What Monkeys Eat: A Few Thoughts About Pop Culture Writing
January 2, 2014 12:15 PM   Subscribe

If you think monkeys are fascinating and you want to understand and be of value to them, it's not enough to be an expert on what monkeys should ideally eat. You have to understand what monkeys actually eat.
posted by paleyellowwithorange (29 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Justin Bieber, Duck Dynasty, Breaking Bad, Gravity, and — yes — even Miley Cyrus twerking are all examples of what monkeys eat.

Either the author is deeply mistaken about monkeys and their diets, or Justin Bieber has been consumed by monkeys. I sort of want to live in the second world.
posted by graymouser at 12:38 PM on January 2, 2014 [5 favorites]


MeFi's Own does it again.

In short, you don't have to like the resonance of a moment in order to acknowledge it.

I wish more people would keep that in mind, about all kinds of things.
posted by rtha at 12:42 PM on January 2, 2014 [3 favorites]


I thought monkeys ate Bachelor Chow.
posted by box at 12:49 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ah, I thought it was kind of a nice essay on covering pop culture without sneering at it, that even the lowest forms of art should be enjoyed or at least experienced before you become a critic of them, and that point is frequently lost when we turn our noses down at dumb mainstream entertainment.
posted by mathowie at 12:50 PM on January 2, 2014 [3 favorites]


It is a really good essay on pop culture but I am so hung up on the idea of Justin Bieber being hunted down and devoured by a troop of chimpanzees that I can't fully appreciate it.
posted by elizardbits at 1:14 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


and before i receive any outraged memails yes i am aware that chimps are not monkeys
posted by elizardbits at 1:15 PM on January 2, 2014 [4 favorites]


I really enjoy these pieces and the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast that Linda and co put out. They do a great job of walking the fine line between critically observing and at the same time genuinely interacting with/enjoying popular culture.

(full disclosure: an old friend was a guest panelist on PCHH once, which was a delightful surprise, so I'm kinda extra well disposed towards them)
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:17 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


From the article:

Why have conversations about trivial things? Why not limit your conversations to important things?

Because it's important to take time to enjoy trivial things. Because thinking about trivial things can help us understand important things, and put them both in perspective. Because some conversations are more about connecting than important things, and trivial things are often good social connectors. Because trivial things tend to be lighthearted and funny, and important things tend to be obligatory and depressing.

Nice article. Thanks.
posted by Rykey at 1:31 PM on January 2, 2014 [6 favorites]


The argument that the particular trivial interest of the moment is the surface of some larger public consciousness doesn't hold up when the banal is scripted and controlled so tightly.

You might as well try to analyze the public consciousness in relation to McDonald's fast food. It isn't popular because people made them popular, it is popular largely because it and its advertising is designed and heavily tuned to a human being's base desires. And that's fine -- and extremely interesting at that level, but it tells us more about how easy we are to manipulate and pacify, and the techniques for doing so, rather than revealing some gestalt trend in "ordinary" folks emotional states.

I haven't searched through this column, but rather than pretending to know how everyone is feeling, it seems that they should do the work to find out who is pulling the strings, how and why.
posted by smidgen at 1:40 PM on January 2, 2014 [2 favorites]


Monkeys eat Primate Diet Dry.

In the wild, as I understand it, they eat insects, wild vegetables and fruits, and, sometimes, smaller monkeys.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:43 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


I haven't searched through this column, but rather than pretending to know how everyone is feeling, it seems that they should do the work to find out who is pulling the strings, how and why.

There's already large swaths of academia devoted to that though, as well as more lay audience things like On the Media or Adam Curtis' (sort of) documentaries. There's a different set of objectives and assumptions at work here (though it's fair to challenge the validity of those assumptions).
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:47 PM on January 2, 2014


The argument that the particular trivial interest of the moment is the surface of some larger public consciousness doesn't hold up when the banal is scripted and controlled so tightly.

Fair enough. Let me pose this question: What do you think makes these particular banal and controlled scripted moments the ones that take off? Why did the (as you say) banal and scripted hubbub over Duck Dynasty make so many people so blindingly angry? Why not a banal and scripted hubbub over Million Dollar Matchmaker? Does that say nothing about anything?

In other words, you can't entirely separate the string-pulling from the string. Whoever is pulling on the strings (as you put it), the strings are there. And the pulling may be theirs, but the strings, and how easy they are to yank on, are ours.

Thanks, all, for your thoughts.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 1:50 PM on January 2, 2014 [8 favorites]




It's clearly true that it's interesting to know about what's popular, even if what's popular isn't interesting. It does give a kind of window onto something about the public mind.

(Though, on a minor point: I don't see how that Gene Demby piece ("About this Miley Cyrus Business") can plausibly be called "really intelligent"...)
posted by Fists O'Fury at 2:59 PM on January 2, 2014


Well it seems to me that a lot of monkeys are eating whatever has been constantly put in front of their faces to the exclusion of anything else so that even if they had access to any other food they'd barely be able to recognize it as edible anymore.
posted by thebazilist at 3:49 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


I thought monkeys ate Bachelor Chow.

