18 February 2009: "Pick an Authentic Group of Core Bros"

This post is about decentered subjectivity and the paradox of displaced identity. Carles investigates how our autonomous identity is beset with leakages through the various associations forced upon us by the contingency of our being and by how we are interpolated/interpellated socially. As Freud investigated, the ego is often at the mercy of group psychology. In "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego," Freud writes:

an individual in a group is subjected through its influence to what is often a profound alteration in his mental activity. His emotions become extraordinarily intensified, while his intellectual ability becomes markedly reduced, both processes being evidently in the direction of an approximation to the other individuals in the group; and this result can only be reached by the removal of those inhibitions upon his instincts which are peculiar to each individual, and by his resigning those expressions of his inclinations which are especially his own.

Carles distills and modernizes that insight for late capitalism's distinct dasein. "I was looking at groups of bros who I might want 2 search for on FaceTwitspace, and I wondered which group would take my personal brand to the next level [via association]."

Of course, the "next level" is potentially the dissolution of the very concept of levels, as ego dissolves into a collective presence, typified by Carles' frequent and pointed use of the second person plural, "yall." But one must always also confront the danger that the ego will experience annihilating isolation, forcing a suboptimal identificatory gesturation. Carles captures that fear eloquently: "Glad I’m not associated with that pack of leftover bros who banded together to come bros"

All social structurations, and all semiotic transactions in general, entail an excess, a "leftover." The question is always how to process and assimilate this "accursed share," as Bataille dubbed it. Carles theorizes the possibility that the contemporary invention/intervention of identity distributed online offers a solution, and at the same time challenges and dispatches the Freudian depth psychology model as a whole. "Doesn’t matter if u hang out with hollow people in order to establish your brand before moving on to people with ‘more depth.’" When it comes to the ego, there is no depth, only movement.