So what’s your New Year’s resolution? Has lavish holiday consumption led you to a determined avowal to forgo fats, sugars, alcohol? To exercise more, harder – in fact, to exercise at all? Or perhaps you’re signed up for that most fashionable resolution of recent times, that of the “digital detox”.
Ritualised excess has long been a defining characteristic of the holiday season. But lately a surplus of food, drink and entertainment is something that we’re accustomed to year-round. Our modern modes of consumption don’t only encourage excess but celebrate it.
A shift from scarcity to abundance has allowed appetites to grow in terms of not only food, but also books and television. Appetites for food and culture seem to follow similar patterns. Yet ease of access increases the likelihood of something being regarded as passé, and with great bandwidth comes great digital fatigue.
“I don’t own a television” is the cultural equivalent of “I don’t eat MacDonald’s”.
Bingeing on both food and culture seems to be a very modern form of consumption, only made possible by recent forms of production and distribution. Cultural bingeing requires a technology appropriate to storage and distribution of large amount of cultural product.
Extensive consumption of words, images and sounds cultivates part of one’s cultural capital. The choice to binge-watch a television series or rapidly consume a series of books isn’t only acceptable, but admirable. The same way a flight of wines or a degustation menu at a restaurant or bar is often regarded as a more refined mode of consumption.
Novels used to be seen as a cultural scourge. Readers of fiction were assumed to be lacking in moral fortitude in the same way that people used to look down on “couch potatoes”, regarded as mindlessly consuming junk culture the same way you might consume junk food. But there has been a significant shift in attitudes about television consumption. A lot of recent television has been hailed as a new form of art, on par with cinema in terms of cultural nutrition.
Going on a detox diet has been medically proven as an entirely unnecessary exercise – you have a liver that detoxifies your body for you naturally. A digital detox seems similarly unnecessary. Use your brain for natural detoxification.
Moral panic around over-consumption would suggest that too much of anything is not good for us, but in the spirit of our times, here are some binge-pairings for your summer holiday enjoyment.
Scandal – Several glasses of good wine. High-powered “fixer” Olivia Pope carries out her missions elegantly attired in beautiful white outfits, and barely an episode passes without a glass of red in her hand. I’ll be wearing black while drinking my summer-appropriate pinot noir.
Borgen – I intend to binge-watch the first two seasons of this Danish television series while eating roast pork and crackling - both a traditional Danish dish and entirely appropriate for a political drama.
Orange is the New Black – Jaffas, obviously. To be enjoyed while watching the characters choke down less-than-palatable prison food.
Attempting Normal – I will be reading Marc Maron’s biography with copious amounts of coffee, as the comedian has a caffeine addiction of impressive proportions.
Harvest – Jim Crace’s newest novel surely calls for an ongoing ploughman’s lunch. However long it takes you to read, that is how long you must eat cheese, cold meats, pickles, pate and fresh, crusty bread.
A Sport and a Pastime – James Salter’s writing always makes me want a stiff drink in beautiful glassware. Either a dry martini made with excellent gin and a twist of lemon, or expensive whiskey in heavy cut crystal.
Anne Treasure works in communications, is a recent survivor of the book industry, and exists mainly on the Internet.
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