"This is a post about reader appreciation," Carles writes, but of course that is a feint. This post is actually about cultural capital. Carles demonstrates the petty strategizing of an other-directed ethos by suggesting that his readers can determine whether his own praxis is "relevant." The survey is a disguised expression of his will to power, since its outcome is irrelevent. By asking the question Carles has proved his relevence in a culture that hypocritically worships the forms of democracy while clinging fast to the social hierarchy that makes the cherished ideal of social mobility legible and meaningful. To organize an extension of the franchise demonstrates a mastery over those who then constitute the plebians. The faux equality of the vote reproduces the cultural integuement that truly organizes social existence.
Carles emphasizes the pseudo-democratic gesture as a bourgeois-making fait accompli by rendering the words "Am I 'making a difference' in the lives of smart/educated/wealthy/culturally-aware/authentic/meaningful people?" into an image that cannot be manipulated digitally as text, but only as a bloc. The question becomes an image of cultural capital itself, which is evident in the habitus that enables Carles to conceive of the question itself, as well as the middlebrow Gemeinschaft to which he appeals. The words seem open to alteration, but they are fixed, in the form he determined. The openness toward which they gesture is always already an illusion, a ruse, a tactic.
He also evokes the ersatz "hacking" episode, which is the obverse of democracy, and how democracy is truly perceived by those hypocritically championing it. When plebes are allowed to express their opinions, it is tantamount to their being permitted to "hack" society, if their views were counted toward making a meaningful, socially significant judgment. Fortunately for capitalism, their votes are restricted to superficial and superfluous matters. To hammer that point home, Carles offers his ersatz voters a travesty of meaningful choice: "Do u want more podcasts? More mp3s? More tweens? More mainstream coverage? More conceptual blogging?" And then he evokes the way in which, in the hegemonic official discourse of the media, meaningless votes are given the appearance of significance: "Do yall like pie charts or bar graphs or line graphs?" The dutiful and accurate measuring of votes conceals their fundamental triviality.
Cultural capital rests with those who can orchestrate sham democracy without getting caught up in it; with those who can make others feel "authentic" and "culturally-important" while exploiting them. Reader appreciation, indeed.
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