Maximum Exposure, Maximum Influencer Brain

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The term “Influencer Brain” is one that I’ve been using a lot lately. It basically refers to the way some people get so used to trying to be Social Media influencers, it warps how they think. They think in hits and likes, stirring up controversy and making memes, maximum exposure, maximum talk. Everything gets warped through the Social Media bubble, to the point where even meaningful things are meaningless.

I’m sure you’ve seen Influencer Brain. It’s probably gotten some of your friends and family. It’s definitely gotten quite a few politicians, media stars, and supposed business geniuses. It’s also really goddamn annoying because it’s hard to have a human conversation with someone who has Influencer Brain.

Now one area I’ve noticed Influencer Brain hitting hard is Very Online Christians and some Christian media stars. There’s the “Jesus Glow-Up” people who, I guess, use good lighting to show how Jesus made them more photogenic? There’s people gladly seeking controversy to raise their profile and probably get a gig on some blog or get donations for, I don’t know, being a jerk. It seems pretty weird considering Jesus even warned people about praying in public.

Is Christianity (in American) more prone to this kind of Influencer Brain? Well, that’s actually not what I want to explore. Because here’s the thing.

Christianity is the dominant religion in America. It is quite politicized thanks to various social-political efforts and traditions. So simply put if you see a lot of annoying Christian Influencers, how much of that is simply by the odds? If you’re going to see annoying people with Influencer Brain, wouldn’t they practice (well, pretend to practice) the dominant religion, especially one that is politicized?

I think we pretty much can guess yeah, it probably is. I have larger theories but let’s be honest, the numbers are a big thing here.

I think of this as a good warning, and a bit of humility. It may be easy for non-Christians like myself to have a good laugh at them. We may also take the fact that we see such widespread behavior very seriously as some of these Influencers do outrageous and dangerous stuff. But under different circumstances we might be at risk.

We might even be at risk in our own spiritual practice. What if your particular brand of paganism gets popular? What if you suddenly have a book on meditation take off? What if you just get pissed at these people, make reaction videos, they become a hit then you face audience capture?

I think it’s important as we understand Influencer culture to tease out the different parts of it, moreso when it comes to spiritual and political practices. There is some damn pathological stuff out there, but it might also be literally due to the odds, and we can read too much into it – and get too arrogant.

Besides, as we tease out these threads, we can further get to the important spiritual issues – without trying to sell a course or get in the news or whatever.

– Xenofact

Evangelical Christianity All The Way Down

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Something I’ve seen coming up in a number of podcasts and videocasts are people talking about – and dealing with – just how American (and Western) cultural thinking is a essentially Evangelical Christianity. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, if you grew up in America, you’ve probably got a good shot of fire-and-brimstone apocalyptic evangelism in your head.

The more I think about it, the more I see it. Yes that may be pattern matching, but I think there’s something really there.

There’s a streak of righteous punitive cruelty in American culture. Yes, we’re used to it in the “God hates everyone I hate me types.” But I also see it in people supposedly with progressive or humanist values, suddenly ready to throw out their beliefs to enjoy watching “them” suffer. There’s also a strong belief that people will actually learn from punishment, believed by the people who A) aren’t being punished and B) will probably say that they don’t change their beliefs just because someone threatens them.

There’s a kind of “Divinity-seeking” as well. There’s people, again who are distinctly NOT Evangelical Christians, who are still looking for a Big Daddy to tel them everything. Maybe it’s a political figure, maybe a writer, maybe some activist. They may even claim to have some belief in principles, but those principles are expressed in very anthropomorphic ways. Ever heard someone talk about “what science wants” or “what the economy” desires?

There’s the evangelism. Look, I’m a believer, I’m a guy that likes to speak and preach good ideas. I do enjoy it, but I wonder how much of this is cultural influence, wonder what I’d be with less influence from Evangelism. How many talks on technology, ecology, whatever sound like church services – it’s enough to lead you to find mind-numbing TED Talks soothing.

But most of all, over it all, is the waiting for Judgement Day. America has a huge streak of waiting for/wanting the Big Boom/Big Uplift. Once you think about it it’s hard to not see it everywhere.

It’s in our fear of Nuclear War hanging over our heads for decades – an understandable reaction.

It’s in talk of an Eco-apocalypse, which also includes no small number of people who hint darkly that we deserve it and that they will survive in a new heaven.

It’s in endless speculation about social collapse – and the order that follows. It’s not just racist internet fantasies, it’s people who happily talk about how Capitalism will fall apart and then we get heaven on Earth (without the effort of building it, apparently).

And as of this writing it’s in the speculation on “Artificial Intelligence” which apparently will both kill us all, and lead to an enlightened new world, and also give us AI girlfriends/boyfriends. The apocalypse is a selling point, be it edgy fear of “being so powerful” or talk of utopias (without covering the economic issues of the same). AI evangelism feels so familiar, the God in the Machine indeed.

I’d recommend taking a good look at how much of your life and actions is just repurposed Evangelical Christianity that you absorb like spiritual microplastics. Trust me, it’s worth examining.

Maybe at some point, I might even have to followup on my own experiences . . .

–Xenofact

Creating Across the Centuries

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Art Connects us, art is part of bigger things.

Digital collage is one of my artistic media, and one that I didn’t expect to become such. I originally picked it up for my work in zines, and then it just became “my thing.” Now I regularly examine public domain art resources, usually museums, for interesting images and such to work into my mashups.

My collage work is, for those aware of it, rather surreal. This originated out of my early zine days, punk, and the Church of the SubGenius. It was honed by an interest in alchemical and spiritual diagrams of yore and the Surrealists themselves. I combine images from across the centuries to create something new – many times something that surprises me as Surrealist work is Rorschach blots in reverse.

Once when poking around for some backgrounds to work with and inspire me, I searched the Welcome Collection, I stumbled across a lot of lovely, colorful prints. These were meant to be part of something called a “Toy Theater,” which I’d never really heard of. So I took a break from my art-searching to learn a little history.

Toy Theaters, to judge by the Wikipedia article I found and the art I had discovered were “a thing” in the 19th century, with interest surviving to this day. You could buy backgrounds and kits at theaters and operas, scripts were available, and there were of course fancier and self-made versions. Imagine going to the theater and then your parents buy you the kit so you can reenact the story you saw!

Toy Theaters, to an extent, were the same as merchandise and action figures we know from our mass media movies, albeit more personal. You’d assemble your own theater, you might customize it or alter it, you may even have cutout actors based on people you had seen the night before. They were also stages of the imagination.

Despite having scripts and the like, we all know people like to create. I’m sure over the decades that there were romances and battles and skulduggery among casts that would never have met. I’m sure people got silly, had fun, or got serious. They could mash things up, do things there way.

Then, across the decades, I realized they were like me.

Here I was, looking at images of Toy Theater backgrounds, finding inspiration just as someone would unpacking their Toy Theater kit. I combined disparate elements in a fury of inspiration, no different than someone playing with the Theater or taking a stab at the equivalent of fanfiction. There, across ages, I was doing the same thing that those people with their Toy Theaters did – creating my own world out of the parts.

Every artist who’d made these backgrounds and printer who’d printed these prints was having their work still used by people like me. Every parent who lovingly saved their child’s toys, toys which eventually were donated to museums, were seeing their effort live on in how that art was seen and used.

I felt both small and large, part of something bigger but also just me, there, a guy behind a computer playing with graphic programs.

Art, art has so many connections that it lets us feel the largeness of it all. A hundred years ago a family happily assembled a Toy Theater. Now I create strange and wonderful surrealist work. And we’re all the same, part of the same thing.

–Xenofact