Now we’ve got rid of all our old books and photos (unless they ‘sparked joy’), it’s time to buy some lovely octagonal plates
My friends online will be familiar with the phrase “late-stage capitalism” and its associated examples, including Tesco’s festive mulled wine-scented toilet paper (delightful) and the mammoth black iPhone advertising hoardings (less so) installed over the windows of low-income flats in east London – the landlord had sold their tenants’ daylight.
It is one of those useful phrases that encompasses the discomfort and farce of modern life, at a time when inequality rises like sea levels, competition is sewn into everyday life, stability and security in work are fairy tales, yet the handful of corporations that control the textures of our life play our political fears back to us in jingles, co-opting politics to sell us Pepsi. On my desk I have packages containing 1 x “empowering” sheet-mask for the vulva, another containing a £50 eco-friendly water bottle that jangles with “cleansing crystals” and, stuck in a notebook, a photo ripped from a magazine of a pair of jeans that came ready-muddied, to show its wearer can “get down and dirty”, £350. Here we are, broken.
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