vestige of empathy for a fellow human being. I wonder if political leaders would be so willing to support military action if they themselves had experienced war up close and personal.
Every time a person laughs at one of those videos they're subconsciously reaffirming that human existence is of little value, that it's worth less than a cheap laugh. Do this too many times and you lose touch with all meaning and beauty, and you'll eventually start to question the value of your own existence. A surefire path to nihilism and suffering.