Documentary Review: You Can’t Kill Meme

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2021
Images from the Internet

You Can’t Kill Meme
Directed by Hayley Garrigus
Utopia
79 minutes, 2021

Media is fascinating. I have been a student in the field of Media Studies for decades, so when this particular “anti-documentary” came up, I just jumped on it. I have been saying for as long as the Trump administration has dumbed down the culture, that the right is more interested in memes than facts.

According to the Oxford Languages Website, which gives two main definitions of a meme that are both accurate to this film, it is ”an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitations.” It is also described as “a(n)… image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.”

The film describes the meme process with a bit more flamboyance, as “memetic magick.” Any way, you want to designate it, it is created on a computer and then hoisted upon the Internet, via social media such as Facebook (yes, I am still calling it that), Instagram, etc., and it is spread around through like-minded individuals who often accept it as truth, in part because it is in print, but more because it falls into their own ideology. While used by both sides of the political aisle, it is especially accepted as gospel by the alt-right, who are willing to accept conspiracy theories without seeking out the sources, because receiving a piece of sometimes amusing art from someone who has like-minded leanings is easier to digest than the often-complex text of those who they have chosen to distrust (such as a quick meme about COVID, rather than the complex and changing science). It is apparently easier for them to believe a meme than known fact, because it is beyond their ken and not in their realm of belief systems.

Billy Brujo

As an interesting point of entry to the meme, the director chose to focus on R. Kirk Packwood’s 2004 book Memetic Magick: Manipulation of the Root Social Matrix and the Fabric of Reality. This was at the rise of the 4chan Website and, of all things, the Pepe the Frog meme, which became one of the first viral memes, especially one that was adopted by the politically right leaning, according to Chaos magician (yeah, I have no idea what that is), YouTube personality, and apparently goth by his make-up (observation, not criticism), Billy Brujo. He states, “We’re looking for magick until we find it” on social media. Sounds a bit like the equivalent religious search for the god-being. In Brujo’s case, to me that could be another way to describe an algorithm. I actually felt sad for him, as I do for religious fanatics.

Marshall McLuhan’s theories turn up here and there, such as one anonymous government worker who states, “…this myth [is] that the Internet opens people up to new ideas. It doesn’t; it actually allows them to close down”. McLuhan famously said that most technologies do the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do (e.g., a car was supposed to make it possible to visit relations far away, but it makes it easier to go so far you may not come back).  

Pepe Trump

The main focus of the beginning narrative of the film starts in earnest with the Trump presidential campaign, and the use of Pepe to promote the Trump team and to mock Hillary Clinton.

While director and narrator Garrigus breaks down the meanings of the coded language of “magick” and “memetics,” she also does not talk down to the audience. Occasionally it sounds a bit “New Agey” for my tastes, but her point is valid and worth noting. That being said, Garrigus seems to come from a higher (or is that deeper) tech world than I do. She claims around 2014, the acronym “LOL” was replaced by “KEK,” who was the frog-headed Egyptian god (symbolizing the bringer of light after the darkness, or chaos). Really? I don’t remember that, and I still see the former to this day, but have never noticed the latter. But then again, I have never been on 4chan, nor hang out at alt-right sites.

The documentary, I find, is a bit disconcerting. We are facing civil unrest, “the big lie,” voter suppression, the scrapping of voter right and rights to abortion,” and the documentary is discussing mixing the internet with magick – literal metaphysicality – with speakers like Dave Mullen-Muhr, a right-wing pundit (to give you an example of his trustworthiness, he deals in Bitcoins) who believes in the Matrix, and calls Trump the “red pill.” And people listen to him, why? And why should we? Or there is Carole, a New Age Buddhist, who discusses the “science of spirituality.” There’s an oxymoron for you. She is part of a group of Lightworkers, who “are awakened beings who bear the highest interests of all living beings and Earth in their minds,” according to www.happiness.com. One of them that we meet is Nick Peterson, a “scientist magician.”

Sometimes it is hard to tell whose “side” Garrigus is on, stating Mullen-Muhr is a dear friend, while pointing out the evils of KEK (or as I now call it, pre-QAnon, which is quoted a bit here, as well). Rather than pointing out what right wingers are doing, she almost gleefully gives them a voice. Remember, sometimes things are actually opposite of what they are intended.

