SATIRE

What Feeling Dumb After Watching TENET, Nasi Lemak Appropriation & Jeanette Aw's Brownies Have In Common

It’s ok to feel stupid every once in awhile

BY: JONATHAN LEONG
HEAD OF CONTENT

19th SEPT 2020

Those of you who saw TENET and really understood it, you can stop reading now.

This article is meant for us mere ordinary mortals who didn’t get it. I’m ashamed to say that as a lifelong fan of cinema, this is the first Christopher Nolan film that I didn’t really ‘get’. +insert sad emoji+. I still rank Inception as my favourite Nolan film, along with The Dark Knight trilogy and *gasp* Interstellar - another ‘intellectually controversial’ Nolan film.

WARNING: Mild (but frankly inconsequential) spoilers for TENET

A quick search for the usual ‘what TENET really means’ on youtube quickly got me up to speed (don’t pretend like you haven’t used it). I can now discuss TENET with fellow movie geeks with slightly less shame.

You see Christopher Nolan movies are like a brand. They are beautifully crafted pieces of art with some brain juice - associating yourself with a Nolan epic is like the basic calling card of Movie Going Snobbery, we like to think of ourselves as above basic bitch movie goers who pay to see feel good Adam Sandler movies. Some movies appeal more to the heart, and that’s ok.

Despite the fact that we usually love to think of ourselves as “free thinking consumers in control of our choices”, we are what we ultimately eat, buy and are branded by the products we associate with - or choose to associate ourselves with. If we believe in the concept of free will, then surely we can’t blame advertisements trying to sell things to us for making us part with our money in exchange for some dophamine.

Most movie commentators love to only associate themselves with “high art thought pieces”, sometimes the art really makes sense and other times it’s just fart. Here at The Singaplex we’re the kind of people who aren’t ashamed to say we enjoyed Michael Bay’s Bad Boys I, II (and Bad Boys III - which Bay produced) as much as Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario and Blade Runner 2047.

You see, the world has devolved into a state whereby everyone needs to have a strong opinion on everything. Whether it is regarding "Nasi Lemak “cultural appropriation”:

Or whether billionaire Elon Musk’s concept of “holding on to as little cash as possible” is the right route for personal finance:

What people forget is…thinking is often easier than doing. While we should celebrate good ideas, we should stop short of getting into fights with random strangers on the internet over stuff that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Reading about people getting into petty internet squabbels over inconsequential idelogical differences like “The Proper Portrayal of Nasi Lemak” that they claim to own the sovereign idealogical rights to, doesn’t really advance ourselves as a society. If we as “contemporary humans” claim to celebrate all forms of expression why are we always shitting on how other people decide to craft a particular dish? Maybe it’s because, deep down inside everyone wants to keep trending on twitter…but that’s a deep analytical marketing topic for another time… For now, here are:

The 3 Things That

- Feeling Dumb After Watching TENET
- Nasi Lemak Appropriation &
- Jeanette Aw's Brownies

Have In Common:

#1) Everyone Talks Like They Are An “Expert”

Many of the solutions to humanity’s problems, both material, societal and existential are currently (if not perpetually) in development. The day we lay claim to any sole route to salvation is the day we cease to progress as a species. Just like the protagonist found out in the movie TENET, it is possible to ‘manipulate’ the flow of time. He learnt how some objects which had gone through some ‘advanced form of specialized radiation’ could be ‘caught’ like an ‘inverted bullet’ - leading to potentially fatal consequences…

This post is sponsored by our humble merch store:

Coz Chicken Nuggets ain’t gonna pay for themselves…

Just like an ‘Inverted Bullet’ is highly fatal to humans in the world of TENET, so are assumptions as to certain concepts which humanity is trying to grapple with. Such as balancing the potential benefit of a society full of (close to zero accident rate) self-driving cars (when the technology fully matures),with the potential fall out from the massive loss of jobs.

