We live in a world so saturated with media that we’ve become experts in what I call waste separation. Most of what floods our retinas is excess, and we’ve learned to recognise the signs. 

Take email, for instance. I’d estimate that 80-90% of the emails we receive come from brands or companies that are inauthentically trying to cut through the noise. By creating a false sense of belonging and mimicking a personable tone – such as using subject lines and pre-headers like “Hi [First Name], we miss you” or “OMG, have you seen this?” – some brands manage to trick the average person-turned-expert into clicking. As a result, we have all grown a thick skin that cannot easily be permeated. 

Ironically, it’s often the very companies trying to cut through the noise who have caused us to put our guards up – a prime example of capitalism’s inherent tendency to destabilise itself. As the critical theorist Nancy Fraser puts it in The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born (2019), it’s “like a tiger eating its own tail”. When corporate companies such as BMW started changing their logos to rainbow flags during Pride month, but do little else to publicly support LGBTQ+ rights throughout the year, it’s clear that there’s yet another waste flow that needs to be separated from truly inclusive and progressive causes.