How big can this Boyle get?

By David J Smith

We live in a world of over-promise. What used to be described as good is now described as awesome. Long lasting now means a year. Seminal albums used to come around once a decade, now apparently they happen every day. The word icon used to mean images of Christ or God, now it is applied to marmite bottles, sneakers, tea bags, cereal boxes, electronics and B-grade celebrities.

Just look at Susan Boyle. An old gal with a monobrow comes on the telly and sings a song from Les Misérables and next moment the press is saying she’s the new Edith Piaf. This is a woman who has never made an album, never been on tour, never written a song. And now she is the new Edith Piaf? Yes, she may have got millions of hits on YouTube but so did a six-year-old kid coming home from the dentist. It’s no wonder that she landed up in the Priory. She’s gone mad, all jacked up on spin and up-sell.

And it doesn’t end with TV. It’s at the movies too. A film barely has to fill a cinema before it’s lauded as the hit of the season. If it runs for more than two weeks, it’s a cinematic classic … “pull out the lasers and smoke machines, we’ve got a megatastic bigger-than-Jesus blockbuster on our hands!” … Titanic, I am told, was the biggest box office hit ever in the entire history of planet Earth. But when you adjust the figures for inflation, it barely scrapes into the top 10. In fact, it only sold half the tickets that Gone with the Wind did. And back in those days there were half the people on the planet. You do the math and you’ll see where I am going.

Up, up and away on a gulf stream of hot air, that’s where I’m going. Enough hot air to have powered Phileas Fogg around the world in 80 seconds, never mind 80 days. If Jules Vernes had written his book today that’s probably what the title would have been, that is if he wanted to get anyone’s attention. The world of literature is meant to be our sanctuary against the puff of popular culture. But it isn’t. Authors go on Oprah and step off stage as literary giants. The great American novel used to be the holy grail of literature. But the amount of times it used to describe books today, it is more like a cup from the Walmart bargain bin. Chairman Mao’s “little red book” is described as the second most popular book on the planet. But that’s because they forced a billion people to carry it around in their pocket. I won’t even start on the world’s most popular book.

Everything has become an upbeat oversell. An opportunistic bit of puffery wrapped in optimism. A hollow promise coated in candy. Something you are reminded of every time you look at your inbox. PEOPLE NOW WRITE IN CAPITALS. Full stops have been replaced with exclamations. If you want to say that you’re doing all right you have to follow it with at least three smileys or you must be unwell, suffering from a severe bout of normality. Send a mildly amusing email and you are guaranteed an answer with the acronym: LOLROTF. Laughing out loud, rolling on the floor. The only answer I can find to that is another acronym. WTF?

It’s like the world fell into a bucket of cheap ecstasy and never came down. If all these people are to be believed it would seem we have transcended from an ordinary life into Nirvana. Heaven be damned, we’re in a better place! The over-promised land.

So how do we stop this thing? This never-ending upward spiral of spin. How do we pull the break on our hype-injected media machine?

Hell! How should I know? I’m just an ad guy. A marketing cowboy who pushed the button on this thing. Now, I’m just trying to survive the ride on this ever-growing pile of bull. All I can say is: pass the Boyle cream because this baby is about to blow!

David Smith is one of those pretend writers who works in advertising. Using his words to sell sugary water and sneakers to the kids. He’d prefer to be one of those proper writers though. But it don’t pay the bills like the sugary water and sneakers do. He is originally from Durban but lives in Amsterdam. One day he will come back and live there by the sea.