I must confess, I went through the New Age movement indirectly in the early 1980s when I dated someone neck-deep in it. I never believed, but I saw with her friends the reliance on crystals, psychics, and yes, magick. This deep-dive look at a very technical product (memes and social media) has the same woo-hoo as that. It was hard to take the topic seriously, and that’s on me, not the film itself. Harold Innis may have called it a bias of communication, both as sender and receiver (I could bring up Shannon-Weaver at this point…oh, I did; never mind).

Taking out all the New Age Shaman stuff, to put it simply in my opinion, a better way to describe memetic magick is a word that was once incredibly popular in big business during the 1990s: synergy. That is when something grows beyond one’s control and gains a life of its own. The expression “Jump the shark,” for example, has gone beyond “Happy Days” and is now a description for an act of desperation. That’s synergy. Memes do not use magick to become powerful, they are used enough to become cultural icons – for good or in this case bad – and go beyond the originator’s control until they become something broader with a wider base.

It is really hard to take a lot of this seriously. I mean, Carole discusses how Obama went to Mars in a secret space program with someone who started time traveling when they were 5 years old; another woman pulls four assault rifles out from under her bed as well as a huge army/Bowie knife while spouting she likes Trump because he’s a “disrupter.” There is a belief expressed that both the left and the right use wizards and witches to cast spells on the other side but the right uses dark magick. It also would be quite easy to just substitute the word “magick” with “Jesus.”

Carole

As the film gets to the last quarter, the narration starts sharply turning anti-Liberal (Garrigus claims they hate the Middle Class, like the Conservatives help them with tax cuts for the uber rich?). At some point, the memetic fades away, and it’s the magick that becomes forefront through the middle section. This documentary isn’t as much about social media as New Age philosophy with a right-wing twist.

Towards the third act of the doc, Garrigus brings it around again by interviewing Packwood, author of the book that foisted this film, Memetic Magick. He humorously declares that he and 12 others can change the course of the world, while describing himself as  “underrated,” and numerous times as “intelligent.” Okay, then. It’s around this point where the meme topic raises its head again, as the meme is claimed to have elected Trump in 2016, according to the film. No focus at all on Russian hackers or the interference of James Comey.

As far as the form of the film, Garrigus makes it personal as she narrates opinions, films a variety of people (sometimes a bit too long), adds some nice stock footage as well as her own, animation, and 4chan screenshots, and does her best to avoid the dreaded talking head syndrome. Kudos for that. I just wish the documentary was more about what it claimed, how the right uses memes, than a guide to magickal thinking. The narrative straddles the fence (a metaphor for right/left politics) between technology and mysticism, and perhaps it would have been less whiplashy if it had been two separate accounts.

You can find the documentary on Altavod, Apple TV and Video on Demand.

 

Ringing the Fern

Text © Robert Barry Francos
Images from the Internet

Recently, I went to a meditation group to check it out. I am not saying I am enlightened, or am seeking, enlightenment, or am even some kind of Dharma Punk. Yes, I still like my music faster and louder and yes, rock’n’roll made a man outta me, as the Dictators proudly posited, but it was pleasant to sit still and just be for 40 minutes. Perhaps I am old enough to appreciate it, but that was not always so.

In the early 1980s, my friend Jim Downs was dating Dr. Gerri Leigh, who was both a high-end professional psychic and deep into what is then known as the New Age movement. For the unaware, New Age was a nearly cult-level belief system in the healing power of crystals, pyramids, charkas, and usually being vegetarian (if not vegan). The followers were as avid as the punk straight-edgers of the same period, except a whole market came out of it worth millions of dollars, including scents, charms, and especially books (it pretty much started the whole glut of self-help writing that even thrives today). Whole gatherings and expos were devoted to the methods of “betterment.”

Gerri was, as I stated, deeply entrenched in it, for that was her main client base as a professional psychic: upper middle class (and higher) whites with disposable income, who were looking for some kind of piece of mind, no matter what the cost. Back then, Gerri’s service was $100 per “hour” (50 minute sessions). Using various methods, she would tell her patrons whether the time was “right” to enter business deals, if they would find love, or when they would reach some kind of happiness or success.

She offered to “read” me gratis a few times, but I always refused because not only didn’t I believe it, even if I did I wouldn’t want to know. I liked Gerri as a person; hell, she even had worked for Joe Franklin as a producer on his show before her full-time New Age gig. But I didn’t believe in her psychic abilities, and felt her talent was as a great listener.

