Vicky Goes On (Again)

Tag: capitalism

  • I ain’t being nostalgic but… (enshittification strikes again)

    I went for an eye test the other day and, in a rare positive of ageing, my eyesight is improving. This means I need a new prescription. A weaker prescription. Weird, huh? Well, things can only get better and then they’ll get worse.

    I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 11 years old. So only 5 or 6 years 32 years. I was reminded only today that there was a time when you could get spectacles within the hour. WITHIN the hour. Do you know how long my regular, boring, single vision, no coating, no thinning lenses will take? 2 weeks. One whole fortnight. Why? How have we regressed?

    I was watching a YouTube video (now, I warn you, the topic of the video is going to sound boring but we’ve been over this. I need to be distracted and I find myself watching no end of nonsense) on the decline of 24-hour Tesco supermarkets. And I thought, “oh yeah. That was a thing. An actual, real thing that did not exist, then did exist, and now no longer exists.” And, like, I get it. They’re not economically viable. But there feels like there used to be a time when things were done, services provided, goods made – not for profit (or not solely for profit) but because that was what was for the best for society, or the customer, or whatever.

    ‘Enshittification’ was coined by a science fiction writer, Cory Doctorow, about declining in quality of services. Usually this is about web platforms, e.g. Google. Have ya noticed how shit Google searches have become? I tend to add “reddit” to the end of my searches in order to get something useful. I know, but Reddit can be useful. When I first heard about enshittification I thought, “yeah. I see that. The internet ain’t what it once was.” But, enshittification is actually everywhere now.

    Police stations no longer have service counters in them, if they’re open at all. Glasses take several weeks to be made and even then the level of care, of customer service is severely lacking. I don’t want to sound like a Boomer but it used to be that opticians, shops staff, police officers, etc at least pretended to care about the services they were offering.

    In a world that is over consuming and over selling you’d expect that they should want to give us something more. But you know why they don’t? Because we accept it. We still buy the things and overconsume so who cares that it’s shoddier now? We’re still going to buy all the tat we want.

    In the 1950s fridges were a marvel. These basic goods were built to improve the housewife’s life. These were goddamned beauties.

    Just look at this

    And now what have we got? Smart fridges? HAH

    Greggs used to sell more than just sausage rolls. The other day I went in there to buy, admittedly, sausage rolls but I also wanted to buy, like, whatever else. A cookie. A sarnie. I was at a loose end and I had money on the app. Now they’re selling pizza and whatnot but they’ve forgotten that they’re a bakery. Do you think you can buy bread from Greggs? You’d think so, wouldn’t you. What with bakers famously making bread. You’d be wrong. Not a bloomer nor a cob in sight. It’s actually bullshit. (NB I still love Greggs though I do fear they’ve become rather overrated and they’d better knock it off).

    This all began when Freddos started being used as a guide for inflation. I do not think nor want to pretend that the past was better. It wasn’t. And even if it was – who cares? We’re here now. All I’m saying is that there seems to be a lack of care in the world. There are fewer and fewer customer care phone numbers and where there are you’ll be lucky to be answered within 20 minutes and for your call to be resolved. Everything is a hoohah and a palaver. And I am sick of it.

  • Delulu for Labubu

    I am sick of overconsumption. Not only because of the planet’s inevitable death under a pile of plastic but because it’s just bullshit.
    This all started winding me up with those Stanley Cups. I first heard about them and thought, ‘surely people aren’t going crazy over a Canadian Ice Hockey tournament.’ And I was right. People were going crazy over REUSABLE (please note the ‘reusable’) cups. I’ll admit, I own 2 water bottles. But one is bigger than the other and I use them. Both. OK, I gave the smaller one to the flatmate but he uses it. Sometimes.
    We’ve lived through so many fads (fidget spinners, scoubidous, Cabbage Patch Dolls, etc etc etc) but the Stanley Cup broke me and the Labubus are twisting the knife. Not only are those cups like £65 (not an exaggeration) but people were losing their minds collecting all of the colours, and then they buy bullshit accessories to add to them. A little cap, a tray, a pocket you can stick on the side. Then there are special ice cube molds for them, because heaven forbid you use regular ice cubes. Like a poor person.

