Contemporary subjects move compulsively among the boring while never feeling bored

Evidence

Perhaps the feeling most characteristic of our current moment is a mixture of boredom and compulsion. Even though we recognise that they are boring, we nevertheless feel compelled to do yet another Facebook quiz, to read yet another Buzzfeed list, to click on some celebrity gossip about someone we don’t even remotely care about. We endlessly move among the boring, but our nervous systems are so overstimulated that we never have the luxury of feeling bored. No one is bored, everything is boring. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1765

Categorization

• APHORISMS: ‘No one is bored, everything is boring’ is a compressed diagnostic aphorism worth keeping as a lens for the present.
• XREF: connects to: Boredom enables genuinely new forms of activity — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 39; Postmodern ‘waning of affect’ fragments the subject into depthless, spasmodic flux. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 154; The compulsion to have hobbies works from within, not just externally — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 260 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Postmodern ‘waning of affect’ fragments the subject into depthless, spasmodic flux. #expands (0.80) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 154
• Boredom enables genuinely new forms of activity #complicates (0.78) — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 39
• The compulsion to have hobbies works from within, not just externally #corroborates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 260