Evil Empire

It was announced today that Disney bought Lucasfilm Limited, the production company started by George Lucas that has produced, along with its subsidiaries, every major Star Wars property in history. Star Wars itself is arguably the most massive, easily recognized, all-encompassing fictional media franchise in the United States, and goes way beyond the six movies (which alone have grossed over $4.3 billion).

This is the main reason people are paying attention to the story, and is what is currently dominating your news feeds, twitter accounts, news sites, blogs, and basically every other medium in the multiverse seeking to force images and information into your eyeballs. It is likely what people will remember from this story years from now, and it's understandable why: when Disney bought Lucasfilm Limited, they simultaneously announced that they would be producing Star Wars Episode VII. The seventh Star Wars film has already become one of the most highly anticipated films of all time (probably even moreso than The Avengers or The Hobbit). It will make a bajillion dollars and everyone will watch it.

But I'm not here to discuss Episode VII, or George Lucas. It's too early to care. I want to talk about Disney.

The Walt Disney Corporation is the world's largest media conglomerate, and it's about to ruin your fucking lives. You see, the United States has a set of what are called antitrust laws that are put in place to prohibit unfair business practices and to encourage competition in the market, which is the driving force behind our economy. When one entity has control over the products, competition decreases and the economy slows down. When this same practice is applied to the arts, the quality of art decreases while profit increases. Everyone suffers, no one wins.
Why do I mention this? Because now, Disney owns practically everything. You love Disney and you don't even know it. Disney decides what you're going to see and what you're going to like. Disney has become a monopoly. Oh sure, they're not doing anything wrong in the legal sense, but to the arts they are practically getting away with murder. This affects you.
Let's break it down real quick.

List of shit owned by Disney:
ABC 
ESPN (No, really)
Hollywood Records (A major label that owns acts ranging all the way from Demi Lovato to Breaking Benjamin)
Hulu
Several local television stations from coast to coast
Saban (The guys who brought you Power Rangers, among others, although they are currently fighting to get their intellectual property back)
Pixar Animation Studios
Marvel Entertainment (This means every single comic book character you love, and every medium they appear in)
Lucasfilm Limited
And every other thing with DISNEY slapped on it that you see in stores.

If, upon reading through such a list, you feel a slight pinch in your stomach, sweat break on your forehead, or your asshole clenching, don't worry: this means you are still human. Disney will not stop until they strangle everything you love in their clutches. And why? Why must one single entity have so much power? You need not look to Disney himself. Walt Disney was a spectacular man, a real American hero. He wanted to provide entertainment to children all over the world at prices every family could afford. But did you know that nearly every major Disney acquisition of the last decade has occurred without the Disney family's consent? In fact, no Disneys are even involved in the company. Roy E. Disney, Walt's nephew, died over seven years ago. Since then, all major decisions have been handled by this man:

His name is Bob Iger, and he's the goddamn devil. He has even been quoted as saying that the Walt Disney Corporation seeks to "buy characters or businesses that are capable of creating great characters and great stories."  That article's tone now has an ominous foreshadowing quality to it, realizing that the "next big thing" was Lucasfilm Limited. Keep this in mind: Marvel Entertainment (Disney) produced one of the highest grossing films of all time this year (The Avengers). Lucasfilm Limited produces way more than just Star Wars material (but make no mistake, they produce a shitload of Star Wars material). They also own Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, two major effects companies that produce visual effects and sound effects for all sorts of big studio films worldwide, and are considered to be some of the best in the business (I agree).
What this all has to do with, what I'm getting at here, is a new world order. You see, you don't realize it yet, but today is a major turning point in history. Today, with the acquisition of Lucasfilm Limited by the Walt Disney Corporation, marks the death of the new pioneers. In the post-Cold War era, America (arguably) would come to know two major entities that redefined visual entertainment forever: George Lucas and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, of course, was the founder of Apple and Pixar Animation Studios, and his legacy since his death has proven his influence on the popular culture. His name speaks for itself, I need not delve into his accomplishments or remind you of his renaissance-man stature. George Lucas was the hive-mind, singular creative consciousness behind Star Wars and every other major Lucasfilm property (including, to an extent, Indiana Jones). Now, say what you want about Lucas: say he ruined Star Wars with the prequels, say he raped Indiana Jones and shit on your childhood and say he can't write his way out of a paper bag. These things may be true. And you're free to believe them. But do not deny the impact he has left by creating those properties to begin with. The man is a goddamn genius. And now he's gone. With Disney gobbling up his brainchild, Lucas is no longer the man behind the scenes, pulling the strings. You're celebrating this now (want proof? Just look at all the fanboys on Facebook jizzing themselves in anticipation for a Lucas-free Episode VII), but you've simply traded in one devil for another. And this one has much larger, sharper teeth.
As for Steve Jobs? Oh right, he's not around anymore either. These men were true artists, people to be admired. They epitomized the American dream. And with them, that dream dies today.

