BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

BY

BRANDON DONOHOE

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

2020
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

I think it is important, first off, to define modernism, postmodernism and post-

postmodernism/metamodernism/altermodernism, so as to ensure that we are on the same page

throughout this paper. I think it is best to think of them as the dominant ways of thinking that

shaped the art and culture of the time. As I have mentioned before, I will be following along in

the footsteps of McHale and I have come to the conclusion that postmodernism was modernism

extended and slightly mutated. Postmodernism only existed due to modernism’s own

prerogative. As Lyotard states, “A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern;

postmodernism is not modernism at its end, but in a nascent state, and this state is recurrent”

(McHale, 2015, p.17).

      McHale mentions “modernism is driven by the imperative to innovate” (McHale, 2015, p. 4)

insinuating that with each innovation, the previous one becomes outdated. I tend to agree with

John Frow that postmodernism is “precisely a moment of the modern” (Frow, 1997, p. 36). It

too, will come and go, and a new iteration will take its place. In my opinion, modernism has

created a loop for itself, insisting upon its existence inevitably, until it can somehow be broken.

As McHale states in chapter 1 subsection 2, Changing Dominants, postmodernism didn’t really

create much that was entirely new, but rather pulled on aspects of modernism that were not

previously highlighted. As McHale says, citing Jakobson, “what was present but ‘backgrounded’

in modernism becomes ‘foregrounded’ in postmodernism” (McHale, 2015, p.15). 

Additionally, in Chapter 15 of “Supplanting the Postmodern”, David Rudrum posits that

it is too soon from the beginning of what we deemed postmodernism, for a new era of thinking to

have taken its place. Rudrum believes that perhaps postmodernism was mischaracterized from

the beginning stating “that […] ‘post-‘ was never a sensible prefix in the first place” and “what is

needed is a suitable prefix that would better describe late twentieth-century ‘-modernism’

2
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

(Rudrum & Stavris, 2015, p. 335). He goes further to add that the title and characterization of ‘-

modernism’ “need not be predicated on a rift between the late twentieth and the early twenty-

first century” (Rudrum & Stavris, 2015, p. 335). Yes, much has changed culturally as a result of

technological advancements and 9/11, but after this past semester, my own thinking has fallen in

line with that of David Rudrum in his concluding chapter. This is where I would like to begin.

As has been noted time and time again, we are not done with postmodernism, or perhaps

postmodernism is not quite done with us. Perhaps postmodernism was misclassified from the

beginning. Perhaps we are not in a “post-postmodern” world, but actually in a meta-, dis- or

altermodern one that has existed since the end of modernism. I would be lying if I said that it was

these books alone that have helped me to see this. While attempting to read and analyze Donald

Glover’s, aka Childish Gambino, sophomore album Because the Internet through a post-

postmodern lens, I noticed that the dominant trope identified in our readings seemed to blend

together. Not only was I able to identify an overarching altermodern way of thinking, I couldn’t

help but notice metamodern tropes and postmodern concepts as well. I do not believe this to be a

mistake, but rather the reality of thought in today’s society.

First a bit of background on Childish Gambino and his 2013 sophomore album, Because

the Internet. Donald Glover is a musician, actor and standup comedian who got his start as writer

on the show 30Rock. He went on to star in Community before leaving to focus on music. His

most popular releases are Redbone from his album Awaken my Love! and the wildly popular

Grammy-winning single ‘This is America’. This is pertinent because in his sophomore album,

his writing and acting skills are on full display. The album is titled Because the Internet and is a

concept album written from the point of view of a character that is not Donald Glover. It follows

the journey of The Boy, who is born into apparent wealth with hints at economic troubles. The

3
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

album is presented in acts, like a play. Each song has a roman numeral in front of the name.

There are 19 songs and interludes in total, but the roman numerals never go above four. The acts,

aside from the last, are broken up by the interludes that are not numbered. The reason that this

album immediately came to mind when reading about altermodernism, is that it did not stand

alone.

At the same time that he released the album, Donald Glover also released a short film that

he wrote and starred in titled Clapping for the Wrong Reasons as well as a screenplay that could

previously be found on the website, becausetheinter.net, that he created. The short film was

meant to be a prelude to the screenplay, according to the first paragraph of the screenplay itself.

