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“I wear my melted face as a collar.”
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
I like to think that 30 years ago, Robert Zemeckis put on his old-timey director’s hat, walked onto the set of Back to the Future II and yelled through his old-timey director’s megaphone, “Okay team, we’re going to make the most insane version of the future we can imagine! Michael J! Your shoes will lace themselves! Christopher, your flying car eats garbage! Everyone is going to ride hoverboards and watch Jaws 19 on a holoscreen, and people will eat miniature pizzas that will turn into big pizzas and windows will be TVs! ACTION!”
If you sent me back to 1989, my vision of the future would have probably been along the same lines. Maybe more gigantic pizzas. But now I am in 2019, and nothing could possibly have prepared me for ??? the hypercolor ??? slimescape in which we have arrived.
I just saw a video of a gaming streamer dressed up as an ice cream singing about a horse to an anti-vaxxer and it was? what life is now?
here is @Ninja singing Old Town Road on national television in an ice cream outfit with backup dancers and a full set on #TheMaskedSinger
we are reaching peak video games and streamer culture pic.twitter.com/QvXAxivnRK
? Rod Breslau (@Slasher) September 26, 2019
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This neon nightmare turned up on an episode of The Masked Singer — America’s latest reality singing contest, airing on Fox. Celebrity contestants sing karaoke in hideous costumes as judges (including Robin Thicke and Jenny McCarthy) try to guess who they are. There. You’ve just had your site induction on TV’s newest fad, you may collect your certificate now. (The show originated in South Korea and has been picked up by close to 20 countries around the world. The Masked Singer Australia airs on Network Ten, which is owned by CBS).
It’s a novel concept for a TV show. Certainly a valiant effort from TV execs no doubt so exhausted from strip-mining the rapidly-dwindling seam of content ideas available for television in 2019 that “a guy is singing but ya can’t see his face” seemed like a great option.
But it’s also clear proof that existence is meaningless and satire is dead. We live in the sunken, 15th reflection of a Black Mirror episode and life is nothing but a mise-en-abyme of pop culture nightmares.
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