We are currently in a period of media production and consumptiom with an ascendent anti-capitalist message. From Squid Game to The Barbie Movie, Mark Fisher to David Graeber, Zero Books and Breadtube – there is a thriving media production apparatus and an audience hungry for content which is willing to address the failures of neo-liberalism and the difficulty of getting by under late-stage-capitalism.
But this isn't the first time, nor is it likely to be the last, that anti-capitalist Representation has been ascendent in the media – from the emergent counter culture of the 60s, to Punk in the 70s and Culture Jamming of the early 90s, these sentiments operate in undulating waves which are always, **always recuperated by Capital.
But, how exactly does this recuperation happen? How is it that staunch anti-capitalist messaging can nonetheless reify the hegemony of corporate interests and worker abjection?
In the following video, I examine the Sanrio produced *Aggretsuko net animation as a case study.
https://youtu.be/CP2xDz6wDdE?si=ksm92mYmtPa1tw3S
Give it a watch.