One thing Gerri did do for me was set up a date with her assistant, Fern Ring. Fern was a pretty avid follower of the New Age psyche, more so than even Gerri, and believed in Gerri unquestionably (as far as I could tell). For example, Fern would “do” her tarot in the morning, and if she had a “negative” reading, she would stay home.

On our first date, we went out to eat at a vegetarian restaurant (her choice) and then came back to her apartment on the Upper East Side. It was just about 11 PM, so we sat on the couch to watch The Honeymooners – and she promptly fell asleep. I woke her when the show was over, and went home.

Fern was a smart woman, having graduated Cum Laude from some upstate college, but she was also unassuming and claimed it was no big deal. At the time, my ego didn’t understand that attitude, but I respected it.

For full disclosure purposes, I must admit that I was a bit strong headed and somewhat closed minded about some things at that time in my life, especially toward the whole New Age thing. While I still have problems with some of that mentality – much as I do with fervent straight-edge – I am much more open minded to try new things before “poo-pooing” it.

There were signs right from the start that things with Fern would not work out, and not just because I was on the rebound from another relationship. For one thing, my humor escaped her completely. For example, the phone went off and I said, “Oh, I think I hear the fern ring.” Not only did she not find it funny, but also it led to our first argument.

Fern was a strict vegetarian. In that period, vegetarian food was not as interesting as it is these days. In fact, I found it awful. Seemed that almost everything was either green or gray: green if it was raw, gray if it was cooked. With my life-long very limited sense of smell, the food was also so bland that I was bored after a few bites. Or, if it was very spicy, all I tasted was the spices and not the object. Obviously, Fern liked vegetarian restaurants, but I kept pulling for places that served meat as well (or, as I crudely put it then, “I hope they have some dead animal flesh”).

Gerri made the rounds on television since New Age was a populist fad, showing up as a frequent guest on The Joe Franklin Show and other news magazine kinds of programs. Once she was even featured on a segment of The Morton Downey Jr. show, which was an “expose” of New Age. At one point, Fern was at the Loudmouth podium shilling as one of Gerri’s clients, but not identifying herself as Gerri’s assistant. She did the same on some feature news program segment about Gerri.

Toward the end of the short-lived relationship, I went with Fern to one of Gerri’s parties. Gerri threw them occasionally for her clients, essentially for them to bring their friends, hoping to farm new clients. In my punk, stripped-down attitude, I was not impressed with this navel-gazing crowd. Here are a couple of true conversations from that party:

Woman: What’s your sign?
RBF: Lobo, the Wolf [a Bugs Bunny reference for those who don’t get it]
Woman: No, really.
RBF: I’d rather not be judged by when I was born, but if you guess, I’ll say so.
Woman: [five guesses later] Taurus?
RBF: Yes, May 10th.
Woman: I knew it!

Man: How do you know Gerri?
RBF: I’m a friend of her boyfriend.
Man: Has she ever done a reading for you?
RBF: She’s offered to do them, but I said no.
Man: How much did she ask for?
RBF: Nothing.
Man: [Angrily] Nothing? I see her three times a week [meaning $300 per week, $1200 per month, in early 1980s dollars] and she offers them to you for free and you turn her down?!
Then he stormed off in disgust, though I’ve never found out if he was mad at me for turning it down, or her for offering it to me for free. Either way, he kept seeing her.

One evening after a dinner, we were getting cozy, when the phone rang. She went to another room to answer it, and when she came back, she said, essentially, I just don’t do it for her, so goodbye. A bit shocked by this turn of events, I left and never saw her again. While hurt, I was not heartbroken. And it truly was for the better of everyone involved. It certainly was good she realized it early.

Jim soon also split from Gerri, and eventually married Denise Nadvornik. It was a lovely wedding. A few years later, Gerri went into the “next big thing,” channeling, which was popularized by JZ Knight / Ramtha. When I heard that Gerri passed away in 2003 of cancer while in her 40s, I was saddened by the news. She worked with 9/11 survivors, and I wonder it that may have been a factor. Here is some info on her: www.themetaarts.com/archives/200306/drgerri.html.

As for Fern, the last I heard anything about her was in the late 1980s. This is the story as I heard it, which sounds plausibly to me: seems she was dating an acquaintance of a friend of mine. The guy was mugged one afternoon, and Fern got mad at him, demanding to know what he did, on a karmic level, that caused him to get attacked later in the day.

Yet as strange as all that was to me, Fern was at heart a good person who was devoted to her beliefs and definitely well meaning. I wish her well.