Additionally, the screenplay contained instructions on which song to play when, which helped to

line up the parallel narratives. This directly coincides with what Nicolas Bourriaud discusses in

the Altermodern Manifesto. He notes that artists today “create new pathways between multiple

formats of expression and communication” (Rudrum & Stavris, 2015, p.253). Furthermore, he

mentions that altermodern art is “read as hypertext” and often floats between formats. I think this

is particularly interesting as we look at the vast number of new communication channels that are

available to us. This is exactly what Childish Gambino did. To me, this is a perfect example of

altermodernism’s exploration of “the bonds that text and image […] weave between themselves”

(Rudrum & Stavris, 2015, p.253). Bourriaud refers to this passing between times, spaces and

‘signs’ as “nomadism” (Rudrum & Stavris, 2015, p.257). No longer is art defined by one of these

themes, but rather by a collection of the themes in the perspective taken by the artist.

The album, when accompanied by the screen play as intended, exemplifies this

nomadism. The story jumps back and forth between written and spoken word, from literature to

song. While reading the screenplay, the instructions tell you when to start each song, and

4
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

occasionally it even directs you to stop reading and then let the song play all the way through

before continuing. The story is meant to be told between both of these media, with a prelude that

exists in a third medium of video. The short film is not the same as the screenplay. As I

mentioned before, it is a prequel, but it does follow many of the same themes that the screenplay

does. Where I think Glover truly encapsulates nomadism is in the music video for “The Worst

Guys”, one of the songs on the album. In this music video, Glover and his friends go surfing on a

California beach and smoke out in the waves. Out of context, this doesn’t make much sense

considering the song does not mention any of this, but when you look more closely, you can see

that it is a scene from the screenplay.

The last piece of the Because the Internet puzzle that I think exemplifies this nomadism

relates to how Donald handled interviews leading up to and immediately following his album

release. During this time, Childish Gambino embodied the character of “The Boy” from the

screenplay and album. He dressed in very plain clothes, including a simple white t-shirt and sat

cross legged in almost every one of them. Additionally, if you watch his interviews circa 2013

and compare them to the other interviews he has done, you can feel the difference. He is much

more mellow and introspective than in his other interviews and appearances. If this is him

attempting to method act the character of The Boy, as many believe, then he has taken the story

to yet another form of expression.

Altermodernism is not the only post-postmodern theory that fits with Because the

Internet, however. Yet another dominant way of thinking suggested in the text Supplanting the

Postmodern, seems to hit the nail on the head, and that way of thinking is digimodernism.

Digimodernism is defined by author Alan Kirby as “where digital technology, meets textuality

and text is (re)formulated by fingers and thumbs (the digits) clicking and keying and pressing in

5
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

the positive act of partial or obscurely collective textual elaboration” (Rudrum & Stavris, 2015,

p.273). Kirby, taking notes from Jameson, notes that digimodernism is the ‘dominant cultural

logic’ that succeeds postmodernism. One of the defining characteristics of digimodern text is that

it is ‘participatory’ (Rudrum & Stavris, 2015, p. 279). Because the Internet, along with existing

in several different forms of digital media and owning its own space in the web, is participatory.

Despite being fully written without any direct ‘participation’ from the audience, Donald

Glover did manage to slip in a piece that could not be completed without the effort of his

audience. The album Because the Internet, contained a secret track, song 9 ½. On page 43 of the

screenplay, the text is broken up by this message:

… that was unacceptable. [LEMONGRAB: UNNACCEPTABLE]

***************[PLAY “SECRET TRACK 9 ½ [Coded] “ NOW]**************

(do not read on while this track plays. Wait until it is finished, then continue reading)

The only problem was that there was no song titled Secret Track 9 ½ on the album. It took

roughly a year for someone to unlock this song. In October of the following year, Donald

released an EP, the last track of which was an instrumental remake of the 9th song on Because

the Internet which is called 3005. He wrote on twitter that this instrumental would help unlock

the song. Here is what Reddit user peepsie112 had to say about how he/she unlocked the song:

People keep asking how I found it, so I'll try and explain. New

audioObject("30059","12zzQ809",234) is a line of code used to play 3005 on the because

the internet script, "12zzQ809" is the song id or file name, so instead of using

"12zzQ809", I just replaced it with lemongrab because above the secret track section it

6
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

says "[LEMONGRAB: UNNACCEPTABLE!]", nothing too special really. (Fleischman,

2014)

So, in order to gain the full experience of the screenplay and the album, fan participation was

required. Not only does this make the album participatory, but it is also quite out of the ordinary

for an artist to not make all of their songs available when an album is released, or to require such

a skill as coding to unlock it. This brings us to our next post-postmodern concept.

One of the characteristics and defining features of post-postmodern art, is a tendency to

violate conventions (McClure, 2020). An example that we talked about several times in class was

the 2018 action/comedy Deadpool 2. We often discussed how this film is post-postmodern in

several ways as it quite often breaks the traditional conventions of film. Deadpool, the character,

repeatedly shows that he knows he is in a movie and is frequently breaking the fourth wall.