Creativity : stifled
Competition : nullified

Welcome to the new dark ages.

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest

Did you enjoy "The New Aesthetic"? Then maybe you'll take some time to swing on over to America's Next Author and vote for it to be a finalist in the first ever social media based online writing contest! While you're there, feel free to leave an honest, constructive review and share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media outlet!

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. V (The New Aesthetic)

A crisp breeze rolled down the street and nipped at Nicholas's face, and he drew the collar of his jacket up around and his chin and braced himself against the cold.

It was rush hour. All around him, on both sides of the street, pedestrians trudged along back to their homesteads. Working men, men in suits, women in heels, people with coats and blazers and dresses and large hats. None of them looked at each other as they passed, bumping into each other with barely a murmur of apology as they hurried along. Nick saw all this and felt even more despair. He wondered how so many men and women could occupy so small an area and see each other every day, coming and going, yet never even acknowledge them or realize that they were all people, all the same deep down. He wanted to reach out and grab them by their lapels and shout at them, demand that they explain why they had all abandoned their fellow man. An even worse chill was blowing through him, and it wasn't just the weather. It was the cold, impersonal way every person on the street treated each other. For a moment, Nick marveled at the irony of how technology had utterly failed in its one sole purpose: to bring people together. Cell phones and social networking and personal computer tablets. Instant messaging, emails, texts. None of this was improving the way human beings interacted with each other, Nicholas realized. In fact it was having the opposite effect. Technology had revolutionized communication, all right, but it had turned everyone into isolated, solitary beings. A whole new generation of people living a life aesthetic, self-absorbed and tone-deaf. A text has no warmth to it, no real sense of connection or understanding. It is cold and impersonal. It rings false. Friend requests are not friendly. Emails cannot be sealed with a kiss. And you can not hug someone, kiss their lips, feel their heartbeat next to yours, through a video chat. Nicholas watched all the cars rolling up and down the street, breathing and undulating through the natural flow of traffic. It was like a living organism, he noticed, but even the drivers always stared straight ahead or looked at their phones or lit cigarettes. The only time a typical driver on the road ever interacts with another driver, he realized, was out of anger. Someone cut me off. Someone is speeding. Someone forgot to use their turn signal. It was pathetic. Didn't people care about one another anymore?

He saw and felt all these things and shoved his hands in his pockets, looked down at the sidewalk, and began to silently weep as he put one foot in front of the other. Nicholas no longer wanted to be on this planet. He did not want to be alive, not with these people. He thought, what's the point of continuing on if things never get better? If you cannot reach out and touch someone? Humans were not meant to go through this life alone, and what exacerbated his feelings the most was the fact that he had become one of them. He, too, had fallen victim to the new system. Nicholas Allen had been sucked in and now, he feared, he would never return to the real world.

No one paid any mind to the young man shuffling down the street and crying as the sun sunk lower and lower, plunging the world into night.

Ariel sucked down the rest of her margarita in one long, exaggerated slurp and lightly pushed the glass toward the center of the table where it joined the other three. Emily wore a perpetual frown on her face and kept looking around, mostly staring down, occasionally looking back at her friend, wondering if she would say anything. Hoping she would say something first.

The two of them had not spoken in over thirty minutes. Once Ariel put up her walls, it was nearly impossible to tear them down. Emily did not even know how to try. What was especially distressing to her at that moment was the inescapable feeling that she had forgotten how to get through to anyone, be it a total stranger or her best friend.

Ariel opened up her purse and began fishing around. Emily, not without a small degree of hesitation, opened her mouth nervously. “Ariel? Are you leaving?”

No response.

“Hello?”

She reapplied some lipstick and examined herself in pocket mirror.

“Please talk to me. Say anything.”

Ariel straightened her hair and scooted to the edge of the booth. “We are two completely different people. And that's fine, we don't have to be like each other. We don't even have to like each other. What use are friends anyway? I have plenty of friends like you, they never did me any good.”

“You've had a lot to drink. I don't think you should be driving.”

Ariel swayed as she rose, and planted a hand on the table. “I don't think we should meet up anymore. Let me live my life, you do the same.”

Tears welled up in Emily's eyes. Her face started to grow red and puffy.

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Look, it's not that big a deal. Okay?” She flashed a false smile, then whirled around and glided her way toward the door, her steps marked by a drunken swagger.

“Ariel, please don't do this.” But her words fell on deaf ears. She sat in a sort of stunned silence for a moment, and looked around the restaurant. Most of the patrons had left, drunks were now grabbing their keys and shuffling toward the door. She glanced at the bartender, who looked away quickly and pretended he hadn't been listening and observing. He looked back. Their eyes met. He shrugged.

