Empires of Entertainment: Dominion Over Thought

Nothing we do is completely of our own volition.

In a world where religion, historical events, and political institutions shape the lives we are born into, everybody’s personality, family, and future is already decided from the very beginning. That is, when I say the ‘beginning’, I reference the creation of the universe — the Big Bang.

Imagine a supercomputer capable of calculating the movement/positions of everything down to the atomic level, and that it had began computing ever since the Big Bang. From determining the physics of each particle and how much each particle affects another, this computer would be able to see the universe unfold each second. Figure 1 is a physical representation of what the computer would be able to predict. (Fun fact: Scientists are trying to accomplish this)

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Figure 1 (Picture made From)

Now fast-forward this computer billions of years into the future; theoretically, this computer can perfectly predict everything that happens in our lifetime. Our past practically defines the present and the future. Our thoughts, personalities, actions, politics, and everything can all be reduced down to the physical interactions between particles at the beginning of time. Philosophers would call this a Materialistic perspective.

My point here is that our lives are extremely influenced by our environment whether we like it or not. Said backs up my claim by stating that “all readings and all writing are reduced to an assumed historical emanation”.

“… readers themselves are totally determined in their responses by their respective cultural situations, to a point where no value, no reading, no interpretation can be anything other than the merest reflection of some immediate interest” (Politics of Knowledge 383, Said)

In the same way that history influences the present, entertainment heavily dominates our thoughts.

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This scenic moment is from the movie: Get Out. Image via Here

Back in the time of the Roman Empire, poems were a form of literary entertainment. Augustus, the first emperor, had Virgil create The Aeneid to justify his monarchial rule; the story emphasizes how the foundation of Rome all relies on one man (Aeneas) and his values — a subtle way of refashioning Roman ideology from a republic-based system to an imperial one.

As demonstrated by the influence of The Aeneid, entertainment heavily affects the way people think, an aspect which has serious ramifications. One of which is that truly independent thoughts cannot exist. Moreover, products of entertainment — such as propaganda, television shows, plays, etc. — inherently have hidden messages that define and influence our opinions to a point that nothing we think is original.

Fortnite — another branch of entertainment — currently is the leader of the video game empire in the genre of Battle Royale, and like The Aeneid, has tremendous power over our culture, society, and things. By being the single most popular game today with a user-base of 125 million players, it already has transformed social media with dance moves and Twitch streamers, changed what we value in a good game, and became a very popular recreational activity.

More importantly, Fortnite has also changed the way we think; in a game where only one winner exists each round, people start to redefine their views of success. Success becomes an almost unattainable reward, reserved only for the top 1%. In turn, the vast majority of everybody else begin to spread negativity: Twitch streamers and Youtubers become bad role-models, kids start bullying each other, and people value skill over fun. Contentment with what one has becomes non-existent.

However, I am not saying that a lack of contentment is entirely a bad thing: it becomes a motivating force that pushes one to become better without the actual feeling of satisfaction. Today, the ubiquity of this mindset is the result of the uptick in popularity of the competitive Fortnite empire.

One can say that a different mindset was not the only thing that emerged from Fortnite’s empire, but out of its popularity many new content creators have become big on social media. With the rise of more content, more advertisements will populate the web, an advancement that enforces more of their products onto viewers and censors what creators can make.

To clarify, TV networks (news, drama shows, sports) or social media platforms (Youtube, Twitch) have to be careful what they broadcast or they will not be funded. As Phillip Schindler Chief Business Officer of Google Ads puts it: “[Advertisers] don’t want their ads next to content that doesn’t align with their values.”

Since everything in the world relies on funding, advertisements have a strong and silent hand in what we get to talk or think about — especially in present day where it is difficult to get through without being bombarded with an advertisement. In a way, The Aeneid and all forms of entertainment qualify as an advertisement for a particular way of thinking. Thus, all thinking can be attributed to advertisers: they have become emperors that govern the empire of our thoughts.

I am not saying that free thought does not exist. However, it is important to acknowledge the impact of entertainment and advertisements on the creation of everybody’s values. I believe that studying Empire and its Ruins has practical applications in parenting, politics, and our understanding of humanity. Writing about it has inspired me to ask the following questions: Should children be sheltered or exposed to the influencing forces that they will inevitably encounter? How can we remain original in a culture where technology spreads ideas virally? How much of our identity is original? That is for the reader to decide.

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Works Cited

Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile: and Other Essays. Granta, 2012.

Smart, John Jamieson Carswell. Materialism. 28 Apr. 2016, http://www.britannica.com/topic/materialism-philosophy.

Yirka, Bob. String Theory Researchers Simulate Big-Bang on Supercomputer. 2011, phys.org/news/2011-12-theory-simulate-big-bang-supercomputer.html.