Extreme affluence produces a distinctive melancholic hollowness in its enjoyers

Evidence

A secret sadness lurks behind the 21st century’s forced smile. This sadness concerns hedonism itself, and it’s no surprise that it is in hip-hop – a genre that has become increasingly aligned with consumerist pleasure over the past 20-odd years – that this melancholy has registered most deeply. Drake and Kanye West are both morbidly fixated on exploring the miserable hollowness at the core of super-affluent hedonism. No longer motivated by hip-hop’s drive to conspicuously consume – they long ago acquired anything they could have wanted – Drake and West instead dissolutely cycle through easily available pleasures, feeling a combination of frustration, anger, and self-disgust, aware that something is missing, but unsure exactly what it is. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 455

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Frankfurt School’s critique of administered pleasure and Adorno’s culture industry — a theme familiar from the reader’s knowledge base. — connects to: Super-affluent hedonism produces a pervasive melancholy about itself — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1306; Manufactured desires create ever-deepening dissatisfaction even when satisfied — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 210; Prestige seeking replaces genuine enjoyment in cultural consumption
• SEED: Possible essay angle: what the ‘sadness of the satiated’ in hip-hop reveals about the limits of consumption as a route to wellbeing — joined to depression-as-structural data.

Broader Connections

• Super-affluent hedonism produces a pervasive melancholy about itself #corroborates (0.97) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1306
• Manufactured desires create ever-deepening dissatisfaction even when satisfied #qualifies (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 210
• Prestige seeking replaces genuine enjoyment in cultural consumption #exemplifies (0.75)