16 May

Societies where reality TV stars battle rock stars and film stars for supremacy aren’t ‘capitalist’ or ‘socialist’ or ‘fascist‘, or any of the other dumb -isms we believe in. They’re giant high schools, where permanent adolescent culture has replaced separate child and adult cultures. You literally now never leave high school. That’s what I mean by ‘gig culture’ too. Rock stars are major influences on adolescents, ways they shape their identity in the world. It’s just that now that process never stops, rock stars are now over 80, adults worship their favourite bands into their elderly years, flocking to gigs. Not just to enjoy music, it’s their main reference point on adult issues. We saw the birth of that in the 1960s, Woodstock politics. It never ended. I speak to many adults whose response to a complex public issue is to tell me to listen to a particular song, because that’s their point of view. Social media has now entrenched adolescent culture at every level of society, from the most intimate personal, to the professional and political. Social media is the schoolyard, a culture of trends and likes and followers.