This is the fifth entry in a series on the documentary You Can See Everything. The previous posts are “Nathan Fielder is the “You” who Can See Everything” “The Allegory of the Business Scam”, “You Can See Everything is not the Territory or the Map”, and “Technicalities of Truth and the Lengths of not Lying.”
Distraction, Attraction, and Attention
The concept of the Nash Equilibrium, discussed in my previous post, was introduced to the general public in the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind, when the mathematician John Nash watches a single blonde-haired woman join her four brunette friends at a bar. Nash realizes that if he and his three friends each attempt to pursue the blonde, they will block each other, while alienating the girls relegated to the role of second best. The solution is the same one required to discern the magician’s trick, including the tricks of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim: ignore the blonde.
Of course, this is easier said than done, especially when every image and poster is centered on a pair of large blue eyes. But as with all failures, there is something of value to be gained by recognizing our susceptibility to distraction. We can therefore forgive the majority of reviewers and commentators who remained fixated on Elizabeth Holmes. After all, that same distraction served to render the inner workings of Theranos, Silicon Valley, and the regulatory system invisible.
But as with the blonde in Nash’s bar, to mistake the necessity to treat Holmes as a distraction with her simply being a distraction is a serious error. Distraction is a byproduct of the paradox of approach. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.” A person can spend their life in pursuit of foolish goals and empty promises, and never once feel they are distracted. Distraction can only be understood through the sudden realization that our perceptions have misled us; we can only intuit that something is a distraction because we learned something was a distraction.
Of course, one man’s distraction might be another man’s treasure; as far as Billy Evans is concerned, Holmes is the prize, and I believe Fielder wants us to recognize it. But I will explore the romantic angle separately. In this entry, I intend to discuss the effects of pursuit on the pursuer, and how they are affected by the objects of their pursuit and the influence of the environment. To understand the proliferation of misdirection, deception, and illusions that cloud our perception, we must examine the monumental shift in values adopted by our culture.
Anything that comes to be viewed as a distraction begins as an object of attraction and the subject of our attention. In his 1971 essay “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World” Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon made the following observation:
“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
Political scientist Karl W. Deutsch signaled the advent of the “attention economy” in that same volume of essays, pointing to the influx of new information provided by computers and data storage. It is worth noting that the initial shift coincides with a number of other massive economic changes, the effects of which can be explored at the website “WTF Happened in 1971?” with a major shift in emphasis from manufacturing to consumption. At that time, the necessary task of filtering and excluding irrelevant distractions preceded the dissemination of information through the bottleneck of mass media.
But just as the attention economy became democratized through the widespread adoption of the internet, (via articles like “Attention Shoppers! The currency of the New Economy won’t be money, but attention — A radical theory of value.” from the December 1997 issue of Wired magazine,) it was already falling victim to the pitfalls of Goodheart’s law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
As attention came to be seen as a goal in itself, salience and spectacle increased dramatically, and as communications became optimized to grab our attention, the cost of distraction exploded. The outcasts of this economy even received a new label, as an increasing number of kids (including myself) were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder in that same time period. When we think in terms of an attention economy, lacking the capacity to focus or the ability to fend off distractions becomes the new form of poverty. As with the impoverished of all generations, the individuals at the bottom remained stuck in perpetual deception, as they mistook the object of value as an end rather than a means. Attention was the new gold, but it perpetuated the same injustice; those who had the most gained more, and those with the least could never get enough.
The Real Hero
The free exchange of attention afforded by the internet didn’t happen overnight; it was preceded by a gradual dissolution of older boundaries. The early adopters were outcasts—mainly nerds. Mass media was still the gold standard of the attention economy, controlled by the elites. But during that same era, the broad majority of people were increasingly directing their attention to another novel form of entertainment—reality TV.
