Many of us, if not all, strive for success. But what is success today — in a world where publicity is available with a couple of clicks? And how to understand: before us is a genuine success or a carefully retouched picture in which everyone is “smiling and waving”? The musician, producer and TV presenter Sergey Shnurov talked about this with the participants of the AMOCONF conference. We publish his bright and biting monologue.
Success is not in vain consonant with «to be in time» and «to be in time». Do not think that I will now begin to give you a lecture on everyday philology in the spirit of the late Zadornov. No. In my case, this is just a poetic observation, with which I want to emphasize the attachment to time, if you like, the momentary nature of this concept — success, its dynamism. What was successful yesterday is no longer successful today. And no past counts anymore.
As today’s schoolchildren write on the Internet, using teacher jargon, they «rolled down.» Only a bank account is somewhat reassuring, but not much. Everything is in doubt, even money. What worked yesterday is hopelessly slipping today. Success is what it is now. And if you once caught him by the tail, then, naturally, you would like to prolong these relationships — or at least appearances. The memory of euphoria, success and its taste will be stronger than vodka. As they say: «The hand remembers itself.»
In this regard, there is a common strategy, both for individuals and for large companies, which boils down to a simple one: success is the image of success. It’s like sober people pretending to be drunk in the hope of getting drunk. Or how a woman feigning an orgasm believes that in this way she will get it. A fairly common practice shows that the simulation of success in some way is success. We can explore this phenomenon daily on Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia).
All my long observations of the population of the planet Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) (rather, of the female part) did not give me an answer to the main question of our time: “Do plump lips lead to success or, vice versa, does success lead to plump lips?” However, everything is positive.
Positive photos against the backdrop of fairy-tale castles, respectable cars… It seems to me that in total they surpass even seals. Be cool, it’s a success! Until recently, it worked, and even effectively. Success as an image.
Until recently, only hundreds of thousands of people had the skills and capabilities to broadcast the image of success. Now it’s in the billions
Pop stars, in the broadest sense of the word, successfully broadcast success in the last XNUMXth century because they had exclusive access to the media. Now everything has changed dramatically. Media has become available to everyone. Until recently, only hundreds of thousands of people had the skills and capabilities to broadcast the image of success. Now it’s in the billions. No radiant smile against the backdrop of the Alps or a video from the salon of a red Ferrari can no longer paralyze the will of the layman. Don’t push him into the armchair in front of the TV.
The inhabitant has become difficult, oh, how difficult. He already has a lot of such photos. And even though they are photoshopped or in a rented car, an image is just an image, an illusion. In the possibility of producing illusions, an ordinary person has become equal to advertising agencies, television channels, and even more so magazines. Their all-powerful exclusive for the production of celestials is over, left in the last century.
The sky has fallen to the ground. Television air has ceased to be a closed space for the gods, from where they broadcast and broadcast their first lives and wills. Since the appearance of the first reality shows, not even half-breed heroes, but ordinary commoners, have burst into the divine air, the holy of holies. Today, the nature of pop stars has changed dramatically. If yesterday they were of a different quality, different properties, differed significantly from us, today they are one of many billions, billions of essentially equal images on the screen. Some brighter, some dimmer. Some people have more followers, some have less. But essentially, in their nature, they are equal.
Everyone has Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia), Youtube, VKontakte — the means of producing success have ended up in the hands of the masses. There is no fundamental difference, as before, between the layman and a certain person. This question has been removed. All have become media entities.
The strategy “success is the image of success” is becoming obsolete. She was devalued
A simple student arranges a photo session with technical means almost like in a gloss. And in theory, it can get an audience more than the Vremya program. Do you remember such a program? There was also the program «Your own director.» I would update it by calling it «Ernst to himself.» Because everyone already has access to the button, albeit not yet to the first one, but still to the button.
Weapons of mass destruction have become massively available. It belongs to all of you. Everyone has these emitters, smartphones, in the pocket of every inhabitant. And as happens with all tricks and manipulations, when they are unraveled, replicated, they cease to amaze. They stop working as a trick and create an illusion that you can believe in. If everyone knows how to do a trick, it is no longer a trick.
Thus, the strategy “success is the image of success” is becoming obsolete. She was «re-purchased», devalued. Everyone knows about this trick, and only by inertia does it still exist, steadily striving towards sunset. As the quintessence of any current discussion, the battle of Purulent and Oksimiron is very indicative in this sense. It would be possible to take Sobchak and Navalny. Pozner and Yarovaya. But to get to the real meaning of these disputes through the political thickets is more difficult and longer. Therefore Purulent and Oksimiron. Although they are all about the same thing.
Today, the one who big labels himself as a non-GMO media product is gaining the upper hand.
If we discard stylistic, taste and other particulars and try to capture the essence of the theatrical-rhyming fight, then we can see the confrontation of two different strategies. You can even say that these are two different concepts of presenting yourself as a media product in the media space. The first concept is Oksimiron. He, apparently, has not yet fully realized the irrelevance of promoting himself through success as an image of success. And here and there breaks through the prominence of this dead sun.
