Capitalism is why the Students of the World Can’t Read.

I want to preface this by saying I am no expert in anything— hell, my profile is Axis Powers: Hetalia, I’m 16, and I draw silly boys at night. However, I want to be able to explain what I think, so I’m going to write about what’s been on my mind for the past week.

This is also one of my first long blogs, and I’m not the best at phrasing. I’ll try my best to edit this and make it make more sense, but I hope you understand me. 

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Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. (Wikipedia)

Private ownership means non-government ownership. Such as, CEOs owning their company. The core fundamentals of such a system are: 

1. Private ownership 
2. Profit motive (this one is important)
3. Wage labour / paid work
4. Competitive markets

Profit motive is self-explanatory, the company doesn’t seek to make the best product/service, but the one that allows for the most profit. And in this day-and-age, where the new generation are broker than ever, and more stubborn than ever, it’s a hard sell to get those onto your platform.

Do you guys remember the console wars in the 2010s? The most popular two being XBOX and the PS4 (the ps4 is better!), why did this even happen? It’s due to brand loyalty. 

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Brand loyalty is when you get introduced to a brand, usually at the younger ages, and you stick to it. Imagine Taylor Swift’s ‘Swifties’. It’s a very ride-or-die mentality, (and one I have some words for, I think I’ll write a blog on how a cult-like following is common for most medias, celebs, and apps.)

An example I think that would hit home is YouTube. I’ll be using YouTube (YT) as my first case study, my second will be TikTok (TT). Both of these platforms are free to signup social medias, however from different eras, but nonetheless follow the same path.

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YouTube 

Founded in February 14th 2005, it’s the video-sharing platform and a social media platform secondly. Initially, it was released for the soul purpose of sharing videos, a simple premise, but at the time it was difficult to send videos to one another, and harder to find clips of events occurring online. 

It began as a non-ad platform, where only short videos would appear, not the same kind of short-form content that TT and YT shorts would promote, but rather because 100MB was the maximum amount of content it can support. Videos would cap out at 30s (usually), and because of this, people would post videos that are straight to the point. The algorithm was an afterthought, and the website was just passion and fun. 

Why was it like this? It was because of the lack of insensitive. A YouTuber that comes to mind is Mr. Beast (oh man), I’m not sure if his older videos are still on the channel, however, his previous posts that are pre-money era were just silly, such as

“I counted to 100,000!” 

I used to be a fan of such posts, I found his authenticity to be engaging… however. Nothing good lasts forever. As YouTube began rolling out payed posts, more of those red-circle posts (as I call them) appeared. Honestly, just look at the thumbnails for Mr. Beast. He’s a good way to see how we lost some of the “bullshit-ness” of YouTube. 

Now, YouTube becoming corporate is not why kids can’t read, but it’s TikTok. Oh…TikTok.

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TikTok 

Popularised in 2020, and the successor to musica.ly (or however you spell this), it was a boom in the pandemic. The fast paced content fulfilled the monotonous life of a year in your house — as there’s always something new. 

Your brain gets repeated dopamine hits from scrolling, maybe there’s a song it liked, a take it hated, a new trend, dance, meme, whatever. Dopamine makes your brain excited, and by the time you close the app, an hour went by (if you’re lucky). 

I recall a comment saying

“I was scrolling for 3 hours and I didn’t even remember half of it.” (Not verbatim)

And that really puts things into perspective when you recognise that people are wasting their lives away on apps like TikTok. 

Well, what does this have to do with Capitalism, and even more so reading? Well,

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It gets worse.

Apps like TT and YTshorts encourage users to create “ragebait” (as other social media users call it), which is just content that enrages people for engagement to make money out of it. These posts are usually people saying something stupid. Other posts are “brainrot” with AI memes, these two categories overlap frequently. 

When you interact with these, you don’t use your brain to comprehend anything. Essentially, these posts make you fucking dumb. (Forgive my language)

And since Gen-Alpha and Gen-Beta are growing up on these stupid posts, they don’t use their brains either, they scroll when they’re bored, the dopamine hits them every millisecond, and they become numb. They don’t care for reading, or listening, sitting still, or even thinking…

Because that’s too much work.

The billionaires are happy because once you don’t think, they can get you to buy what you don’t need, and that’s what capitalism wants.

You won’t think and you will be happy.

You won’t own and you will be happy.

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I know this is a bit of a doomer blog, but there’s always a way out. You can always get on your feet and teach kids around you how to do stuff, but the best you can do is tell their parents not to give them devices with YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. Moderate their internet dosage, because nowadays, that too is just another drug.

Stay safe!