David Foster Wallace is regarded as one of the most unique, talented, and perceptive
writers of the late 20th and early 21st century. Wallace is especially renowned for his novel
Infinite Jest, released in 1996, which shook the literature world with it’s style, layers,
humor, and insightful examinations of modern life. One of the primary themes of the novel
is the nature of entertainment and its effects on the consumer. A theme that has only become
more and more relevant since the release of the novel.
When discussing this theme, Wallace proposed that media and entertainment have become so
easy, so pleasurable, and so vast, that they are more appealing than real life, which has
a high potential of leading to an unhealthy addiction. At the time, he was primarily referring
to television; however, it’s fair to say that his thoughts also had some root in his
expectations for the future. When writing and discussing these ideas in the 90’s,
Wallace had enough insight to predict things like Netflix and facetime, which would end
up becoming true to a frightening degree of accuracy.
Since Wallace’s time, sadly having taken his life in 2008, congruent with Wallace’s
predictions, technology and media have continued to progress at a disorienting rate. We have
a phone in our pocket at all times that connects us to essentially anything we want, whenever
we want. Cellphone service and Wifi is everywhere. Social medias have become pervasive. Computers
and laptops are commonplace for every one of all ages. There are too many TV networks
and streaming platforms to count. The amount of content being produced, broadcasted, and
uploaded into the world is unending. It’s fair to say that the concerns Wallace had
decades ago, are now more valid and critical than ever.
It is not that entertainment is bad, fundamentally. In fact, Wallace never explicitly felt or
claimed that it was. Instead however, he pointed out that the problem arises when a consumer
loses self-control over their consumption and seeks constant, passive entertainment.
He suggested that this loss of control is becoming increasinly hard to avoid because
of modern entertainment’s accessibility, commercialization, and addictive quality,
making media and entertainment an easy, yet risky drug of choice. One that we should perhaps
be more careful with. Modern commercial entertainment’s goal is
to make money, and it makes money through advertising, which is based on viewership
and viewer retention. This means entertainment has to be as accessible to as many people
as possible in order to obtain viewers and as pleasurable as possible to keep them coming
back. Generally, in order for commercial entertainment to be successful in this, it has to be easy
and fun, and what is easy is what requires nothing of the consumer and allows them to
forget about the stresses of life and the challenges of being a human. As a result,
entertainment has followed this path of least resistance, attending to the consumer’s
base desires for pleasure and ease. Consequently, entertainment in general has become increasingly
mindless, numbing, and distracting, rather than complex, nuanced, and thought-provoking.
Wallace contested, or at least questioned the idea that the experience of life benefited
much from pleasure at all. Being of a financially stable family in the United States, Wallace
was afforded material comforts, higher education, and in his later years, some amount of fame
and fortune. He had access to essentially as much pleasure as he wanted and obtained
what some might regard as the American dream, and yet he remained deeply sad and lonely.
Not only that, but he found that he was not unique in this feeling. In fact, he observed
that the majority of his friends and acquaintances in similar circumstances also felt the same
way, and generally western society at large felt the same way.
This raises the question, how is it that people who appear to have everything one could want
according to the western ideals, feel very little on the inside? Wallace considered the
possibility that we often confuse what we want with what we need and vise verse, and
that by always giving in to our compulsions to feel pleasure, we are actually enslaving
ourselves to our base nature and inhibiting any higher level human experience. Wallace
suggested that in part, our tendency to do so was a result of being told by culture that
we are special and we should serve ourselves above everything and anyone else. We should
derive as much pleasure from life. We should consume as much media and entertainment as
we can. Buy as much stuff as we can. Ingest as much substance as we can. Be as famous
and wealthy as we can. We should want only to feel good all the time, and turn away from
anything that requires vulnerability, deep, challenging thought, sadness, or self-honesty.
The problem is, the things that burden us as humans are always vibrating inside us,
and when we choose to pretend they aren’t there by veiling them with distractions, as
a culture and as individuals, we actually neglect to ever truly treat them, better understand
ourselves, connect with others, and improve our life. We become sort of hypnotized by
technology and entertainment and find ourselves just distracted enough to be comfortable in
our discomfort. What does all this mean for us? Are we hopeless
to be further consumed by consumption, destine to reside in a limbo of sadness, isolation,
and dissatisfaction? It depends. It is not that smartphones, social media,
the internet, television, etc. are bad. They can be very useful and being entertained has
its place in life. It is not like there aren’t plenty of other things we do to serve as distractions.
However, the problem is that too much of anything is by nature too much, and when something
feels so much better than real life and provides so much pleasure, it becomes addictive, and
when it becomes addictive, we tend to indulge too much. Like a drug or alcohol, it becomes
an escape that we keep returning to, only to sanction us from ever addressing or caring
to address the things we are trying to escape from. Instead of dealing with life’s stresses
and problems in healthy ways, thinking about them, talking about them, expressing them,
and facing them, we pretend they don’t exist and turn to something that is not sustainable
or fundamentally helpful as a means of solution. We turn to the mindless entertainment and
media on our phones, our tvs, and our computers. However, it is not hopeless. Mass media and
entertainment is a cultural phenomenon but the consumption of it is an issue at the individual
level. For many of us, we are in fact addicted to media and entertainment, but like any form
of addiction, there is hope for recovery. Admitting that one is addicted and not in
control is typically the first step and maybe that’s a good place to start, if we in fact
are. At which point we can begin to realize how healthy or unhealthy our choices are pertaining
to what we consume and how often we consume it.
In Wallace’s case, he actually removed television from his home in order to combat his tendency
to constantly watch it. We don’t necessarily have to follow suit and entirely disconnect
ourselves in this same way, because there are great benefits to engaging in media and
entertainment. It is not all bad and passive. There are great shows, great movies, great
youtube channels, great websites and so on. Ones that engage the viewer in ways that help
them think, learn, consider, and develop. Content that makes the consumer feel less
alone or actually address things that are difficult, sad, or honest, even if they’re
not always very entertaining. Instead of disconnecting entirely, perhaps
approaching our consumption with some amount of intention is more realistic, similar to
how one might be conscious of what they eat and drink. To curb an unhealthy diet, one
does not stop eating, but instead, they eat healthier foods and perhaps less food. We
can have our cheat days, but should be careful and recognize the very real consequences of
what media we consume and how much we consume of it. This is not to suggest that modifying
and reducing our consumption is easy, but it is to suggest that perhaps it is serious
and necessary if we want to be healthier, happier individuals.
In life, there is value in effort, vulnerability, and selflessness. There is value in doing
or watching things that make us work a little, or feel a little gloomy, or think a little
bit more than we’d like. There are parts of life that aren’t pleasurable, but rewarding.
Parts where you don’t feel special, but feel a part of a much bigger picture or community.
Parts that aren’t entertaining, but important. Perhaps what we can learn from Wallace is
to remember this. To not always follow our desires for pleasure and ease, and instead,
sometimes force ourselves to face our demons head on. To challenge ourselves. To try to
connect with, understand, and improve the world around us, instead of trying to escape
it.