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I once had a student propose a thesis to me: That Justin Timberlake marked the onset of a new paradigm within society.
Neoliberalism infiltrated and co-opted the countercultural force of dance music and replaced it with a destructive, hedonistic pseudo-individualism that denies the collectivity of the common people and ultimately destroys the ecological, back-to-nature ideals of the hippies.
Frankly, I thought the thesis was stupid. Timberlake is a pop star with obviously commercial appeal. Nothing more, nothing less. However, I never forgot the student& #39;s thesis. I found it to be a very interesting idea.
I sometimes think back on that student& #39;s words and I wonder: Was Justin Timberlake an instrument of neoliberal propaganda?
Nowadays, there is a tendency to view everything as an instrument of propaganda. We have observed with neoliberalism a tendency to make everything into an instrument for the greater purpose of expanding itself.
This totalizing tendency is what is so dangerous about neoliberalism. That& #39;s the first thing we must be aware of. Justin Timberlake was merely a musician. He may or may not have been a propaganda instrument, but what is undeniably the case is that he was a cultural phenomenon.
As such, he exported neoliberal ideals into the mainstream through a slick marketing campaign. Timberlake was only popular as an extension of neoliberal ideals, he was not a harbinger of an infiltration into common culture.
His success was only a possibility under an already established paradigm shift towards a globalized market-based society. He was not the cancer, he was merely a seeping pustule.
