We fucked it up. Or so the meeja tells us.
We got giddy and greedy, scarfing peacock burgers by the tonne as we soared sunward on handmade wax wings. We never had it so good.We glugged from the bloated tit of plenty but forgot to wind ourselves. We holidayed long & hard on the Côte D’Swank – dripping in organic honey suncream.
And now? It’s all gone. All gone forever.
*crysies*
But wait! Let’s loose the nooses from our necks for a moment. Let’s stay our self-strangling hands. There’s an upside to all this misery and dark despair!
We’ve been taught a harsh lesson and it’ll, like, make us grow and stuff. We worshiped at the altar of chocolate shoes, bags that were not bags, and wine-snorting weekends with the boys. It now turns out though that all this stuff was, y’know, like totally shallow or something?
Thanks global financial apocalypse! You’ve shown us the path to self-satisfaction of a different order. Wiser, more mature.
We finally realise what had been missing from our lives during those spiritually impoverished years when we frolicked and splashed under the Celtic Tiger’s golden shower. Ogham stones, walks on the beach, trees, mass, nature – shit like that. The gaudy house of cards that was our (so-called) lives has been toppled – but the veil has been lifted from our eyes. We’re free.
*crysies* (again)
This is us. This is me. This is you. We’re all part of that “We”. Read the broadsheets and listen to talk radio if you don’t believe me.
Embarrassingly, I hadn’t realised it myself till the Sindo‘s lifestyle section confirmed it. Who knew I had so much money? Who knew I was such a crass, ostentatious bastard? Who knew I was a smug, superficial cunt?
The meeja, that’s who.
That’s why they call them the newspapers.
‘Cos they break the News to you.
Of course the meeja knew…
Who else printed and broadcast the advertising that sold us the “never never” lifestyle? Who else wrote the articles and produced the shows that told us there was something wrong with us if we weren’t consuming conspicuously? Who else blew hot air in the bubble? Who else is milking the FAS travel expenses story for everything it is worth to deflect attention from the original FAS advertising expenses of which they were the beneficiaries?
Ah, can’t beat a good rant!
Simon, it was certainly news to me. If I’d known how rolling in it I was I’d have splashed out on all those aspirational items that I’ve yet to buy. I was under the impression (I know, it’s mad!) that I was scraping by and counting the pennies. Not so, it appears. And let’s not go near my bling-addicted, golf holiday lifestyle. Sure I never opened a book that wasn’t written by Tony Robbins in about 10 years.
Francis, I resent being dragged into the “We”. The assumption being that because I’m reading/listening to X or Y then it (logically) follows that I must (surely) be part of a gang that shares common values (and enjoys/enjoyed a common lifestyle). Count me out.
It’s great fun watching the (supposed) confidence-implosion of the “We” though. Even if it only plays out in hypothetical terms in the meeja.
I have more money than I had this time last year. This scares me. Every time I pass an alleyway I expect middle-aged men in dishevelled suits to leap out and beat me to within an inch of my life.
“We” never means we when written by a journalist, especially a frothy hack feature journalist. It means either “you” or “me” depending on context:
“Why are we obsessed with Jade Goody”
(I am obsessed with Jade Goody)
“We are all guilty”
(You are all guilty)
Eli, You can’t have more. It doesn’t fit the narrative. You HAD more. Now you have less. But you’re growing and becoming less of a prick as a result. As we all are. Apparently.
Fergal, Spot on. And, of course, the endless hand-wringing about “our” obsession with Jade Goody is not merely commentary on the obsession. It IS the obsession. A feedback loop. Snake eats its tail. My head hurts.
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