Borkowski Weekly Media Trends 17-09-2021

Gov’t tactics of encouraging ‘British’ programming on the BBC

The UK government has successfully co-opted the flag-waving, Rule-Britannia, Bulldog-nationalist vision of Britishness that was a driving force in the successful Brexit campaign. Now embodying this vision appears to be forming a key part of their communications strategy.

Two stories this week illustrated this, both pointless posturing fluffy gambits, both very plausibly successful vote-winners.

The first saw outgoing media minister John Whittingdale appeal for television shows to be ‘distinctively British’, pointing to classics Dad’s Army, Coronation Street and Only Fools and Horses in stead of a comprehensive definition of the term.

This should be a problem: if one infers from Whittingdale’s statement a perceived lack of Britishness in our current output then asks oneself, what about recent British televisual triumphs such as I May Destroy You, it could possibly be perceived as un-British, compared to the exemplars given, the likeliest answers from a minister in this government could make uncomfortable reading to say the least.

The other story is just satire-as-policy. ‘Bring back imperial’ sits alongside ‘bring back hanging’ as the stock phrase of the parodic right-wing blowhard, but as a policy it’s been consigned to the Rees-Mogg faction of the ‘oddball Whig’ faction of the Tory party until now.

As a policy it’s been widely panned as cutting off our nose to spite our face. Throwing us out of whack with all the world’s countries (apart from those eccentric outliers, Liberia, Myanmar and the good ol’US-of-A).

And yet a glance at public and media discourse, and response to recent campaigns and policies, particularly in elections, offers no reason why these policies shouldn’t be a roaring success in nostalgist, jingoistic, utterly barking 2021 Britain.

Met Gala 2021: AOC and her divisive political statement

With a wishy-washy theme and red carpet favourites like Beyonce and Lady Gaga failing to attend, this year’s Met Gala ‘In American: A lexicon of fashion’, left viewers underwhelmed.

It was Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who made the biggest splash of the night. She wore a white dress with the words ‘TAX THE RICH’ written in huge red letters across the back.

In her red carpet interview, she said that the dress was about ‘challenging institutions’ as a ‘working-class woman of colour at the Met’. 

Why was the dress divisive? No, not because it received criticism from the millionaires surrounding AOC at the gala, (although by bringing the issue into pop culture, AOC put tax at the forefront of a certain demographic's minds for the first time, probably, ever).

The criticism came from commentators fighting from the same corner as AOC, who were quick to point out the hypocrisy of wearing the dress to an event that costs $30,000. Those arguments were quickly extinguished: AOC would have attended for free. But as Jameela Jamil put it in an Instagram post, it is yet another sad example of cancel culture gone mad. 

It begs the question: will cancel culture ever see a turning point? Likely, yes. As people become more aware of the dangers of dismissing well-meaning actions, cannibalising those fighting for the same cause (and influential voices like Jamil continue to call the issue out), here’s predicting we might see a new, more forgiving tack start to take hold. Until cancel culture 2.0, that is…

Instagram versus TikTok and the next stage of the social media power struggle

Social media platforms are some of the evillest brands in the world. However, despite their reputation, they were beloved by early adopters in their infancy, before deploying mass surveillance on their userbase.

The likes of Twitter and YouTube have a concrete place in many people's lives, which is primarily down to their consistency that stretches well over a decade.

However, the battle between TikTok and Instagram will likely have a winner and a loser; will it be the platform owned by the Chinese government or the platform owned by Mark Zuckerberg?

Despite TikTok’s ties with China, their simplified approach to delivering content harks back to a golden era of social media, Vine; fast, snappy feeds that deliver original content, tailored to the user. It’s so direct that it can throw new users off at first, particularly older demographics that are used to a service that requires users to follow others before they can consume content.

Instagram, however, is going through a tricky identity crisis. The platform’s link to Facebook has damaged its reputation amongst younger audiences.

Originally, Instagram rose to prominence because it was simple in its approach – focusing on pictures. You couldn’t repost content – it gave the user the ability to build their profile, without sharing or retweeting other's posts.

Instagram got lucky when they ripped off Snapchat, taking the Stories feature and quelling Snapchat's exponential rise.

Their Reel’s feature hasn’t had the same effect. They have failed to curb TikTok’s growing dominance, and as a result, will see the platform decline as legions of younger fans bin Instagram in favour of TikTok.