The underlying assumption that drives reality TV, is that success and failure are primarily determined by attention and recognition. The intrinsic belief of every participant is that if they can just get that little bit of exposure, the path to success will finally unfold. Reality TV was always destined to be a transitory phenomenon, with a clear trajectory that began with the humanization of celebrities, and shifted towards the “celebration” of “normal” people. But it was always an illusion, as the massive searches for new talent employed on shows like American Idol kept their most important secrets safely out of sight—the junior producers who weeded out the masses of individuals who lined up around the block to audition. To maintain the illusion, the occasional oddball was passed onto the television hosts for comic relief. But the vast majority of interactions resulted in dreams being smashed by the split-second judgments of underpaid industry insiders.
This process would later be expertly employed by Nathan Fielder in the second season of The Rehearsal, as he drew on his own experience as a junior producer on Canadian Idol to create a scenario designed to develop assertive communication skills among airline pilots by staging his own singing competition, Wings of Voice. The practice also served as a form of penance for Fielder, who seemed to wrestle with regrets over the pain of rejection he inflicted on contestants. The entire experiment was a classic example of misdirection, as the true goal was to elicit the judgment of the judges from the contestants, to teach them to deliver harsh truths with greater compassion. The culmination is well worth watching:
The more salient point to recognize that this was a reality that Fielder had already integrated into his own understanding of the attention economy, and it was part of what he was trying to convey through the comedic lens of Nathan For You, a show which occupied the liminal space between the tail end of the reality TV era.
But even though the cultural dominance of reality TV was beginning to fade, the underlying assumptions of the attention economy were only growing stronger with the ascendance of social media influencers. In the final episode of the third season of Nathan For You, titled The Hero, Nathan puts those assumptions to the ultimate test, as he endeavors to use his powers and influence to make life better for someone else. The premise, as Fielder puts it, is as follows:
“I’ve always believed that there’s a hero inside each and every one of us; so nine months ago, to inspire you, I began working on a secret project to prove that even the most unlikely people have the potential for greatness. Can anyone become a hero?”
To find someone truly worthy of the gift he was about to bestow, Nathan sought to find someone who was “beyond hopeless”, with the offer of providing a “life-makeover”. The “winning” subject, Corey Calderwood was sliding through life, stuck in a dead-end, part-time job, living with his grandparents, who spent all of his time playing video games and collecting Magic: The Gathering cards.
The actual “life makeover” takes place over the course of two weeks. Nathan moves Corey into isolation, and with the help of a renowned Hollywood makeup artist, takes on the identity of his subject to orchestrate a heroic stunt—walking a tight-rope between two tall buildings in downtown Los Angeles to raise money for a breast cancer charity.
In the weeks leading up to the main event, Nathan uses his disguise to appear on radio programs to promote the stunt, and procures a girlfriend for Corey named Jasmine, whom he asks to share a first kiss after the completion of his stunt.
When the moment arrives, he dazzles the crowd, before ducking out of the way to allow the real Corey to reap the benefits of his ambitious plans. The episode and the season both end on a high note as Corey enjoys his moment in the spotlight, delivers an inspiring speech and receives Jasmine’s first kiss.
But predictably, the effects did not last. The “hero” makeover produced a short-term boost in confidence, and Corey moved out of his parents house, but no enduring transformation or public profile. The relationship engineered under the mask did not last, and Corey largely resumed a low-visibility existence after the episode aired.
Manufactured Reality
To the masses of normal, everyday people, Fielder appears in the guise of a trickster. But that is his greatest trick of all—it is a distraction, which means that it is meant to be discovered so that our attention can be directed away from the person, to the environment in which he dwells.
Hollywood is a land of tricksters, whose native language is deception. Masks and illusions are their stock and trade; where contempt is concealed as concern, disdain is disguised with dignity, and seduction is sold as sincere desire. It’s a culture built on flattery and mutual abuse and objectification. For decades, this posed no problem, as the products sold were clearly labeled as fictional entertainment.
But in an attention economy, when distraction becomes a liability, the most easily identified distraction is fiction. When the liars began to realize that labeling something “real” grabs the attention of the masses, they scrambled to produce anything that can be labeled “The Truth”, and Hollywood went from the place where dreams came true, to the place that manufactured reality.