How about a bachelor eating Monkey Chow?

The Monkey Chow Diaries

..But can a human subsist on a constant diet of pelletized, nutritionally complete food like puppies and monkeys do? For the good of human kind, I'm about to find out. On June 3, 2006, I began my week of eating nothing but monkey chow: "a complete and balanced diet for the nutrition of primates, including the great apes."
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:54 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


I often think this about this place, and try not to get in comment wars: it seems hard to get people to look past what they want to be there to what actually is there. Or what they wish to be a causal agent or...anything, really. And maybe I'm the deluded one. Always a good thought to keep in mind.
posted by umberto at 4:01 PM on January 2, 2014


Does that say nothing about anything?

I think the point smidgen is making, which is an excellent one and worth more than such a quick brush-off, is that the question isn't just "what monkeys actually eat" (i.e. in their natural environment) so much as what monkeys choose from the very limited menu of trash that they are given to eat at the present moment. The corporate-poptimist position you're arguing for here is blinkered precisely because it pretends that people's choice of cultural consumption is free and unconstrained, an outcome solely of individual psychology — that is, because you aren't talking about the culture industry, as an industry, one devoted to creating that choice and making it look like a real expression of our minds rather than a Coke-vs-Pepsi manufactured dichotomy masking a deeper and more compulsory sameness. This monkey-chow thing is a disturbing argument, because it's grounded in the fiction that we consent to corporate culture freely and even desire it, rather than being negotiated into it out of desperation for distraction or on the pretense that there's no alternative.
posted by RogerB at 4:14 PM on January 2, 2014 [4 favorites]


the question isn't just "what monkeys actually eat" (i.e. in their natural environment) so much as what monkeys choose from the very limited menu of trash that they are given to eat at the present moment.

Some of us monkeys have taken the time to find a few more alternatives than you may be aware, though. We just always seem to get hooted at when we say that we either don't eat much monkey chow or ask "is this something I'd have to own a monkey chow bowl to understand" or something like that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:29 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


And some monkeys are watching the other monkeys eating Justin Bieber and then laughing about those other monkeys on their monkeyblogs.
posted by elizardbits at 5:18 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


But then the monkeys poo Justin Bieber out and throw the poo at each other and he's right back there in the jungle all over again, creating contention and ill will.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 5:26 PM on January 2, 2014


I don't know. I truly live in Middle America, where my choices are in many ways constrained, but I feel like they're vastly less constrained than they would have been even 15 years ago. I can get books from Amazon that might not have been sold at the local bookstore, and I can get a lot of them instantly. I have to wait a while, but I can see foreign and art house movies from Netflix. Our radio stations are pretty awful, but there's internet and satellite radio. Not everyone can afford that stuff, but a lot of people can, and it means that a lot of us monkeys have options other than the food that is put in front of us. I think maybe you're underestimating the extent to which people exercise choice about our pop culture consumption habits.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:57 PM on January 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


This is one of the things that makes America America: the only thing America talks about is America. Because control is munificent and the 'media' exists to make bank, first and foremost, if they can control the topic of discussion, the topic that is discussed likely profits. So Miley Cyrus dances, Madonna kisses Britney, Franzen turns down Oprah. (fucking Franzen, could you believe that?).
This happens outside of the US as well, but in America, where there is so very little cultural bleed-through from other countries simply because they are so far away, this has been honed extra sharp. What do 'monkeys' eat? What they are fed. Which is creepy. The controlled environment that is 'pop' culture.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:25 PM on January 2, 2014 [3 favorites]


You have to understand what monkeys actually eat.

According to popular culture, I think the answer is bananas.
posted by notme at 8:44 PM on January 2, 2014


You have to understand what monkeys actually eat.

According to popular culture, I think the answer is bananas.


Or grape juice.
posted by Pudhoho at 10:20 PM on January 2, 2014


That's redneck laundromat monkeys. Suburban monkeys eat the more nutritious actual grapes.
posted by Rykey at 4:38 AM on January 3, 2014


The corporate-poptimist position you're arguing for here

You seem to believe I am arguing that things are good just because I am arguing that they are interesting and telling.

I work in public media. That was a conscious choice. I used to work for NBC Universal. You don't need to explain this stuff to me, I promise. In fact, one of the points I made about Duck Dynasty and why that story matters is that it exposes a divide that's become very easy to exploit.

I'm precisely arguing that it's worth examining what people are actually watching and reading and listening to, whether it's good for them or not. I'm precisely arguing that if monkeys are eating trash because trash is all they're getting, then considering the implications of eating trash is worthwhile.

There's nothing remotely corporate-poptimist about it. If anything, it's the opposite.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 5:11 AM on January 3, 2014 [6 favorites]


The author forgets one critical factor: there are more than 250 species of monkey. Would not apes (specifically chimps) be a better analogy? Editor!
posted by mrgrimm at 9:55 AM on January 3, 2014


(And yes, I am bitter cuz I still dunno what monkeys *actually* eat.)
posted by mrgrimm at 9:56 AM on January 3, 2014


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