La Chronique du Spectacle

All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

— Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

Pretentious quote? Check. Self-aware acknowledgement? Check. I think I’m ready to start a blog.

I’ll speak to the quote and title in a moment, but first: what’s going on here? Essentially, I’m using this space, this medium as an opportunity to flex my writing skills and style, which have withered from disuse for the past, oh, four years or so. Apart from the occasional technical document, I’ve had little reason (including personal motivation) to put effort into any serious writing. But things have changed. Mostly because of this:

Holy crap, is she cute or what? That’s my daughter Margo (commonly referred to within our household, somewhat inexplicably, as Margopants). She’s approaching 4 months of time on this planet, and while I knew having a child would be life-changing, I think I vastly underestimated the magnitude.

For me, this new life helped crystallize in my own mind my goals for my own life, and it’s become clear to me over the past few months that one of those goals is to write a book. What about? Well, I’m not entirely sure yet. But in order to write a book I have to write.

So I will be using this digital space to write and write and write about a fairly broad range of interests, ranging from the professional (data visualizations / design / analytics) to the personal (video games / politics / movies / television / music). But with a varied set of topics, I think it’s important to have some other unifying concept, some other center of gravity. Which brings me to the opening quote / title of this piece.

The quote is from one of the most profound & influential pieces of a text I’ve read. I was lucky enough to read Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle in a course on film and punk — yes it was that cool as it sounds — as an undergrad at Northwestern University. It immediately gave meaning and provided understanding to what I saw as an increasingly image-obsessed, money-obsessed world that was only becoming more so as the internet was beginning to flourish. To me, the text contained the words of a prophet, speaking a truth that was only becoming more true every day.

Now it’s 10 years later, and I am fully immersed and embedded in this society of the spectacle. My job is only possible because of the spectacle, my livelihood is dependent on the spectacle —my job is in many ways about improving the efficiency of the spectacle by using the language of the spectacle… but that’s a topic for another day.

There’s little point in fighting this state of being, and as depressing as that may sound, I can’t say I’m totally depressed with the results. Disheartened sometimes, but in general, from my place of relative privilege, life is good. So all that’s left to do is to write, record, and chronicle my experience within the spectacle. Hence the title.

As a side project, I will be making an effort to push myself as deep into the spectacle as I can go and see where it takes me. I plan to use the writings here as an attempt to further my “personal brand”, to push the replication of my work and my image as much as possible through the various spectacle-centric technologies that now dominate our daily existence.

The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.

Debord was right, is right, and barring a technological implosion, will be right. And his work will serve as a guiding light, my writing’s center of gravity, and hopefully, a lifeline, should the spectacle seek to fully consume me.

Hey, I wrote a blog post! Margopants would (will) be proud.