The second concept is Purulent. Let’s call it «imageless». In fact, two products have collided on the advertising market, where each is fighting for the audience, offering them themselves and their concept of success. Promotion of oneself is carried out by discrediting the success of the opponent. More precisely, the authenticity of someone else’s success is discredited. The success of the opponent is called into question, declared false, fake or fashionable. And in whom more stars of the old type will appear, who still looks into the void with hope and tries to navigate according to the old map of the starry sky, who did not take the celestial crash seriously, who believes in the divine exclusivity of the stars, he is recorded as a loser.
If we try to deconstruct all the public, stellar battles of recent years, we will get all the same disputes about authenticity. The oddity lies in the fact that they take place in an absolutely playful space. What is authenticity then? Here everything is subject to conventions and conditions, moves according to the rules: the location of the participants, timing, lighting, mutual accusations of hypocrisy and deceit, hiding true motives, distorting reality, falsifying history. And, in the end, success is on the side of the one who can convince the audience of his, as it were, authenticity.
As you all know, farm products are in fashion, not greenhouse products. Today, whoever is big labeling themselves as a non-GMO media product is gaining the upper hand. In the bottom line, we get an integral and main part of the new success — the rejection of all sorts of image fertilizers. Or removing the image as a problem with the help of its deliberate hypertrophy. For example, white lenses, tattoos on the face, the wildest hair colors directly show us that this is no longer cosmetics, but makeup, an image squared. Which, as it were, does not retouch authenticity, but, on the contrary, shows it and emphasizes it. Instead of a ball — a carnival. This is no longer an image, but an image. Feel the difference, as they say.
In the artificial world of copies, imitations, prints and editions, the original is kept in a museum or archive. There is his place. If you pay attention to the principle of the structure of any museum of art, you will notice that they are all filled with household items that have gone out of use. Flemish painting once created the comfort of the first bourgeois. Icons, mummies, sculptures of Greek gods were objects of daily worship and use. Now these are exhibits deprived of their original functions. And people go to them. What for?
Not for the sake of history, not to join, but rather to partake of authenticity. It’s a ritual, a new ritual. Moreover, the majority of visitors not only have no idea about the Flemish school — they do not distinguish Hercules from Zeus. They are drawn to authenticity.
It is unlikely that this text would be listened to or read by people if it was written or read aloud by a person similar to me, or my understudy. It would not be original. He probably wouldn’t be successful. Everyone wants authenticity. She is in short supply. What is authenticity now? How do we distinguish the work of a master from a modern copy? The original paint is dimmer, there are defects, somewhere chipped. The original has a story with a capital letter, preferably an interesting one. Note that there are no media stars without history. If it doesn’t exist, it will definitely be created.
We can see the same in fashion. Special aging of new things. It’s like creating a biography for them. Old furniture, utensils, interiors. We may soon find ourselves in a world of «old new things». A non-specialist can no longer guess the year of manufacture of a table offhand. However, the year of release of many women can no longer be determined either. But we’re not talking about that.
The social ring is waiting for new fighters. Image sparring for authenticity in the name of success continues
In a sense, modern media stars are reconstructing the images of old stars. They are trying to match the ideas of the stars from the divine ether, until the sky fell to the earth. Self-presentation is tailored according to old models. Hence the return of fashion to «Michaeljackson» leather jackets with studs, fringe and similar lurex from the shining 1980s. Or, on the contrary, deliberate restraint, monochrome, which, in general, comes from the same times. As a result, we get a successful reconstruction of Marlene Dietrich in the form of Renata Litvinova.
Reconstruction as an imitation of authenticity is increasingly invading our lives. Bloggers reconstruct TV presenters. Actors try to present themselves as actors they have seen interviews on TV, politicians are trying to reconstruct politics. Social roles were painted in the last century, artificially aged costumes are hung in dusty dressing rooms. Everyone is ready to record a video blog, broadcast a reality show, an interview with Dudya.
The social ring is waiting for new fighters. Image sparring for authenticity in the name of success continues. Sincerity wins. What is sincerity? As usual in our latitudes, the truth is more negative than positive. Only propaganda is positive. As in a saying that has been sitting in our minds since childhood: “Better the bitter truth than the sweet lie.” And it is so firmly imprinted in our minds that we tend to perceive any positive message as a lie. Advertising, image, in the end. But as soon as we feel notes of bitterness in the message, it is immediately perceived by us as close to the truth and sincere.
Sincerity is quite profitable and not so costly. Add some mustard. If you express the same thought in legitimate and forbidden language, then you can easily establish that in the second case you will have more faith. Thanks to constant persecution, matting has become like a runaway convict with a negative component, by definition. Therefore, in terms of sincerity wins with enviable constancy.
Media success is always demonstrative. He’s made that way. Success for yourself, success in yourself is almost never
Sincerity technology has been widely and successfully used for a long time. Take that Trump. His entire media career, which is now, by the way, at its peak, consists of the technology of sincerity: radiate sincerity, beware of fakes and buy natural products.
From all of the above, it follows that media success is always demonstrative. He’s made that way. There is almost no success for oneself, there is almost no success in oneself. If someone stepped into the spotlight with the statements: “I’m not here for the glory!”, This means that they simply chose such a strategy to advance on the path to success. Distracting maneuver.
And the last important point. According to my observations, those who declare that they are doing something not for the sake of money are more insistent than others in demanding an advance payment.