There is an inherent risk in attempting to pass off fiction as reality. To be believable, the illusion must be as accurate as possible in as many areas of detail as possible. The more one can rely on reality itself to do the heavy lifting, the better. But the unvarnished reality of everyday life is rarely sufficient to hold the attention of television viewers that have been raised on scripted dramas and comedies. No one wants to sit in on the dinner conversations of working-class Americans that are fatter and less funny than John Goodman and Roseanne Barr. (Fielder proved this point deftly in the episode Smokers Allowed.) There is only so much that can be done on the cutting room floor, and most people’s days do not unfold in a three act form, which meant that it was often necessary to inject a little bit of scripted drama into the mix to maintain viewers attention.
But regular people are not good at pulling off those kinds of deceptions, and since Hollywood producers had spent their careers trying to provide an escape from those kinds of everyday lives, they likely lacked the theory of mind necessary to see the appeal in depicting that kind of reality. The solution then was to create shows based on the “real” lives of the professional liars who lived and worked among them. This proved disastrous for the families of many celebrities, whose otherwise normal children were suddenly thrust into madhouse versions of The Truman Show, populated by the enormous egos of genuine narcissists. Not that the odds were good to begin with, but the cameras undoubtedly made things worse.
It’s difficult to say exactly what role these kinds of programs played in shaping the culture that succeeded it, but it is well worth comparing the differences between the “fictional” families that elder millennials like myself and Fielder grew up watching, and the “real” families that graced the screens of the internet native influencers that currently possess the attention of the masses. As a sidenote, it is worth mentioning that the degree to which fictional depictions shaped the social imaginary of previous generations comes with its own set of problems, but that is a topic that will be discussed in greater detail in a later post.
But in order to understand the roles and purposes of reality TV, we must remember that it is a product of the attention economy, and the principal concern of the attention economy was dealing with “a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently”. Casting industry insiders, filming them inside their homes, drawing upon their families and friends—all efficiency saving efforts; and when it came time to inject some scripted comedy or drama into the story, the producers practiced the efficiency by drawing upon previously proven narrative formulas.
The Osbornes, Hogan Knows Best, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, and Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood all sat in a comedic register that mirrored the scripted sitcoms that preceded them, like The Simpsons and Married—With Children, by portraying the father as a clueless boob who was constantly being outsmarted by his wise-cracking kids, and sassy wife. These shows were accompanied by more dramatic female driven shows like keeping up with the Kardashians, and the real housewives series, which were no less formulaic, and espoused the same consumeristic values. In the attention economy, conspicuous displays of wealth, stupid antics, and sex appeal were recast as the vehicles of success rather than the outcome. But this was an obvious distraction, as in each and every instance, the true source of wealth and notoriety was the natural talent, hard work and dedication of the patriarchs.
The downstream consequence of this is that the “winners” of the new attention economy are completely clueless as to the kind of creatures they actually are. The Mr. Beast’s, the twitch streamers, the Looksmaxxer’s, Instagram models, and every girl duped into opening an Only Fans account are not agents; they are advertisements—self-generating billboards whose willingness to craft their own displays has become the most efficient (and therefore profitable) means of funneling attention ever devised.
What the discovery of the attention economy has revealed is that attention is so fundamental to the human experience that rather than collapsing under Goodheart’s law, where the measure becomes a rule and ceases to be a measure, both the demand and capacity for attention are increasing exponentially. The attention capacity of individual humans has remained consistent, but the degree to which that capacity can be captured, along with the collective capacity that can be drawn towards novel content and platforms continues to rise. But in another sense, Goodheart’s law remains undefeated, as the vast majority of attention given and consumed reveals that the attention economy has actually transformed into a distraction economy.
