Black Friday / Blue Velvet
With all the talk about revolution and defacing our nation/religion and the proper way to protest, and freedom of speech, let’s get down the real matter at hand. We are living without YouTube and it is a serious impediment to not only our quality of life but also a dip in the productivity of culture bloggers, enthusiasts and addicts. I want my hit.
Understandably our daily YouTube feed keeps us up-to-date on the goings on of the world, making sure our brains are appropriately attuned to all that is pop, allowing our conversations to be current, relevant and with the right dose of meta. Needles to say, I’ve been feeling under-evolved, an old fogey, a disconnected illiterate. I have not even seen Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Velvet” yet. Wait, don’t scoff, this is a huge cultural moment! Lana Del Rey, the epitome of manufactured nostalgia, and current sex goddess with questionable musical skill (note: crappy live performances and music plagiarism scandal that I cant link to here for obvious reasons) is covering the song made famous by the great absurdist of Americana David Lynch, in his movie “Blue Velvet”, which delves in to the perverted under layer of Suburbia, where drugs, sycophantic father figures and a voyeuristic young man lust after the great Isabella Rosellini.
The film becoming all the more emblematic since its young male lead, Kyle Maclachlan plays the impotent Upper East Side husband in Sex and the City (married to the most Pakistani girl of the four leading ladies). Now Lana Del Rey, poster child in angora for H&M, uniform for all those white, young, hip and too poor for the high street, meets Blue Velvet – the emblem of a disturbed American identity. It’s all too delicious, and Rehman Malik is depriving me of pure joy. Don’t ask me to turn to Vimeo, I cannot pour over the endless commentary of the masses there – Vimeo is for the elite, respectable, media professionals/semi professionals, YouTube is the masses. YouTube is the common denominator, YouTube IS culture.
The point, I suppose is that banning YouTube is like banning the Internet. The film-that-must-not-be-named is still floating around in the inter-webs outside of YouTube, if they are going to start banning and blockading, try disconnecting us from the Internet in its entirety? Try sawing off Pakistan from the continent of Asia, full of infidels and the like and let us float off to sea where we can be pure and clean in peace.
YouTube is democratic news, democratic culture and democratic communication. We are citizens of the Internet, not of any geographical cut-out of soil. Banning YouTube is an act of war upon my world, a infringement upon my connection with my global family, and an attack on my freedom to practice my culture.
But seriously, we use YouTube to access lectures, to do research, maybe even to communicate with various groups and communities, besides just entertainment (from which some of us draw our livelihood from). As a civilised, progressive society, with a culture more free, or so we hope than China and Iran – we must strongly oppose the idea of Internet blockages and bans. The idea is akin to shutting of power as punishment and reward … oh wait we already do that too, don’t we?
Back to Lana Del Rey. Imagine a Pakistani version of the songstress singing Blue Velvet for us, with lecherous, self flagellating moulvis lurking in the background, well behaved, prim and proper; you and me attached to gas masks that send us into the swirls of a languid paralysis. And while Miss Rey herself crowd surfs through hoards of angry young men, with no where to place their frustration, eating each other alive, she croons sweetly of the sanctity of our nation and the religion we wear like Blue Velvet, making us irrevocably shinier and brighter no matter how much darkness we swim in.
The author is a film maker, science fiction enthusiast and a certified yoga instructor at Omni, Islamabad.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
To protest I have changed my default and “THE Famous” search engine..
you are right on some points.. and its sad ppl refer to west for literature etc… i mean why we always look on west for all innovations, inventions.. i hope table will get turned sometime in future!
“The religion we wear like Blue Velvet, making us irrevocably shinier and brighter no matter how much darkness we swim in.”
Wow. Not only is that so beautifully penned down, its the truest thing I know. Thanks Anam.
(Ignore the haters, they probably don’t know who Lana Del Rey is and have probably not watched Blue Velvet either.)
Your concerns are acceptable,but it looks a bit odd when you talk of democracy,that is the will of majority,is being condemned by you.The ban was right step to respect the feeling of more people than those who are opposed to it.Democracy does not reject feelings and aspirations of people.,specially the masses and not few elites.,
“Banning YouTube is an act of war upon my world”
must be a really sad world
There are lot of enjoyable venues in this world, just come out of YouTube and see yourself.
That is exactly what final_reckoning is saying.
reading comprehension much?
Useless seriously.
Because of one blasphemous book, Pakistan banned the whole library….lol.(Dnt forget there are many educational videos too on the same Youtube) Typical knee-jerk reaction govt. of Pakistan.
Senseless article , what you actually wanted to express ?
i completely disagree with the author. americans are insulting our beloved prophet and religion and u r saying that we cannot live without youtube. what a shame! there are also many sources through which we can be updated about the world’s events and everything.
dont worry! we will not die without using youtube.
make yourself mentally strong.
Americans are not insulting Islam, one American is and his name is so foreign sounding unlikely he is an true American. Grow up, turn the other cheek, do not listen and do not react to such rubbish, I honestly believe that if you ignore it they will stop insults, Please, we do not need any of this is our world, we must learn to live together.As for youtube I personally would not die without it.
Isnt there any legal way to go about this. i mean a lot of countries did get google to ban the particular video. why not pakistan? has the government not tried it? Or is it that google just ignores pakistanis? In that case can we file for discrimination? But seriously how does google tend to achieve its “values” of free speech when it being stubborn takes away the right to access to a lot of information to large populations. Isnt that just disappointing.
What is going on DAWN??? First Shazia Mirza and now this…there got to be better blogs out there that you can post. What a waste…..Please…..
I regret wasting my time reading this piece of insanity… @Dawn, show that you aren’t biased and post my comment
“Rehman Malik is depriving me of pure joy.” (the writer)
Because the Killjoy Rehman Malik wants to give another National Holiday to the YouTube goers — to leave your computers and go on the streets and make mayhem.
“let us float off to sea where we can be pure and clean in peace”, wishful thinking. We will be left with the great majority that IS unclean, corrupt, and in breach of the code of conduct that goes Islam in more ways than one.
“We are citizens of the Internet, not of any geographical cut-out of soil”. Then go off my homeland and enjoy your YouTube at some place where it is not banned.
What are you doing here?Go to your world and leave us alone to enjoy the real world-the world of people, ,masses and working classes..
This is Dawn not Youtube. Hello……
Makes no sense to me. The writer started off with one half-baked idea and ended with several half-baked ones.
Anam Abbas, Omni, Islamabad is the most revolutionary person i’ve come across in Pakistan.
Well written, lacking all greed, influential and thoughtful compared to some other custodians of culture amongst Dawn writers in Pakistan.
What a waste of time for the readers.
I thoroughly enjoyed it!!!