The Memeing of Mark Fisher

128 pages

English language

Published Nov. 18, 2021 by Hunt Publishing Limited, John.

ISBN:: 978-1-78904-933-6

(1 review)

The Frankfurt School meets Fisher in this critique of capitalism incorporating memes, mental illness and psychedelia into a proposed counterculture. Spring 2020 to 2021 was the year that did not take place. We witnessed a depression, not economically speaking, but in the psychological A clinical depression of and by society itself. This depression was brought about not just by Covid isolation, but by the digital economy, fueled by social media and the meme. In the aftermath, this book revisits the main Frankfurt School theorists, Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin and Marcuse, who worked in the shadow of World War Two, during the rise of the culture industry. In examining their thoughts and drawing parallels with Fisher's Capitalist Realism, The Memeing of Mark Fisher aims to render the Frankfurt School as an incisive theoretical toolbox for the post-Covid digital age. Taking in the phenomena of QAnon, twitch streaming, and memes it argues that …

The Frankfurt School meets Fisher in this critique of capitalism incorporating memes, mental illness and psychedelia into a proposed counterculture. Spring 2020 to 2021 was the year that did not take place. We witnessed a depression, not economically speaking, but in the psychological A clinical depression of and by society itself. This depression was brought about not just by Covid isolation, but by the digital economy, fueled by social media and the meme. In the aftermath, this book revisits the main Frankfurt School theorists, Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin and Marcuse, who worked in the shadow of World War Two, during the rise of the culture industry. In examining their thoughts and drawing parallels with Fisher's Capitalist Realism, The Memeing of Mark Fisher aims to render the Frankfurt School as an incisive theoretical toolbox for the post-Covid digital age. Taking in the phenomena of QAnon, twitch streaming, and memes it argues that the dichotomy between culture and political praxis is a false one. Finally, as more people have access to the means for theoretical and cultural broadcasting, it is urged that the online left uses that access to build a real life cultural and political movement.

2 editions

The Weaver Reads reviewed The Memeing of Mark Fisher by Mike Watson

Goodreads Review of The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What to Do About It

2 stars

This was a wholly disappointing contribution to the literature. I was hoping for more discussion of the interplay between the Frankfurt School and Fisher, but that's not at all what I got. The argument seems to be that the Frankfurt School acted as a forerunner to Fisher's work, but this should have been so obvious to anyone reading Fisher as to be meaningless.

Watson did his Ph.D. at Goldsmiths, so I expected there to be more rigor on Fisher's work, given that he taught there until his death in 2017. In fact, Fisher almost seems to be mischaracterized--Watson hangs onto the link that Fisher draws out between capitalist realism and mental health, which was important, but it's not the whole point. There's some material here on capitalist realism, Hauntology, and even Acid Communism at the end, but none of them get the attention they deserve. At the same time, Fisher's …

This was a wholly disappointing contribution to the literature. I was hoping for more discussion of the interplay between the Frankfurt School and Fisher, but that's not at all what I got. The argument seems to be that the Frankfurt School acted as a forerunner to Fisher's work, but this should have been so obvious to anyone reading Fisher as to be meaningless.

Watson did his Ph.D. at Goldsmiths, so I expected there to be more rigor on Fisher's work, given that he taught there until his death in 2017. In fact, Fisher almost seems to be mischaracterized--Watson hangs onto the link that Fisher draws out between capitalist realism and mental health, which was important, but it's not the whole point. There's some material here on capitalist realism, Hauntology, and even Acid Communism at the end, but none of them get the attention they deserve. At the same time, Fisher's cybergothic, gothic materialist, and accelerationist writings get wholly missed. He was very much a product of the CCRU, and it's evident through his entire body of work, but that seems to be meaningless here.

The most interesting aspects of the work are Watson's discussion of Walter Benjamin's Paris Arcades project and Marcuse's writings on the relationship between capitalism and sexuality. There's a clear link between Marcuse and Fisher here, especially with Acid Communism, but also his earlier writing, which is heavily influenced by Lacan, Freud (esp. the death drive), and so on. I don't fully agree with Watson's push for a Benjamin-esque examination of digital spaces akin to the Paris Arcades. Judging by his discussion in the text, Watson is chronically online. A much more interesting way of approaching this is by doing the same for warehouses, malls, markets, and so on. It did inspire me to look at Tunisia in this way: What do the souks, malls, 3attars, concept stores, and boutiques of Tunis tell us about global capital? Quite a lot, I would imagine.

Watson's book is a really quick read, so it isn't a huge time investment, but I'm not so sure that it's worth it.