    And now Labubus.

    demonic keyring capitalist nonsense

    Those are Labubus. And they are stupid. Look, I am not one to yuck someone’s yum but they’re just transparently addictive bullshit. Their USP is that they come in blind boxes, i.e. you don’t know which one you’re getting until you open it. That is so obviously a means to fuck with our addiction and dopamine sensors that I am sickened that people continue to fall for this. I can’t blame the companies. They are capitalist pigdogs who obviously want to make all of the money all of the time. I am sickened by the people falling for it. Time and time and time again.

    Innocent little guy

    When I first heard of the Labubu I thought people were talking about Moncchichi.

    Moncchichi was an innocent guy and now he’s tarred by this nonsense. Maybe he was at the beginning of this nonsense but at least there was none of the addiction high-jacking. You know where you were with this little guy.

    And the Labubu shit isn’t just about buying nonsense toys. On the one hand “they” want us to recycle and use paper straws and then on the other hand they’re selling us all this fucking shit and, the thing that really gets up my goat, WE FUCKING BUY IT.

    On the subject of recycling – I watched as a street sweeper emptied the recycling bin into the general waste bin and then put all that rubbish into one bigger bin. So, answer me: what the hell is any of this even for? Anyway, they put all the responsibility onto the consumer whilst BP spills oil in the oceans, whilst Thames Water pump literal sewage into UK waterways, whilst Chinese factories pump goodness knows what pollutants into the air and literally undoes any and all green efforts. All this and I have to drink out of a paper straw that disintegrates in liquid and Coca-Cola attaches their lids to the bottle so they don’t really close properly anymore. Well, guess what? I rip the lids off because ‘fuck it’.

    And please can we all stop going delulu over Labubus?

  • Some Might Say (we’re too nostalgic)

    Did you hear that Oasis have reunited (and it feels so good)? I’ll bet you have because from the announcement to the ticket sales fiasco to the opening shows that is all I know about the current music scene. Oasis have reformed and they’re on tour and middle-aged men are sticking on their bucket hats and sticking drugs up their noses (allegedly) and being Mad Fer It and re-living the 90s.

    Ah, the 90s when life was good and we were all so happy. No economic issues (apart from that recession in the early 90s and Black Wednesday), no wars (apart from the Gulf War, many civil wars, Al-Qaeda insurgency… look, I looked this up on Wiki and felt overwhelmed with despair so let’s not get into it), great snacks, great fashion, 5 TV channels, hey – no problems at all.
    Cool Britannia. Brit Pop. So much colour, everywhere, all of the time. No wonder grey is so popular nowadays. Although I do fear that the pendulum has swung too far away from colour. Have we never thought about the middle-ground?

    Look, I liked Oasis. I liked Blur. I liked Portishead, TLC, Madonna, Pulp, Sade. I have eclectic tastes. I even owned an Oasis T Shirt I bought on the Portobello Road. Because I was cool. And it was cheap and I lived nearby and we didn’t have the internet. And Woolworth’s still existed. And life was easy. BECAUSE YOU WERE YOUNGER. And now you’ve got kids/mortgage/knee pain (maybe all three. I just have knee pain) and you’re thinking about mortality and purpose and looking back is more comforting than looking forward. Guys, we’re here because we’re here. That’s the meaning of life.

    Oasis have reformed because they want all that sweet, sweet cash. I think this says more about the dire state of the music industry than anything else. Artists have always been the people who profit the least from their music. They used to make some money from selling their music and now they don’t. They make money from touring. From merch. They don’t even make money from streaming. Isn’t that absolutely bat-shit insane? But record companies make money, don’t they? They always manage to profit. Wankers.

    What do we do about this? Support local bands. Go to small live music venues. This props up local bars and pubs, allows music lovers to see live music without selling a kidney for tickets, supports talent and not corporations and maybe will make us all bring a little bit of the 90s to this god forsaken time.