Spotify: The 1975 Presents Notes on a Conditional FormThe 1975

CRYSTALLIZED ENVIRONMENTSSubculture, distinct subcultures have disintegrated to the point where it's a more individual— that each person is their own individual subculture. It wants to ask like, it's a part of this desire for, the defini— the search for the definitive self, you know. Like, we're all on this, this kind of journey or this, what it all— what life feels like is the search for the definitive self, and when you have like, Instagrams and have these kinds of things, that become like compartmentalized, like crystallized environments for you to create. I don't know, micro-versions of yourself, or subversions of yourself, or curated versions of yourself. It's like this idea for the search of the definitive self. It's kind of ever-present and we're so conflicted, cause we're like, 'Well if I'm like this, why am I these contradictions, and if I believe this, then why am I that?' So I think that... the fact that the search for the self is so Sisphyean and so kind of like... yes Sisphyian, pointless, like never-ending, you know. I think the comfort that comes from that, materializes in this self-worship and this kind of separation of individual, let you sear— you know, making subcultures and individual thing, like there's no more, it— it's— I feel like it's all tied in and to its kind of sense of purpose.

PROXIMITYThere's this, the nice— the utopian idea would be that it reaches towards the original utopian idea of the Internet, which was, yes, about freedom of information. But it was also about... extending pre-existing relationships. So, extending the relationships you already have, so being able to talk to your grand-dad who lives in China, or being able to speak to your friend at work, when he's in Bangkok or wherever it may be and it was about kind of the extension of pre-existing communication. And I think that the Internet has a tool for that, as the Internet, more recently, has been used as a tool to kind of fuel anger, to kind of divide the world, to kind of like, yes, to have meetings and stuff like that. but we've gotten to a place where people have really been using it as a tool to extend this idea of proximity. And I think that it's gonna expand in very, very real, therefore very, very surreal ways, you know what I mean like? I think that it's also like, brings up the question of like, you know, reality in regards to like... how like, for example, if you look at social media and I started talking about this on like the second record, we're getting — well you know, we're on the fourth now — but there was a line where I talk about like... Your eyes were full of diseases... You said I'm full of diseases, your eyes were full of regret. And then you took a picture of your salad and put it on the Internet. And I think that that record, that song is talking about how it's obviously an argument in real-time, in real life, but there's a part in one of the sides of the argument, a part of one of the people that wants to check on the Internet, wants to check on the Internet world.

AN AVATAR FOR REALITYMy perspective in that is, well that's not real and this is real, so you're conflicted, like why are you putting value on that? That's obviously my perspective. But now, I question that. I'm like, 'Well, what is real? Where is self-worth? Where are these things coming from?' Like if we created this kind of like— the Internet itself is like an avatar for reality. It has its own, like, economy, and like, through attention, and it's like we all live in it, it's like a little city, like we— it's in itself, its own kind of avatar. So ... I, I don't know what the digital self is going to mean because I think that it's a bit like... by the time it arises, it will be normal, I feel. Like you look at like Westworld and people are saying, 'Ah, wouldn't it be crazy?' Because people would just go around raping robots, and beating them up, and shooting them. it's like yeah, psychopaths will always be psychopaths, but for example, people like grow up with machines! Like people grow up— in order to make like real life robots, we're going to have to like grow up with them. If you're like 13, and you've grown up with robots and stuff like that, and somebody like goes to hurt it, why are you going to say... yeah, maybe not. Like you apply... ah, you know, like feelings come from intent, like we were talking about before. So like a Roomba, people will feel sorry for their Roomba, because it'll like get stuck in the corner, and it's a frisbee on wheels, but because it looks like it's got an intention because it looks like it's trying to go somewhere, people will be like, 'Oh Roomba, you're caught in the corner, cute little Roomba.' And it's because it has this— just, if you apply intent to anything, we'll empathize with it. so like what I'm saying, is like all of these ideas like, 'Oh, it's going to be so strange, when avatars...' No no no, it's going to be a slow build, we'll build an emotional relationship with it. By the time we look back, we'll be like, 'Aha, look how weird it was when we didn't have virtual Auntie Pam.' D'you know what I mean? I think it's just going to be like this... thing that is going to be massively embraced... slowly.