Panda Bear and the Unabomber

Chuck Klosterman ends one of the sections of his essay "Fail" with the lines, "We do not have the freedom to think whatever we want. We don't. And until we accept that, it's useless to think about anything else." Why is Klosterman being such a Debbie Downer? Because he's right. And we're fucked.

Or rather Ted Kaczynski's right. Klosterman's "Fail" is something of an explication of and a reaction to Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future. Kaczynski, more commonly known as the "Unabomber," wrote Industrial Society and Its Future as a tract against technology. He begins it with the statement "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race," and then sent bombs to people's houses and lost all credibility. It's doubtful if he ever had any sanity.


Not a bad looking fella!

But that's not really the point. In "Fail," Klosterman comes to terms with the fact that Kaczynski might actually be right in bemoaning society for blindly accepting all of technology with open arms. And then he writes "I love the Internet. I love the Internet," after previously stating how much he loves reading and rereading about fucking Animal Collective. That's actually a good jumping off point, so let's do that.

I wouldn't call myself an Animal Collective fan. I've listened to Merriweather Post Pavillion a couple times, and I really dig a lot of the earlier tracks on the album. There's that song "My Girls" which has that catchy-as-the-clap hook that goes "I don't mean to seem like I care about material things/ like a social status/ I just want/ four walls and adobe slats/ for my girls/ Ooooh! oooh!" But other than that, I've never heard Strawberry Jam, nor have I heard neither Panda Bear nor Avey Tare's solo stuff. I think Avey Tare might have actually put out some Animal Collective shoes a while ago.

See that? I just listed off two members, an album, and a piece of merchandise for a band I'M NOT EVEN A FUCKING FAN OF. This isn't an attempt stroking my indie-rock dick or anything like that. Quite the opposite. It's almost disgusting. I don't want to know about Animal Collective shoes. I don't like the fact that I know that there's a third member to the band and that I'm going to look up his name (if I already haven't). I don't know if I very much want to talk about a guy who calls himself PANDA BEAR as if he were an important part of my life. That's about as cool as saying "Axl Rose and Slash changed my life!"


This isn't me, I swear. My phone doesn't get Twitter updates.

My knowledge of Animal Collective is unnatural. I've never seen them live. I've only listened to them casually. My physical interaction (seeing/listening) with the group is scant at best, as is my intellectual interaction (comprehension/understanding of their art) with them. So why? Because, according to Kaczynski, "technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom." To explain this, Kaczynski uses the example of cars and Klosterman uses the example of an air condition. I'm not that big of a thinker, so I'm going to use Twitter. I'm a fan of a handful of the bands that get a lot of press on sites like Pitchfork, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, etc. Free. I used to go directly to these sites every morning and scroll around seeing if anything I was interested in was being written about, looking for key words like "Hold Steady," or "Japandroids." Free. I had to scroll a lot because there's a lot of pictures and stuff. Carpal Tunnel's no joke. When I got a Twitter, I realized I could subscribe to their news feeds and only scroll a little to see what was up. Online publications have gotten a knack for writing a whole story in 140 characters minus a bit.ly link, so when an update from one of those sites pops up, I'll probably read the whole thing. So when Avey Tare designs some new fucking shoes for Animal Collective I'm going to hear about it three or four different times. Unfree.

I'll concede that it's not as perfect of an analogy as Kaczynski's, but I also won't mail you a bomb.

So why not disable my Twitter account? Because I love Twitter. I love Twitter because I do appreciate those news feeds. I love Twitter as an exercise in terse prose. I love Twitter because I can witness Louis C.K. getting drunk and calling Sarah Palin a cunt. Klosterman's own Twitter account is pretty interesting. I've willingly acquiesced into an arm, or probably more like a finger, of the media hegemony because it made me feel good when the lead singer of Les Savy Fav replied to a tweet I tweeted at him. I would rather be assaulted with rave reviews about Panda Bear's solo album than be free enough to look for information for myself. It's bad but I need it. I can't quit anytime I want. But I do yearn for something more. Or is it something less?

Just give me four walls and adobe slats and maybe I can make something of this.