When Corporate Brands Aspire to Platonic Forms
On the recent "One Word Tweet" ritual
Recently, many corporate and institutional twitter accounts (CNN, NPR, Pfizer, the Dept. of Energy, POTUS, etc.) posted within just a few hours of each other a one-word tweet that is meant to project a simple “definition” of what these brands intend to represent in society. For many, it’s likely that whatever social media manager they have in charge of their twitter account noticed the trendsetters and jumped on the bandwagon in a semi-conscious attempt to be cool and trendy… on some level it feels like a lame corporate ice-breaker game… but I believe that, among the biggest institutions which started and orchestrated it, this campaign represents a more profound aspiration… an aspiration for monopoly and consolidation of power among the elites via quasi-religious means. Most participants in this project are unwitting, of course, but those at the very top want desperately to obtain this level of absolute authority.
Reading the replies to these one-word tweets shows that more people than I would’ve expected have a vague sense of a nefarious ritual or psyop occurring with this sudden ‘viral’ occurrence. Some believe it has something to do with testing an AI system with keywords, others think it is a soulless attempt by these brands to appear cool, trendy and relatable… and still others speculate it has something to do with twitter’s new addition of an edit button. However, after considering the issue, I believe it is part of a greater project, as I said, to create monopolies and consolidate power via the attempted elevation of corporate and bureaucratic forms to the status of godlike Platonic forms.
The desired outcome of a campaign like this for the oligarchs is synonymy with an abstract, timeless concept. If a strong enough association is made between a brand and a core abstraction of social reality, then that brand essentially becomes the earthly representation of a heavenly Platonic form. These brands don’t want the public to view them as groups of corruptible people with myriad ulterior motives, they want to be viewed as ideal instantiations of timeless and eternal concepts. If CNN = “news” or Joe Biden = “democracy” or Pfizer = “science” in the mass mind of the public, these institutions come to occupy a privileged, eternal, and authoritative position in society the likes of which old god-emperors could’ve only dreamed of.
It means that if you want “the news”, you go to CNN or Washington Post. Conversely, it also means that if it wasn’t on CNN or WaPo, it wasn’t news. This logic applies across the board for the big establishment brands that participated in this campaign. If you are against Joe Biden… well, obviously you’re against democracy… and whatever Joe Biden does is, of course, the will of the people. If you don’t take the Pfizer jab, by golly, you’re just anti-science… I think you get the picture. This sort of idea has even been made awe-inspiringly explicit by politicians like Jacinda Ardern when she let slip, “We will continue to be your single source of truth,” and that, “Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.”
By ascending to the level of a timeless, socially essential concept, in the collective psyche, these institutions obtain a monopoly on whatever niche the oligarchy intends them to fill… competition is impossible and they will forever be the authorities over their respective roles in the new social pantheon.
Like the statues of gods and goddesses of old, they become the concrete instantiations of the immortal for the normie. Just as Aphrodite was once synonymous with love, marriage and beauty for the ancient Greeks, or Mars ruled the realm of warfare for the ancient Romans, the one-word tweet campaign is one of the most transparent and bizarre attempts by the ruling oligarchy of today to immortalize their brands and cement their power over entire arenas of social-psychological reality. To be clear, the one-word tweet campaign is not the first, only, or decisive stroke in the project of deifying the establishment… but it is an indication that the project is happening before our eyes, and the willingness of people to buy into this idiotic trend shows how successful it has been. On one level, sure it can be argued that it’s just a clever bit of marketing and an example of the inane humor of the grown-up theatre kids who run the social media accounts of big companies… but if we consider that the level of control I’ve described is a real aspiration for the elites who rule our world from behind the scenes, I don’t think its much of a stretch to allege they desire just this sort of apotheosis.
Smoke-filled rooms where men sit smoking cigars while planning to take over the world. Conspiracy theory? It's more likely than you think--it exists in the digital realm. This latest 'trend' shows just such coordination on the back end. The biggest companies colluding together to achieve some common goal. Yesterday it was to deplatform Alex Jones and Donald Trump. Today it's to make one-word tweets. Tomorrow? I shudder to guess.
Trigger words have become much more of a thing in some circles, both positive and negative. It has to do with increasing communication via keyboard, and easy shorthand ways of inducing associations and experiencing emotions. I think it was partly an exercise in next-gen communication, a kind of new-speak of one-word phrases, of speaking to the masses as if to dogs to induce desired reactions. As dangerous as it is, I don't mind it, maybe language was a mistake. A single word is easily refuted by "NO!". But it's probably what you said too.