Sincerely, Rubber (Part 1)

This is Part 1 in a series titled "Sincerely, Rubber".

Lately, I've been perceiving a vein that seemingly pumps through everything. I see something, or read something, or hear something, and at first the events seem disparate – on the extreme almost diametrically opposed, but more and more I think that almost everything is converging to a central theme.

My mind keeps going back to a song by Radiohead.

Rubber

Radiohead's 1995 release "The Bends" showcases one of my all-time favorite songs: "Fake Plastic Trees". Despite being a well-known single from the record, it sits in the shadow of "High & Dry", which of course sits in the monstrous shade of the single from their previous record "Pablo Honey" – the anthem of every karaoke bar and cover band in existence: "Creep" (The popularity of "Creep" does such a disservice to this era of Radiohead, but I won't pursue that digression).

The lyrics of "Fake Plastic Trees" start by describing a women, as part of a, sort-of, incremental regress –

"her green plastic watering can"

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"for a fake Chinese rubber plant"

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"that she bought from a rubber man"

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"In a town full of rubber plans"

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"In a fake plastic earth".

The lyrics continue to describe the woman's partner as a "cracked polystyrene man... Who used to do surgery for girls in '80s". Polystyrene is a synthetic polymer – you're probably familiar with one of its most common forms: Styrofoam. In other words, this is a brittle – artificial man. Referencing his past profession is a seeming non sequitur, but that is quickly remedied by a subtle joke in the following line: "But gravity always wins". The '80s saw the rise in popularity of the aesthetic use of plastic surgery.

Youth, or the hyperbole of it, as represented by plastic surgery, living things, as represented by "rubber plants" and "plastic earth" and "town full of rubber plans" – the opening of "Fake Plastic Trees" describes, quite literally, an artificial environment where everything and everyone is fake. And I don't mean "fake" in the colloquial social sense, like how one would describe a so-called "two-faced" person, but "fake" in the way that one can look at the accumulated dust on a house plant and conclude that the plant isn't actually a plant at all – it's a caricature of a plant – it's not authentic; it's a fake plastic – thing.

At this point, the song tonally shifts and the lyrics also shift perspective, to the first person. The speaker describes a woman:

"She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love."

The speaker is seemingly enamored by a woman – maybe the aformentioned, and yet he is still only a product (pun intended) of his environment; he can only express his most authentic feeling inauthentically – in this "slogany", "catch-phrase", "marketing-speak" sort-of way. What's worse is that the speaker is aware of this and chagrins himself, extending his sloganeering ad absurdum; declaring his feelings, themselves, as "fake" and "plastic".

The song concludes with the speaker contending with his awareness that he is, himself, a caricature, incapable of being sincere and not what the unrequited woman desires.

"Fake Plastic Trees" describes a world of ease and luxury. Inhabitants busy themselves with cosplaying plant cultivation, pretend interpersonal relationship, in an environment (even using of the word "environment" to describe this place seems oxymoronic!) where everything is commoditized and pre-canned. There is no want of "things", and even the organs of "youthfulness" have been packaged into a item, to be plucked from the shelves. And despite this luxury, the inhabitants clearly feel something contrary – a malaise, a sense that what they are experiencing, individually and as a collective, isn't what it ought to be.

There is a recurring blasé refrain throughout the song

"It wears her out"
"It wears him out"
"It wears me out"

The people in this world are not better off with this luxury. They're being drained – they're missing something.

Widgetization

"Imitation is suicide" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The 1960's,70's, and 80's produced a commoditization wave unseen by prior generations. Manufacturing and technology were booming, and it seemed that all sorts of new fancy gadgets and gizmos would alleviate the difficult and assuage the mundane, when it came to everyday living. Advertising was, of course, no new concept, but these decades experienced the widespread adoption of an advertisement catalyst: the television.

The television increasingly became the de-facto form of media that folks consumed. This allowed information to be beamed right into the family room of almost every home in the US, where the same product could be advertised, to every family, in every home, all at once. Eventually television, and more specifically the consumption of popular shows and genres, would become the de-facto "social currency"; it became "uncool" and eventually unorthodox to not be caught up on the latest genre or season of the hottest shows.

Robert D. Putnam's theorizes on the impacts of television on civic engagement in his book "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community". In his book, Putnam describes the decrease in in-person social intercourse, and its importance to a strong democracy.

Putnam estimates, of the fall-off observed in civic engagement, that at least 25% could be attributed to the expansion of "electronic entertainment" especially television.

What boggles the mind is that Putnam expressed this concern in his original essay "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital", that he wrote in 1995

Ultimately, television produced a homogenizing effect – the same advertisements were seen by everyone, and so everyone wanted the same sorts of things: the same appliances, the same gadgets, the same gizmos, and because of the manufacturing boom, they all could get them cheaply and relatively quickly. Instead of engaging each other across our shared communities – family, hobbies/interests, church, civics, we instead talked and compared our "widgets". Our widgets became our social bonds (a whole other discussion could be had on this topic w.r.t class, stretching into 19th century industrialization, but that deserves its own ramblings, methinks).

Then in the late 90's, the World Wide Web gained massive steam. It is natural that the first websites that experienced massive adoption were sites like eBay and Amazon – the widget sites. Gen X could now get their widgets more conveniently than ever before. It made sense that this was what the internet was first used for, and anyone who remembers early 2000's suburban home decor could testify to its homogenizing effects.

But Gen X's style of widget-ing still had one inconvenience: it required going to a special place, sitting down, and operating an awesome, albeit tethered, machine. This special place was called "the computer room".

This is the end of Part 1 in a series titled "Sincerely, Rubber".