BY Tope Fasua
The other day, I expressed my surprise about how much of Economics my 19-year-old medical student son knew. I discovered on a random day, trying to drop him off after he had come home from school. I was pleasantly shocked that he had immersed himself so deeply in the arguments that some of our so-called intellectuals would rather avoid today; arguments that challenge what we already know and that take us to uncharted territories. I should have known that he could get up to such prowess even outside his medical field because from time to time, I walk into his room and find some of my best books –- some of which I haven’t even found time to read. I found out he has read perhaps dozens of my books on sundry subjects. As I concluded this article, I walked into his room and found the following books of mine: SuperFreakonomics by Dubner and Levitt, The origin of Financial Crises by George Cooper, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, World History; 50 Key Milestones by Ian Crofton, 50 Economic Ideas by Edmund Conway, Homer’s The Odyssey and The Iliad, Turing and the Computer by Paul Stathern, The Prince by Nicollo Machiavelli, The Godfather by Mario Puzo, and Ten Great Works of Philosophy by Robert Paul Wolfe.
Growing up, I recall myself and my brother bingeing on my dad’s books too. He had kept them in our room downstairs after we moved back home from Lagos to Akure. I particularly liked to read Readers’ Digest and had come across some of the best long articles every written, including the original story of Theodore Bundy when it broke in the late 1970s. There were many great stories told in the Digest those days. Thinking back today, I think there’s a possibility that I picked up my penchant for long, comprehensive writing from those features in Readers’ Digest. But I also read a great many more books belonging to my dad back then, including some Dickens, Shakespeare, some Russian literature, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and what have you. As youngsters I reckon there was little else to do back then unlike now when young people grow up not knowing what to watch between their thousands of online resources and social media platforms.
Later on in life, I would start collecting movies alongside my books – many of which are on contemporary issues around economics and societies. My favorite shops abroad were HMV (now dead), and Virgin Megastore, where I would collect the latest movies and even music CDs. Some of these stores also stocked general interest books which I used to combine with the movies and music compact discs.
Then more innovations came, and the hyper inventors of the world decided that everything should transit to the clouds. They will store our memories for us, they promised. The quest to take books out entirely in the physical form, called the paperless revolution, such that only e-books will be available, has failed for now. But the push for the digitisation of everything is still on. I personally don’t like e-books. I cannot imagine myself flipping on a screen all day. But many youngsters today are very comfortable with that. Movies have also transited largely to streaming services like Netflix, HBO, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and so on. As for music, you have to subscribe to all sorts of new sites and apps to get the latest, from Spotify, to Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited, Qobuz, and so on. We have been commodified. Our memories have been hijacked from us. We cannot even pass down our likes and dislikes to whoever will come after us in physical form, once we all sign on to these digital things where only we and the companies providing these services can see our own footprints, likes and dislikes.
In truth, a lot of these ideas came up because smart guys around the world wanted to make a whole lot more money. Many of them figured out that they’d rather have the whole world on their customer base. Netflix and others today have more than 1.8 billion subscribers. Even for folks like me who are minimalists as I pay about N3,600 monthly for my subscriptions (maybe $7), 1.8 billion customers will give video streaming companies $12.6 billion in turnover every month. I usually subscribe but rarely use Netflix anyway. Many times, internet speed messes me up such that I give up entirely and look for an old DVD I wish to rewatch. And when I do have time to sit on it, I reckon I get drowned with too many options on offer. Some of us don’t like too many options. I know what sections I used to visit when I bought my movies physically. As per music, I feel totally disconnected from these new apps and websites for the same reason. One has got to be a teenager to effectively navigate all the new stuff that guys have created to ensure nobody has time for anything else but to buy stuff from them.
My main concerns with this new regime of the commodification of man and the commercialisation of memory are:
There could be more implications of this push for the digitisation of life itself. Some good, some bad. On the good side is the fact that a lot of things could be obtained easily and without moving an inch. You no longer need to visit bookstores, grocery stores, restaurants, movie shops, music shops, or indeed anywhere. In fact, you don’t need to move a muscle! But did we all sign up for this? Or are we being led by the nose into some sort of perdition?
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