The Pleasure Principle

All we need is just a little patience...

The Chazzy’s World readership is made up of savvy, well-informed consumers of news. Therefore, I’ll assume you read in Billboard that “Kylie Jenner's Baby Stormi Nails the Patience Challenge, Gabrielle Union's Kaavia Adorably Fails.” For the ignorant clods who didn’t manage to catch this article, Kylie Jenner and Gabrielle Union placed bowls of candy in front of their children, instructed them not to take any, then filmed them surreptitiously to see if they could be patient enough not to sneak a snack. Stormi waited for her mother’s permission while Kaavia, perhaps because she was named after a non-sugar sweetener, was unable to hold out.

What are these videos? A fun way to spend the 30 minutes in which Kylie and Gabrielle are medically capable of exiting their infrared saunas and cryotherapy chambers? A signal from Q that we’ve finally got these Hollywood pervs under house arrest? No, the Patience Challenge is an unscientific psychological experiment on non-consenting, unwitting subjects a la MKUltra or Stanley Milgram. Like many of these infamous studies, it focuses on our neurological pleasure centers.

The nucleus accumbens is the brain’s most prominent pleasure center. It operates our reward circuitry by mediating the release of dopamine. As a squishy little ball of fun, it’s affectionately nicknamed “The Prostate of the Mind.” In a 1970s study, a scientist and asshole named Robert Heath attempted to “cure” homosexuality by attaching electrodes directly to the nucleus accumbens to create intense pleasure. One participant, a marijuana smoker labeled Subject B-19, electrically self-stimulated more than 1500 times while looking at pornography. For that reason, Subject B-19 is our Chazzy’s World Cool Guy Of The Week. 

The nucleus accumbens can be easily manipulated to associate pleasure with negative things. It causes intense pleasure when triggered and intense pain when left alone. Such cycles of reward and withdrawal are incredibly addictive and dangerous. You might remember the nucleus accumbens from its roles in other American tragedies such as the opioid crisis and The New Girl. 

COVID-19 is revealing how reliant our pleasure circuitries are on the absolute dumbest forms of entertainment. Carnival Cruise line bookings are up 600% this year. Armed protests are occurring over one’s right to see an onion volcano at Benihana. Millions of Americans stand ready to risk death for one more Pig Out Tavern Double Cheeseburger® from Red Robin. Miss Rona, that cruel dominatrix, has her jackboot on the forehead of America’s nucleus accumbens, while he begs her to unshackle the cock cage.

The banality of experiences which anti-lockdown advocates crave to do again are not limited to middle-class joys. The more despicable element of the reopening coalition are the upper class,  the business executives and conservative politicians who will throw workers onto the pandemic pyre to protect their bottom lines and avoid paying unemployment checks. The pleasures they crave to do again are even more banal. Mar-A-Lago told its members today that the “Beach Club restaurant, pool deck, pool, and jacuzzi will be open,” but guests must bring their own towels. That is, you may once again sit in a lukewarm bath with a leathery man who made billions executing repo loans on ambulances and his eleventh wife. However, you may not continue to leave shit streaks on the linens. 

An icon of the American pleasure epidemic is the YouTuber Michael Kay. Michael, in his 30s, makes daily vlogs about Disney experiences. He goes on Disney cruises and records every moment, reports on new items in the Disney merchandise outlets, and shows viewers every aspect of Disney resorts. This past year, he moved to Orlando so he could go to Walt Disney World every day. The relocation aged Michael by 20 years, giving him an expanded waistline, receded hairline, and curious skin ailments on his face. Needless to say, Michael is desperate for Walt Disney World to reopen. 

I have watched Michael Kay for about a year after being introduced to his oeuvre by my brother. At first, the most interesting thing about him is that he’s a grown man who’s obsessed with Disney. But, once you meet his family --  all lifelong Disney fanatics -- and discover the many other adult Disney YouTubers, his obsession seems less bizarre. (See Chazzy’s World #1 for more on obsessive men.) The most fascinating thing about Michael is his belief that the Disney version of anything is the best possible version. The ice cream from the soft-serve machine on a Disney cruise is the best ice cream in the world. The salad at an Epcot restaurant is the best salad he’s ever had. (Note: He does not seem to eat much salad.) A Mickey Mouse Blue Lives Matter t-shirt is the coolest possible shirt. 

Let’s see what Proust has to say:

“One sees people who are doubtful whether the sight of the sea and the sound of its waves are really enjoyable, but who become convinced that they are — and also convinced of the rare quality of their wholly detached tastes — when they have agreed to pay a hundred francs a day for a room in a hotel which will enable them to enjoy this sight and sound.”

For Michael Kay, it is not a question if the sea and waves are really enjoyable. It is a certainty that they are only enjoyable if observed from the lido deck of a Disney cruise or the artificial beach of a Disney hotel. Herein lies the recipe for quintessentially American pleasure: the most basic joy served up mediocre and expensive by a corporation.

Baudrillard described DisneyLand as “hyperreal”: a seamless blend of fake and real where the difference disappears. It is a simulacrum of real experiences, with rollercoasters imitating spaceships, bathrooms imitating castles, and adults imitating children. So many of the American pleasures whose returns are being demanded are just shabby facsimiles of a purer joy. Numerous protest signs have called for golf courses to be reopened. Is golf not a simulacrum of hiking, with manicured, watered greens masquerading as nature and a cart replacing moss and soil beneath your feet? A man at the Michigan protest cried over being unable to purchase lawn fertilizer. The American male simply can’t resist squeezing his buttcheeks into khaki shorts and standing on grass.

And what about me? Is my taste so much better? Last night I almost cried reminiscing about getting grinded on in 2016 to “Trap Queen.” I would give anything now to be like hey, what’s up, hello again. I miss going out to eat and sitting at a table outside, reading at a cafe, and doing stand-up. I miss pregaming with eleven shots of tequila, ordering $84 of gin and tonics at Greenpoint bar called Mr. Bixby’s or The Butterscotch Hut, chatting with a Syracuse alumnus for five minutes, then writing in the Notes app about how I wish I were dead. Perhaps I wouldn’t die for my personal pleasure because it isn’t all that pleasurable. Maybe I know deep down that it is not worth massacring a nursing home in order to bring my straight body into queer spaces in Brooklyn again. In all honesty, I kind of wish I loved hibachi and mowing the lawn so much I was willing to kill for it. 

The coronavirus lockdown is America’s Patience Challenge, and like Kaavia, we are adorably failing. COVID-19 has shown us the inanity of the pleasures we are addicted to. More shocking is the severity of our withdrawal.