The word ‘potential’ weighs heavily in both points above, because both assumptions are currently being tested heavily as the history of humanity progresses forwards into the future alongside societal change and advances in technology. Most of the debate in our current internet driven construct seems to take a hard stance whether it is for or against any point - without recognising the nuances in the contextual world, which itself is still being tested by the ravages of time.

In a post technological world, where we humans may one day fall under the sword of our own creations, nobody can claim to have the answers to everything. Because the solutions haven’t happened yet. Society is still evolving, as it always should, which is why fighting with strangers on the internet, over whose ‘expert view’ is more valid…is the lamest form of therapy one can engage in. You know what’s good therapy? -> Retail therapy.

So relax, you don’t have to be right all the time, cause even the experts get it wrong. Frankly nobody has the final answers all the time and that’s ok. If you’ve watched TENET you would know what we mean.

#2) An “Online Opinion” Is The New Namecard

Just like how this post and most of our memes are a feeble mask for Team Singaplex to sell more t-shirts, most posts online are designed to keep the OP relevant in the ephemeral stream that is society’s fickle consciousness. After all, since COVID19 rekt the world economy, one must hustle harder to rise above the noise and survive in the marketplace. It doesn’t matter what the end result of a online discourse is, what matters is your opinion is heard.

The world is starting to get tired of pot stirring on twitter. It’s a unruly town-hall of 140 characters, each spinning to the beat of their own echo chambers, kind of like the spinning top from inception. Always titalating the audience with the promise of some sort of resolution, before cutting to black against the backdrop of its own importance.

Whether you are a aspiring master chef, social media influencer, SME boss, serial entrepreneur, insurance agent or home baker…if you are out of sight these days you’re literally out of mind. Just ask these people, who sort of felt out-flexed by Jeanette Aw’s (Instagram-powered) brownies, they ranted on and the internet put the fear of reality into them:

In this sea of brutal competition, technological change and the endless ocean of online choices, trying to stay ahead in business is as hard as executing a “Temporal Pincer Movement” in TENET:

Arguing about whose namecard has better paper or fonts (like the infamous namecard scene in American Pyscho) is so 90s. Just like how this post is another instance of shameless online promotion for goods and services…being seen online (with an opinion) often is now the ultimate namecard.

#3) Your Hero’s Journey Is Still Being Written

The internet is to the brain what the frying pan are to potatoes. Once you pop you can’t stop. The pleasure of the internet’s immediacy rooted in its systemic algorithms and feedback loops represent some of the cheapest forms of substance abuse known to mankind.

Like a gateway pleasure to greater highs, we’re looking for new hits of dophamine everytime. In our perpetual quest to put out content to receive feedback to know that we’re not alone with our thoughts during these socially distanced times, sometimes logic and reasoning go out the window.

Like the characters in TENET professed “Don’t think feel”. The problem with humans is that we literally feel too much, that’s a good thing when everything is calm and dandy but terrible when things seem oppressive and time or resource strapped.

If making memes (as a form of therapy) for one year straight everyday has taught us - you are not defined by the post you make today, neither are you cemeted by the posts you uploaded in the past…as a line from a Christopher Nolan film once said:

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I survived circuit breaker and 2020 and all I got were these T-shirts:

Like the ultra complex web of plot points and sometimes semi-audible dialogue in TENET, our world has become too noisy and emotionally charged AF…so much so that we can’t let people cook a dish in peace without the universe getting triggered and everyone regressing to the medieval dark ages of blood-lust turbo-charged melee warfare.

At Team Singaplex, we really feel what the internet needs more is love.

Like the love that motivated TENET’s lead character to jump across speeding cars - just to liberate the woman of his affections. Love is the most powerful antidote to an internet filled with people who are clearly grappling with the same levels of anxiety that the “inverted soldiers” in TENET faced.

In these tenuous and uncertain times, what the Internet needs is love and understanding…thus…

All I have for you is a word…TENET.

Use it carefully, and you might just open the right doors…

#Namaste