“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds.
And in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.” – Marwan Makhoul
In the middle of a transactional city with screeching tyres and rain as deafening as a bomb, the girl, our subject, finds solace in the blue light of her phone, gripped like a worn-out toy in her hands. The beauty of escapism is how easy it is to switch the thrum of the thunderstorm, like gunshots, to a drumbeat. From a feeling of hysteria to one of blissful naivety.
I’d like to explore how our political environment is associated with forms of media we consume. In this essay, I invite you to challenge our subject, who is on the verge of losing her candour of authenticity, to a sacrifice of her most powerful tool: her mind.
If you could be anyone, who would you be?
As our society develops, this questions transform from a hypothetical nature to a reality. As businesses mimic dictators, who pass a new law against fundamental rights, synchronised with an aesthetic each week. Equipped with a set of products bound to go out of fashion when validation fluctuates, our identities are transforming from the beauty of our individuality to influencers, all designed to rebrand you into a package of a perfect human being. Our subject tugs at the strings of her sweater, scratching the polyester fabric. The lack of authenticity comes not just from the illegal child labour policies etched into each fibre of thread, but also from social media’s clever way of desensitising our emotions. We experience a juxtaposition of feelings through each scroll, from mothers in Sudan abused by the soldiers sworn to protect them, to lifestyle content, selling us a routine curated to distract us from the betrayal of the future generation of wilderness converted to factories. Lace and ruffles are a distraction from where our tax money is going: writings on artillery shells that deliver the sickening offence into a genocide that never asked to be born. They catapult on Palestinian women, promising to “Finish Them.” The truth is drowning in passive acceptance instead of questioning the injustice stitched on the fabric of our shoulders.
It’s ironic how I mention influencers as human beings, for that may not be the case for much longer. Especially in the music industry, where AI artists like Sienna Rose pave their way into radio stations on Spotify, conditioning listeners to the sound of manufactured voices. The pushing usage of such ‘artists’ through apps like Suno AI threatens the authenticity of “legitimate artists.” Our subject scrolls through playlists, clicking on “Love It If We Made It” by the 1975, but promptly flinches.
“Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men.”
She thinks about the flyers advocating for Black Lives Matter lost in a mountain of papers, a cause which lost its relevance when people stopped posting.
Music brings together a community, and yet Big Tech firms that advocate for Suno AI fail to remember how powerful a revolution can be. The Berlin Wall was brought down through empowerment, not through political strategies like government-issued textbooks want us to believe. If that’s the case, then why has music become less about further materialising the strength of unity, and about literally silencing the power of our voices? This is true for the artists themselves. A celebrity preaches against the deportation of legal citizens, and then supports systems against the protection of their fanbase, such as Nicki Minaj’s support for the Trump Administration despite bills which explicitly “[strip] many lawfully present immigrants from access to health insurance and nutrition aid.” Ironic, considering Minaj herself is an immigrant.
Our subject’s head has been revolving around a central theme of consumer-targeted algorithms, diminishing the passion of the creatives. She picks a notebook scuffed at the edges and tries her best to think; a challenging skill these days.
AI is the source behind our unauthentic intentions; once we surrender our minds, AI has the power to control our actions, too. Our interaction with all forms of AI can be linked to helplessness in our internal self, heavily influenced by our external environment, which is shaped by the political parties governing our society. In my previous points, it may seem that humans are just as much to blame, but these reactions may stem from a place of survival rather than a lack of authenticity. With AI seeping into every corner of our existence, we have no choice but to accept its presence whether we want to or not. Things like groceries, housing, and basic necessities have become romanticised by Gen-Z due to pressurising market conditions linked to geopolitical tensions. “Across Asia, youth unemployment rates are two to three times higher than headline averages.” The rise of AI not only leads to even more jobs becoming redundant in an already horrible market, but also forces young people into careers where AI dominates, and creativity is abandoned to conformity within social norms. But who creates these norms? There is no fixed answer as it varies across cultures; in South-East Asia, Western beauty norms have extended across the globe, where “darker-colored skin was considered less desirable as lower-class individuals were usually exposed to more manual labour in the sun.” These individuals are often paid far below the minimum wage, or nothing at all, due to the absence of Workers’ Rights.
As a result, we’ve entered a world of oxymorons, where authenticity becomes nearly impossible to distinguish. When it comes down to the expense of War, inducing global calamities across environments and economies, silence becomes a privilege; true authenticity links back to the force you and I possess: the power of our mind.
But here lies the question: will we let it be controlled? Or will we be brave enough to question
those in control?
Our subject ditches her headphones in a heap of polyester sweaters on the ground, the thunderstorm does not prevail, but she is no longer afraid. Instead, she opens her notebook and begins to write…
“In the middle of a transactional city with screeching tyres and rain as deafening as a bomb…”