Donald Glover’s Because the Internet does the same.

In several instances, Childish Gambino breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to the

listener. The first instance of this is in the song IV. Sweatpants in which Gambino raps “Ain’t

nobody sicker in my Fisker vroom vroom h*e, ain’t nobody…” which is matched with the sound

of an engine revving but at the end of the line the beat cuts out and he says “Fiskers don’t make

noise when they start up, just so you know”. Then the beat abruptly kicks in again and he goes

back into the song. In this instance, he is addressing the listener directly, but later in the album,

he does it a bit differently.

The song I. The Party is a perfect example. It is the first song of the third act and it

follows the interlude Playing Around Before The Party Starts which features Gambino playing

the piano and you can hear party chatter in the background, which directly relates to the

corresponding scene in the screenplay in which The Boy is playing the piano at a party in his

7
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

mansion. I. The Party starts with heavy bass, a quick change from the acoustic piano from the

interlude before, but you can still hear the party chatter in the background at the beginning. By

the end of the song Gambino starts rapping much faster as he gets more and more frustrated with

the people in his house ending with the line “I invite all these people to my motherf**king house,

get the f**k out of my house” speaking directly to the people at the party. At this point the

people at the party respond “ay yo chill man”. While this is a different scenario, it still is very

interesting and something that I have not seen before in hip-hop, or music in general to be quite

honest. Gambino creates a scenario, then starts talking to and addressing the people in that

scenario. This is yet another example of Donald breaking the conventions of a standard album.

I also noticed concepts from Van Den Akker, Gibbons, and Vermeulen’s work on

“Metamodernism”. In Chapter 6, The Four Faces of Postirony, author Lee Konstantinou writes

“under the reign of late postmodernism, ‘generalized irony, self-reflexivity, intertextuality,

formal play, pastiche’ have ‘become standard features’” (Van Den Akker, Gibbons &

Vermeulen, 2017, p.90). The self-reflexivity of this work is apparent in the final song of the

album III. Life: The Biggest Troll. This song is much more direct in its messaging. It is not

accompanied by any text in the screenplay. This song stands alone and is meant to be played

while looking at the white page. Once you finish the song, you can scroll to the next page that

simply says, “The End”. The purpose of this song is to discuss some of the motifs and themes

addressed in the album and screenplay. For example, early on he raps “’Hold up, it's the kid—

quick, tell him he can't sit with us!’ F**k it, got money, bought friends like I'm TBS”. This line

shows the similarity between both himself and The Boy in the screenplay. Both characters came

from very little and felt alone as children. While The Boy had a mansion as a child, debt

collectors were after his father, and while Donald Glover grew up in a poor family that fostered

8
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

children, his friends came and went. Both of them “bought friends” when they made money, but

those friends, as seen and referenced in the screenplay, are not always true friends.

Childish Gambino’s sophomore album Because the Internet, is a glowing example of

many of the post and post-postmodern concepts that we have discussed throughout this semester.

From the nomadism of altermodernism, to digimodernism and its digital and participatory nature,

and even to postmodernim’s self-reflexiveness as defined by McHale. As Donald Glover as

himself said in interviews, he does not “do albums” anymore, he “creates experiences and builds

worlds” (Fuse, 2013). This to me, encapsulates the dominant ways of thinking that shape the

culture and art of today and exemplifies what David Rudrum and I have stated: that

postmodernism was characterized too soon, and in fact, is not quite done with us just yet.

9
BECAUSE THE INTERNET THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTMODERNISM

References

Fleischer, A. (2014, October 6). Here's How Someone Much Smarter Than You Found Childish
Gambino's Secret '3005' Remix. Retrieved from http://www.mtv.com/news/1954489/childish-
gambino-secret-track-3005-remix/

Fuse. Childish Gambino On Kanye West & Getting Dissed By A$AP Rocky.
(2013, October 31). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVjf9kwMc58

McClure, K. (2020, February). Post-Postmodernism. Post-Postmodernism: The Logic of Just-in-

Time Capitalism. Kingston.

McHale, B. (2015). The Cambridge introduction to postmodernism. (University of Cambridge

Press).
Rudrum, D., & Stavris, N. (2015). Supplanting the postmodern: an anthology of writings on the
arts and culture of the early 21st century. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.
Van den Akker, R., Gibbons, A., & Vermeulen, T. (2017). Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect
and Depth after Postmodernism (London: Rowman and Littlefield International).

10