Coke Studio and the Consumerist Culture.
Why do I feel sharing Coke Studio songs on my Instagram stories is a form of self-gratification? A lesser form of, but the same self-gratification which I get from attending a protest.
Coke Studio is a Pakistani T.v Show and an international music franchise, which aims to bring classical, folk and tribal music in the “Mainstream”. And by “Mainstream” I mean Music which is mass produced by corporations, the artists of which have no or little rights over their art after the ‘label’ picks them, music which then will be re-purposed and re-cycled to sell you more products, to keep the chain running.
The self-gratification I get is different from simple hedonistic pleasure, the act represents something more for me.
The reason may arise from my sub-conscious notion of racial superiority, believing that understanding parts and lines from an Punjabi folk song, understanding and appreciating tribal, ethnic beats and music may sub-consciously give me a racial pleasure of standing out in a Marathi speaking state, one of being different, (which will be discussed more below).
The reason for the pleasure may arise from the red and black pallet of the music posters, which identifies to my quasi-communist identity, which empowers me to satisfy my consumeristic wants, while still identifying myself as an anti-capitalist.
The other reason which I like to overthink about is-
Sharing Coke Studio songs on my Instagram stories feels like an attack made by me on the consumeristic and the capitalistic society. But why is that?
When a Capitalist culture invades a societs it brings with it a “Mainstream” mass culture which aims to homogenize everyone, this culture is different from propaganda, Capitalism does not require propaganda, people of a society themselves volunteer to be a part of this club, the reason being the club gives you an identity. A simplistic way to understand this can be done from taking analogies from the 90’s Bollywood particularly ‘ Tere Naam’, the Hairstyle of Salman Khan became a ‘cool thing’ and a month later almost every boy/men wanted a ‘Tere Naam’ haircut, now there wasn’t any propaganda done, so as to say that a research was conducted and it was found out that 95% of women are attracted to a man with this particular hairstyle, the film was a three hour long commercial for the haircut, this does not sound like propaganda. But at the same time an article written by Vice and other media outlets stating how all the (male) residents of North Korea will now be legally obligated to have a hair cut like their Supreme leader is the epitome of propaganda.
As Jean Baudrillard states it, subjugation no longer takes the form of a subordinate to extrinsic spectacle, but rather invites us to interact and participate.
But being different and unique to one another is the foundation of this (liberal) Capitalist Idea (obvious signs can be found in the American Declaration of Independence), and a mass culture stands in direct contrast of this idea, but don’t worry ( worry : protest against this mass culture), Capitalism has got you covered, it nurtures you. The Capitalist mass culture then gives you a pre-determined plate of options (which supports mass production), to choose from to determine your ‘ Unique’ identity. You can be a rock person, or a blues person, or a beliber, or the most pseudo-anarchist – punk rock/metal person.
The Capitalist economy of music, took away from you your pre-existing options, bounded it with a different but yet homogenized, pre-determined structure, and presented it to you, not simply as a homogeneous mass culture, but one which caters to the ‘unique’ needs of every person in its society these ‘unique’ needs are based on your new identity which is given to you itself by the same Capitalist society.
Walk around the British Museum, where you see objects torn from their life world and assembled as if on the deck of some preadotery spacecraft, and you have a powerful image of this process at work. In the conversion of practices and rituals into merely asthetic objects the belief of previous cultures are objectively ironized, transformed into artifact.
Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism
But fuel in this vehicle of self expression runs out too for some overthinkers. And now tired with this bounded culture of self expression, you look for something new to stand out, now here, standing out doesn’t implicitly imply that you show the society that you stand out, it is more of a belief in your heart that you stand out, as I would like to state it is an ‘orwellian’ belief that is, knowing in your heart that the Big Brother is bad.
This culture is a closed one, and it does not expresses much, but like an ‘orwellian’ belief it always resides in you. And this belief is very personal. This is the reason why some people who have discovered a new artist, or a band which is different from the ‘mainstream’ feel good about their new discovery. But unlike the Capitalistic culture where one would spread the word about the artist, to show the society that you are different, the opposite happens, you hate it when your own little island of being different joins the continent of mass culture, that is, it becomes Mainstream, hence people hate it when their favourite alternative artist becomes Mainstream and now it is not as pleasing as it was before. Because now listening to the artist doesn’t bring with it a sense of being different.
While swimming in such tide of mass culture one comes across ‘Coke Studio’. A platform for classical, tribal artists to make their music ‘mainstream’. Now this is the same Classical, tribal culture that was earlier attacked and replaced by the Capitalist mass culture.
Ethnic, tribal culture, unlike mainstream culture is extremely personal to the members, hence people (society) get angry when someone’s ethnic, tribal culture is impudently consumed by the ‘mainstream’ society, hence the movement ‘My culture is not your Prom dress’. But the same society is happy when the tribal, ethnic society gets due credit (economic) for making their personal expression of music into music for the mass culture, because now it empowers them.
You want to crtizise the mass Capitalistic culture, buy consuming ethnic, tribal culture but you do that in an pre-existing, pre-determined Capitalistic framework, hence your anti-capitalism is itself a different (more dangerous) form of Capitalism. This is called ‘interpassivity’.
Interpassivty is a term coined by Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Zizek, the best example of which is given by Zizek , explaining how the laugh tracks at various T.V shows are supposed to laugh, enjoy the show for you so that you can just sit and watch, and not worry about laughing.
It is, as I would like to state an ‘orwellian’ belief that so as to until in my heart I know that the Big Brother is bad, I can go on sadistically following his orders. Hence in 1984 the climax happens when Winston Smith accepts that the Big Brother is good.
Coke studio according to me has a primary audience which as I like to state is a second post-partion and a first post-globalisation generation. The parents of the audience migrated out of their ethnic homeland, to pursue the golds of globalisation and Capitalism. The children of which find themselves in a rather preculious position where they are as discussed above tired of the mass culture and at the same time lack an authentic ethnic culture to fall back to. So they plug into Coke Studio to stand out.
Capitalist ideallogy exists precisely in the overlaying belief in the sense of inner subjective attitude at the expense of the beliefs we exhibit and externalise in our behaviour. So long as we believe capitalism is bad we are free to consume it.
Slavoj Zizek.
Now, Coke Studio as the name suggests is a programme by ‘Coca Cola’ whose tagline is ‘Open For Happiness’. This is the same ‘Happiness’, the same Capitalist idea chasing which their parents migrated out of their ethnic land (culture) and now the next generation of which plugs in to express their anti-capitalism. Making all of this just a big act of ‘Interpassivity’.
Every time you think of showing your anti-capitalist stand by identifying with an alternative culture, you reinforce capitalism, by looking for an alternative in the same boundries of the capitalist mass culture you want to protest, kill, anhilate.
Every time you want to show your anti-capitalism by sharing a piece of alternative culture on your Instagram story, the Big Brother of Capitalism smiles a little.
Today Music heralds – regardless of what the property mode of capital will be – the establishment of a society of repetition in which nothing will happen anymore. But at the same time, it hearlds the emergence of a formidable subversion, one leading to a radically new organization never yet theorized, of which self management is but a distant echo.
Jacques Attali – The Political Economy of Music.
