Will The Hills moderate us to the Book of Revelation ? InLee Konstantinou‘sPop Apocalypse , we can watch anyone , anytime , and celebrity adoration has infiltrated every aspect of our finish . It may just be the end of the world .
Pop Apocalypse shares some relationship in its estimate with Dani and Eytan Kollin ’s The Unincorporated Man and Cory Doctorow ’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom . But the ethnical phenomenon it most distinctly evokes is The Hills . Yes , the quasi - reality show in which vapid twenty - somethings gallivant through Los Angeles . But it ’s not that Konstantinou is celebrating all thing bleach blond and Hollywood . Quite the contrary , he sets forth the frightening proposition that The Hills might be our hereafter .
Eliot R. Vanderthorpe Jr. is our Lauren Conrad . A failed academician ( he never did finish his go for philosophical system thesis on Elvis impersonators ) , Vanderthorpe is also a minor , sometimes unwilling , celebrity . Eliot ’s billionaire father , Eliot Sr . , developed Omni , an advanced human recognition software that can identify any human on Earth from any photo or video . While being able to spy suspected terrorist and fugitives from the legal philosophy is all well and unspoiled , most multitude use Omni as part of the celebrity machine . With tabloids and tidings outlet paying giving dollar for celebrity footage , shortly everyone becomes a member of the paparazzo , film everyone and everything all the time in hope of a big payoff . And , in a creation where everyone ’s every move is being recorded , anyone can end up a famous person .
This new celebrity civilisation has two drastic results . First , a someone ’s name and reputation become a trade good , a affair that can be buy and sold . Depending on one ’s popularity and recent actions , footage of them can get a certain price from media outlets . It ’s sort of like a cynical , hypercapitalistic form of whuffie . At the same time , individuals can decide to “ go public , ” sell shares of their reputation on a special stock certificate exchange . Shareholders even get a vote in the workings of the reputation they own . This suits the evangelical Eliot Sr . quite nicely , as he all but analogizes the invisible hand of the detached marketplace with the invisible hand of God .
The second termination is that celebrity culture has overrun every aspect of advanced animation . ethnic study has become a popular major at university , not to scrutinize the effect of pa culture on our society , but so they can become report managers and betray coming - of - age shows to Disney . full academic conferences are devoted to celebrities like Eliot , and scholars indite papers canvas his decision to change his major or cheat on his girlfriend . The Middle East is for the most part rule by a pop music singer , and whether his lyrics could be construed as a denial of the Holocaust could watch whether state of war breaks out with Israel . The world is rapidly falling into decay — riot , terrorism — and there is excited talk among evangelical Christians that the apocalypse is coming .
Pop Apocalypse is at its best when it explore how Omni and this novel celebrity culture has affected everyday life in America . Eliot Jr. , just rejoin as the profligate son after a period of mindless debauch , tries to navigate his fame condition while conserve something of a private living . The Hills is n’t reality , and neither is Eliot ’s public grimace . His clothes , his personal wit and wisdom , his questions to adore inflight magazines , all are cautiously asseverate and scripted by the family report trough , named ( what else ? ) Karl . At the same , he ’s squeeze to make echt , earnest statements to his on - and - off girlfriend in front of the cameras , and his every stumble and false - pas is analyzed by 100 of armchair scholars . It ’s all complicated enough before Eliot discovers he has a doppelganger , one the Omni mistakes for him .
The looming apocalypse , on the other paw , feels more like a thingamajig , something to make you blame up the book and read a much more interesting write up about surveillance technology and celebrity culture take to the woods amok . Konstantinou tries valiantly to link his multithreaded satires . He proposes that we ’re so desensitized , so relentlessly commercialise to , that when the Revelation of Saint John the Divine comes , we ’ll be verbalize about its strength as a trade name identity rather of trying to save the world . But his geopolitical approximation are n’t as detailed as his technological and ethnic ones , and never quite gel .
The book certainly belong to the family of zany , ego - consciously hip books that have come out in the last decade or so , which is all right since Konstantinou has plenitude of interesting ideas to conduct . But he does take a few swipes at some low - hanging fruit . His Christian capitalists are a bit cartoony , San Francisco has n’t changed except that its obstinate , collectivist hipsters are getting older , and Disney has put out a experience - good musical called The Mongol Hordes . Sometimes , it feels like the book needs a few proficient shoves into more ridiculous territory to get off with its own jokes .
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