Here’s the gist. Capitalism makes money by showing you images that make you want stuff. And they have no choice but to do this faster over time.

1. Core Concepts

This works because when we interpret those images to give them meaning, we do some through the lens of some identity we have. Capital creates/reproduces images in ways which undermine the way those images are traditionally portrayed. This in turn undermines our ability to relate to them and forces us to reconstruct that identity in a way that can accommodate the new information. And of course, this new identity will tend to be more likely to purchase some commodity if all has gone according to plan.

Relating to an image (of a person, of a place, of an experience, etc) is pleasant and our minds do it unconsciously. When we watch a movie, we instantly look for the “main” character we’re meant to relate to like a goose seeing its mother for the first time. However, no image will be able to fully represent your internal life and those disconnects create a sense of desire. The ability to trigger desire is precisely what makes this cycle useful to capital and allows our identities to be molded according to the needs of whatever firm can grab our attention (or increasingly, purchase it). New identities are formed in order to process unorthodox uses of known images. It is these identities which can be useful to direct desires.

Now we get to the Marxist bit that has to do with contradictions. As time goes on, the rate at which we consume these images becomes too slow. There’s only so many times you can look at the same ad before your desire to purchase the product sees diminishing returns. So images need to require less and less context and the resulting identities need to stick with us for shorter periods of time so that new ones can be adopted. Identities are the way we assign meaning to these symbols, so as identities become more fragile, the information losing ability to give coherent meaning. So capitalism is stuck in an endless cycle of approaching but never reaching cultural heat death.

In concrete terms, this all means that the arc from desire to purchase gets shorter over time. You no longer have to develop a singular sense of style, look through a catalogue, drive to a store, and finally make a purchase. At the time Peretti’s article was written (1996), Amazon had just come on the scene and made online shopping a mainstream concept. Now in some areas of the world you can go from seeing a Facebook ad to having a product delivered to your door in a matter of minutes. In this context it’s not hard to see why our Captains Of Industry are so excited about virtual reality. The latency between purchase and acquisition of products in your “real” life will be instant and be accompanied by pleasurable animations. What parade of images will accompany this experience and replace the news feed is yet to be seen, but it will surely be as dazzling as it is overwhelming to the uninitiated eye.

2. Subverting The Process

This all begs the question of what is to be done. There have been a myriad of social “movements” and self-help gurus who insist that mindfulness and government regulation and this and that will do the trick. But capital marches on. And so will our visual cultural. Paretti argues that the cycle of recognition and desire needs to break: (emphasis mine)

Three groups, I believe, practice a desire that is divorced from the concept of acquisition and lack: contemporary queer activists and theorists, Slackers, and postmodern artists.

…

Among queer theorists, Judith Butler's concept of performative politics is compatible with Deleuze and Guattari's notion of desiring-production. She identifies "queer" politics as a milieu that uses desire as an essentially productive force. Butler refers to,

traditions of cross-dressing, drag balls, street walking, butch-femme spectacles... die-ins by ACT UP, kiss-ins by Queer Nation; drag performance benefits for AIDS... the convergence of theatrical work with theatrical activism; performing excessive lesbian sexuality and iconography that effectively counters the desexualization of the lesbian; tactical interruptions of public forums by lesbian and gay activists in favor of drawing public attention and outrage to the failure of government funding of AIDS research and outreach (233).

In these examples the border between performance and politics is blurred or erased. As this border erodes, so does the separation of desire and the Real. Kiss-ins and excessive displays of lesbian sexuality celebrate precisely that which is not lacking: homo-erotic affection and desire. In these instances, desire is not defined by lack. Instead, we encounter a positive conception of desire that is capable of producing subversive politics. It is desiring-production, and not "identity politics," that is essential to the subversive politics that Butler describes.

I will not quote as much from the sections on Slackers and postmodern artists except to say that:

1. Paretti correctly identifies that Slacker culture was not intentionally disruptive and we have since seen it thoroughly commodified.
2. The way Paretti discusses the subversiveness of modern art is very reminiscent to me of modern meme culture and aesthetics like vaporwave.

Even in the case of queer activism, though, we have seen some of the capitalist and liberal recuperation as the movement has won ground. Discourse around companies setting their profile pictures to rainbow flags during pride month comes to my mind while reading this passage:

Queer political movements have been quite successful at subverting and challenging heterosexist norms. More work needs to be done, however, to make this movement more than just oppositional, subversive, and shocking. What positive political vision do we have for a world where two men kissing in public is no longer shocking.

3. Potentials for Praxis

I don’t want to leave this article with the implication that all of the potentially subversive groups have failed, though. Obviously there are more radical contingents in the LGBTQIA+ movement who have been fighting these forces since well before Paretti identified them.

We know that, in order for communism to prevail, we must organize. In the United States, we will see government functions increasingly falling out of government hands and into the hands of non-state actors. Ideally, as many of these non-state actors as possible will be part of a radical mutual aid network. If we want to combat capitalism’s need to devour and subvert culture, these networks will need to act as a positive anchor for their members’ core identities. We will be relearning how to relate to the world without the lens of consumption. Strategies for dealing with corporate media ought to involve building an off ramp for potential members. The subversive groups which do not associate desire with lack will be important here. And then the culture for those able to break that cycle needs to be built. Whether this will involve alternate forms of social media like the Fediverse remains to be seen. I would love to see this be the case, but I know of no radical organization who has come close to achieving this. But what is clear is that current copycat social media still has baked into it many capitalist assumptions about how social hubs on the internet ought to work. The way we design them going forward will affect our ability to control our own identities going forward. We cannot achieve communism without this control.