We all acknowledge that we're on the precipice of at least one dystopian future scenario, right? The hack correlation that most people draw is to George Orwell's 1984, and while it is an uninspired observation, it's still a salient one. Other people might see the trajectory of our civilization veering towards Aldous Huxley's projections in Brave New World, which are equally apt. And while both are great, I like to point to Martha Washington Goes to War as the dystopian hellscape that most closely matches our own.
In Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons's criminally underrated graphic novel, corporations have amassed so much power that they actively battle the government for control of resources. Like, they engage in actual wars. The book is a trip, man.
And while we're not exactly there just yet, the amount of power that corporations have in modernity is terrifying. For example, does anyone remember when Apple decided that everyone needed to own the new U2 album? Well, as it turns out, it wasn't Apple's idea after all. T'was Bono that influenced the tech giant to place an unwanted album on your phone.
BONO HAS ONCE again apologized for U2's The Songs of Innocence showing up unsolicited in iTunes libraries around the world, with the singer detailing the thought process leading up to and backlash following the 2014 stunt. "I take full responsibility," Bono writes in his upcoming memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, an excerpt of which was published Saturday in the Guardian. "I'd thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite. As one social media wisecracker put it, 'Woke up this morning to find Bono in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, wearing my dressing gown, reading my paper.' Or, less kind, 'The free U2 album is overpriced.' Mea culpa."
