Welcome!

Baby boomers, mother earthers

generations x and y

millennials , perennials,

you who buy.

Who by this signification

are at this very moment being analyzed

monetized and supersized.

Every generation a new iteration.

Urges cleverly instilled

then distilled from each decade's

cultural inheritance and

sold back to us as

¬¬¬¬The New Black.

We're identified and specified

but what's really signified

in this station designation

is a cipher, a symbol,

part of the larger code,

the code we are being patiently taught

that describes each of our labels

and contains the root instruction:

There is nothing that cannot be commodified,

Simulacrified, ad infinitum every item, including

you and me and

that my friends is what it means

to speak the lingua franca of the New Metropolis.

And yes, there will be a test,

a vocabulary test.

The one we are inventing as we speak,

the one that describes, implies and reifies

the new social order.

You see, our language morphs

as the new reality steps forth,

rises to the surface and reveals itself to us.

Identity?

Your identity is erased

and in its place comes now your own personal brand,

the brand you design

from one of the many interesting templates provided.

You will be held accountable,

accounting being the daily ritual

practiced by the faithful,

accounting, from which all metrics

in New Metropolis derive,

Accountants, the new priests who watch for the signs,

predict the future, consecrate the holy spreadsheets

and mediate salvation with the all powerful

yet petulant gods of the economy.

Friendship?

Friendship, once a carefully cultivated garden of delights

can now be accomplished with a quick click.

You can like and be liked so painlessly

you find you have 753 friends you've never met.

Again, our language morphs

as the new reality steps forth,

rises to the surface and reveals itself to us.

And as the gods of the economy hath ordained,

the Devil has turned terrorist,

from which we must be protected

and thus, I create the cameras in the corner,

the stranger's ear to my phone.

This education is relentless.

We are defenseless.

There is no escape from the mind rape.

Its imbedded in the code. The code.

 

The code that describes me in pixels,

as a cost-per-click, a page-view.

In the New Metropolis I can have my own domain,

my own analytics. I'm on-line, in the web.

My face can be digitized, recognized,

my fingers printed and my social security number stolen.

And all the while, high in their steel and glass temples,

the well-suited CEO's

keep their eyes on the cash flow,

bow to the Dow,

pray to our lady of consumption,

and for what do they pray, pray tell?

They pray for expansion,

for a rosy fourth quarter,

for a sharply up-sloped line

to appear on the parchment.

But in the distances there are resistances

still beyond the reach of the New Metropolis

a few who refuse to be

metropolitanized, post modernized,

off the gridders, intentional livers.

And their refusal to participate in the new market-speak

is a leak in the integrity of the code.

The code makes no exceptions,

requires absolute adherence,

is unforgiving and without mercy.

Ones and zero's

on their twin sun-god thrones

dispense a switch-throwing justice

that requires no deliberation.

Still, the New Metropolis is not insensitive

to our illogical, biological roots.

and is not without a capacity for humor.

After all, It's only here one may fully experience

the erotic elation of Market Penetration.

As always, condoms are recommended.

Questions? Please refer to the code.