A moment had passed while Emily paid her bill, when suddenly a car horn sounded outside followed by a god-awful screech. She turned on her heel and ran outside.

Nick approached the intersection and wiped tears off his cheeks, sniffing loudly. His heartbeat singularly pushed him along. What happened next was fast and nearly imperceptible. A harsh squeal of brakes, an abruptly loud car horn. A feeling of something extremely heavy and powerful slamming into his side. All of the breath being forced from his lungs. The ground falling away from his feet, a view of the sky that rotated, glimmered in twilight, and then concrete rushing up to meet him. A brief sensation of extreme pain. Blackness.

Ariel Schuler stared straight ahead, unable to believe her eyes. Her knuckles held the steering wheel in a death grip and turned white. For a moment she could not think, was paralyzed by shock, and then quickly yanked her seatbelt off and leaped from the car, ran to where the boy was lying on the ground, unmoving, and her heels nearly slipped in spatters of blood and chunks of hair and flesh that surrounded the body. She had struck him with her car, catapulting him ten feet in the air where he twisted horizontally before colliding with the pavement. His head had hit first.

Suddenly Emily was at her side, crying and hysterical. Ariel merely stared at the lifeless form of the young man. She did not know how much time passed while she tried to make sense of the scenario. A strange silence enveloped the previously chaotic street that deafened Ariel until the faint wail of sirens could be heard from far off, rushing to the scene, but all she could say when the paramedics and eventually police officers arrived, over and over, shaking her head, was “I never saw him.”  

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. IV

Emily could instantly tell the just-turned-twenty-one crowd apart from those who had been frequenting bars and other establishments that served alcohol for years by how loud they talked and laughed. The typical frat boys always made as much noise as possible as they shuffled outside to smoke and then return inside, always checking out the same girls in the booths (like Ariel) on their route to and from, in what she assumed was some sort of primal method of establishing dominance in a pack ruled by seniority.

“Do you think that guy over there is checking me out?” Ariel cocked her head behind her towards the bar, where the bartender was still stealing the occasional glance at their table.

“I don't know.”

“He's kinda cute.”

“I suppose.” Emily noticed Ariel still had her phone in one hand, and she glanced at it occasionally between bites of food.

“Mmm,” Ariel swallowed her food, “did you hear this one. Someone just posted this link on my wall. This news headline says 'Suicide now leading cause of death by injury' or something. Hmm.”

Emily looked up. “What?”

Ariel looked up. “What?”

“What did you just say? Read that again. What does it say?”

“Too long, didn't read,” she waved her hand as if shooing a fly.

“Whatever.” Emily rested her chin on her hand and turned her attention the other way. Ariel continued looking at stuff on Facebook, watching videos and laughing at people's pictures. Finally Emily realized they had found something to talk about. “What do you think accounts for that?”

“What?”

“Why do you think so many people commit suicide nowadays?” She leaned forward.

Ariel looked puzzled. “How should I know? Aren't we in a recession?”

“Well, sure,” Emily trailed off, frowning. “But...”

“Oh for Christ's sake, Emily,” Ariel put her phone down on the table and looked at her. “Don't do this. I'm trying to have a good time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This. What you always do. Let's just talk about something else. You always want to give some lecture or start a debate.”

Emily gritted her teeth. “You haven't said more than three words to me since we've been here, and now you come at me like this? What the fuck?”

“Oh, don't patronize me. This is so typical of you. I'm not here to argue, and I'm not here to let you put me down just so you can feel superior.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Just because I didn't get a fancy degree doesn't make me less intelligent than you.”

Emily's eyes widened. “When did I even begin to imply that?” Her voice went up a register. “All I wanted was to have a conversation with you. You know? Actual talking? Instead of just your new favorite songs on the radio or what's o n MTV. Don't you remember how to do that?” She put her hands up. “Well, I apologize. I must have been asking for way too much.”

“You know what?” Ariel slammed her hand down on the table and grabbed her phone in one motion. “Fuck you. You used to be cool. Then you went to school and decided to get all philosophical and worldly. You haven't even left the United States. What have you done with your life? You work in advertising.”

Emily's face reddened slightly in spite of herself.

“Exactly.” Ariel leaned back and took a breath. “I get it. You think I'm so shallow and fake. But at least I don't try to be someone I'm not. You know what? You're the one who's fake.”

Emily slowly started to become very confused. “Ariel, wait,” she started.

“No. I'm going to sit here, drink my drink, and then leave. You can...” she waved her hand again, “do whatever.”

She looked around and felt lost. “No, please. I don't want to fight. Ariel? Let's just talk.”

Silence.

“Please. I just need to talk to someone.”