This is where Fielder’s work becomes so critical, as it reveals the Achilles heel of manufactured reality by giving us a glimpse of the genuine article. The creation of the hero Corey Calderwood was in many ways a classic example of pure Hollywood magic. Lights, cameras, and stunt coordination, smoke and mirrors, make-up and practical effects, a PR stunt, all scripted and planned out months in advance. But at the midpoint of the episode, Fielder reveals the reality that makes the stunt believable, that he has spent the months prior dedicating himself to learning the skill of tight-rope walking at a breakneck pace.
The deception is in some ways, completely unremarkable, as similar stunts are performed by professionals wearing makeup and prosthetics all the time, and as with other stunt doubles, the attention is lavished on someone else. If the sole purpose of the stunt was to reveal the absurdity of a life makeover, someone else could have walked the wire. But in the same moment that Fielder reveals how much of the attention being bought and sold is truly distraction, he also proves his original thesis, forcing us to consider the possibility that anyone can become something like a hero.
The tightrope walk is the place where the seams of “manufactured reality” usually begin to show. If an actor was filming a movie about the flying Wallendas, the stunts would be performed by professionals disguised to look like the actor/character, because it’s easier to make a person look like someone else than it is to learn a new skill for a fake scene. In fiction, only obvious fakery tends to break the suspension of disbelief. To keep the viewer focused on the story, the actor might spend a minimal amount of time learning to walk a wire close to the ground for filming closeups, but rarely will they devote two years to learning a skill. For most viewers and most applications, this is perfectly acceptable. The small group of viewers who might be dissatisfied are those who know how to actually walk a wire.
Tightrope walking is a rare skill, and therefore not so important to depict with great expertise. I am not an expert, and so I would not be able to judge the quality of false performance. But like most people, there are a few areas in which I have sufficient expertise to judge a performance, such as playing the guitar. As soon as the camera pans down to reveal the hands of Sean Penn in the film Sweet and Lowdown, it is obvious that he is not actually playing the music being heard, nor is he playing anything that resembles music.
Because jazz is such a technical genre, faking it well is probably not worth the time commitment for most actors. This is not such a big deal for a dramatic role where the story is really about the lives of people, rather than their skills as musicians. In contrast, when Joseph Quinn landed the role of Eddie in Stranger Things, one of the biggest shows of all time, he leaned into the character’s identity as a guitar player, and spent significant time learning to play, specifically practicing the song Master of Puppets that was portrayed on screen. While his performance is not the one heard in the recording, the producers had the guitar parts played by Tye Trujillio, the 17 year-old son of Metallica’s bassist Robert Trujillio, and the performance captures the raw energy of an ambitious teenager, creating a synergy between sight and sound that is far more believable.
This is a remarkable degree of dedication for a fictional depiction, which not only served to enhance the experience, but resonated deeply with the much larger group of fans who, like Eddie, had been inspired to pick up guitars in the 80’s and 90’s when the dream of rising to stardom by starting a band in a garage with your friends was a real possibility. While the vast majority of such dreams were later abandoned, the skill remained, and the portrayal inspired many individuals to dust off their guitars and start playing again. Some sought the allure of attention by posting their performances on the internet, but many more rediscovered the sheer joy of actually doing something real.
Despite the accuracy of Quinn’s on-screen depiction, the expert can still discern the distinction between an accurate portrayal, and a genuine performance. While I can’t personally vouch for Fielder’s skill as a tight-rope walker, and it is technically possible (however implausible) that his performance, and the depictions of him practicing might also have been faked, there is an authentic resonance with his broader body of work that speaks to something real; something I noted in my first entry on this subject. Fielder isn’t faking his portrayal as an outsider.
No Prophet is accepted in his hometown
There is an analogical relationship between Fielder and Holmes, and their respective environments of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Both environments are centered around the attention economy and the manufacturing of reality. The difference is that Hollywood speaks in the language of fiction, while Silicon Valley speaks in the language of aspiration. Both languages mean something different from the journalist or the scientist when they call something real. Hollywood makes things real by making you see something false to feel something real, by making you believe. Silicon Valley asks you to believe something is real until you can see it and feel it.
